TREC Renewable Energy Co-operative Request for Proposal Community Power Investment Management Software Platform Introduction TREC (The Renewable Energy Co-operative), hereinafter referred to as TREC, is looking to contract a vendor for the development of a software tool for the purposes of a co-op management and administrative as described below. This platform should be able to handle member management, financial transactions (e.g. securities purchase, yield payouts, refunds, etc.) and basic accounting/bookkeeping services as outlined in this Request for Proposal. Organisational Background TREC Renewable Energy Co-operative TREC is a non-share co-operative (non-profit) dedicated to providing an opportunity for all Ontarians to participate in renewable energy development, and creating awareness of the link between energy habits and environmental impacts. Currently, TREC has developed two community-owned renewable energy co-operatives. Our first co-op, WindShare, is partner in a joint venture with Toronto Hydro on the wind turbine by the Canadian National Exhibition Place. Our second project, SolarShare, is a collection of 18 Solar PV projects across Ontario that is preparing to sell bonds to interested investors. We also have plans for a third project, LakeWind. TREC is currently handling the organisational and financial administration of all three projects. In order to support our own projects and those of other renewable energy coops, TREC developed TREC Services (http:///services). These services are offered by TREC to help start up and administer renewable energy and community power co-ops. We created these services in response to a number of interested groups who, after hearing about our successes, have been asking TREC for help and guidance. Currently, TREC Services offers legal templates and instructions/lightconsulting to use these templates for setting-up a community power co-op and selling securities. We are looking to expand into providing member and investment management services through the development of this project, our Community Power Investment Management software platform (CPIM).
The CPIM software platform will help TREC manage members and member financial investments, handle administration tasks like communications and reporting, and assist in organisational accounting (produce investment totals, interest paid on investments, etc.). From our research, no such software exists today. Currently, most co-ops use Excel or Access to handle these tasks and have expressed difficulty and frustration in trying to use these tools efficiently. We have also used off-the-shelf software, but we had to continually find work-arounds to have the functions meet our requirements. To alleviate this challenge, TREC is looking to develop a software platform that is specific to the needs or renewable energy co-ops and can streamline and automate these co-op management processes. Then, through a fee-for-service model (monthly subscription is likely), co-ops can off-load their administrative work to TREC who will use this platform and our internal staff to manage their co-op. While the use of this platform will mostly be internal at TREC, we are looking to eventually develop a front-end portal for the members of subscribing co-ops. TREC s Current Technical Environment Currently functions in a Mac OS and Windows OS environment Use VMWare Fusion to virtual boot Windows OS on our Macs when necessary Sitefinity to manage website content Salesforce to manage donations and donors for their charity partner, TREC Education Custom Database for WindShare management Project Scope and Functional Requirements Project Scope We are looking for newly developed software or a consistent, efficient and optimised modification of existing database software to handle a variety of co-op administrative, accounting and bookkeeping tasks (see below). This platform would ideally minimize the frequency that data is exported and transferred and minimize the amount of labour time needed to handle administrative processes. Also, a simple and intuitive interface that is informative, concise and clear can increase the effectiveness of time spent on the platform. As stated, TREC would like to package the platform and TREC administrative time through a fee-for-service package to community-owned renewable energy co-ops. Therefore, the use of this platform will remain within TREC, with an eventual front-end login portal for members of co-ops subscribing to our CPIM service. Functional Requirements We are looking to develop this platform in a few phases. Currently, we are looking for a vendor to develop Phase 1. However, the delivered product must be easily adjusted or opened to the addition of future phases. For Phase 1, the software platform should meet the following requirements:
i) Member Management Keep records of information such as (name, address, contact information, financial account information, etc. fields will be outlined by TREC) Keep a record of prospects and leads entered manually or through web forms Simple lead/prospect-to-member conversion, carrying forward all contact history and information ii) Financial Transactions Recognise and record successful transfer of funds from prospect to the co-operative (the systems should interface with an online merchant TREC will select) Convert lead/prospect to member as detailed in Section i) upon successful transfer of funds Produce receipt of transfer and attach to member profile and deliver receipt to member Calculate the amount payable in yields (dividends) to members based upon a pre-determined percentage and term Produce investment/securities certificates based off a word of PDF fillable template iii) Reporting Easily produce reports on member-base (user should be able to choose which fields to include in report) Produce typical sales reports (e.g. total sales by adjustable time frames, lead/prospect to member conversion rates, income statements by adjustable time periods, etc.) Reports should be exportable in formats readable by MS Office Export member, member investment and payout information into fillable T5 PDFs for tax purposes iv) Communications Send mass e-mails to co-op members and leads/prospects (should be able to filter send list based upon values in various fields) Mail reports on bounce-back e-mails, invalid address, successful receipt and mail read Typical mail merge/merge capabilities (e.g. produce mailing labels from database information) v) Security Deploy the ability to set unique levels of access to information for each user and/or groups of users Ensure audit ability of data (limited shared accounts) Deploy encryption and security controls where appropriate
Deploy standard security protections in developed code to protect against threats such as buffer overflows vi) Installation / Hosting and Support On-site installation available Updates made available with guidance on installation We are open to cloud hosting vii) Ease of Use! User interface must be clear and easy-to-use, preferably with a sense of flow! Field values in member profiles can be edited easily, without a constant need to return to a central set-up page! Users of the software may change over time, each with different capabilities must be usable by individuals of varying technical understanding/comprehension Attached are workflow documents outlining how these processes tie together and what at which the software platform should interact with TREC employees and client co-op administration. Please note that the CPIM platform is labelled as CPIP in these diagrams as they were produced earlier in the project-planning phase. Workflow diagram 1 this represents the typical process of how an individual becomes a member of a RE co-op, the required pieces information to make this happen and which parties are typically responsible for each step of the process Workflow diagram 2 Membership Application: a more specific look into how an individual (prospect) becomes a member of a RE co-op, please note that there is a large amount of information and money flowing between bodies and that these must be coordinated in a timely manner (i.e. to minimise the amount of wait time between membership application and membership approval) Workflow diagram 3 Investment Purchase (New Member): after a new member joins, they are required to purchase an investment/security in the co-op please be aware that receipts of investment, investment certificates, investment certificate numbers must be attached to the investing member s profile for management and accounting purposes Workflow diagram 4 Investment Purchase (Existing Member): sometimes members may choose to purchase an additional investment in the co-op process fairly similar to Workflow 3 Workflow diagram 5 Investment redemption: even though cashflow is in the opposite direction, the process is very similar to Member Investments
Workflow diagram 6 Investment refund: very similar to investment redemption Workflow diagram 7 Investment yield distribution: this process is a bit more complicated because typically, investment yields for all members are calculated and paid out on the same day; however, because not everyone invested on the same day, there needs to be a pro-rated calculation system based upon when individual members invested; we would like this process to be simple as possible (preferably, we would type in a certain return rate on a specific date and the calculations would be done automatically) Workflow diagram 8 Reports: the T5 will have to be filled based upon the investment yields calculated in Workflow diagram 7. Target Audience Our target audience for this project is renewable energy and community power co-ops that are ready to recruit members and sell securities. These groups have moved beyond the preliminary stages of development and are committed to raising equity or funds for project construction. In addition, though not our goal market, we would also like to offer prospect-tracking services to developing co-ops that are not ready to sell securities, but want to spark interest. This allows us to cover a larger market and increase customer retention. The demographics of individuals who run co-ops are diverse, with a large range of computer skills. However, as stated, TREC plans to do most of the back-end administration for the co-ops and internally, we have computer-competent staff. Budget TREC asks that you provide a line budget item for this project including development costs and staff time. If there are items in the RFP that cannot be met within this budget, please outline mitigation measures. Please remember that TREC is a non-profit organisation and is constrained by our funding dollars; as such, price will be a strong consideration in the bid process. Vendor Qualifications Preferred Development Method: An empirical process control model, more similar to Agile software development with Scrum We prefer to use of open-source software because TREC, as a non-profit and a co-operative, is dedicated to co-operation amongst different organisations and groups Flexible, clear and frequent communications between the vendor and TREC as this platform is new and needs to be specific to the sector
Legal: Business Operation vendor must have operated a business providing similar services and support for a minimum of 3 years Business Compliance vendor must be in compliance with all city, provincial and federal business licensing and insurance requirements Proposal Guidelines Please provide a response to each section outlined below as part of your RFP. Company background Please include your company description, history, number of employees and financial status. Executive summary Please describe, in non-technical terms, your client management and database software or experience in developing these items. Identify any unique or distinctive features of these items to which you wish the evaluation committee to give particular attention. Do not include pricing in this section. Questions and answers Please provide detailed responses to queries outlined in the Proposal Evaluation Criteria section. Response to terms and conditions Please provide any comments on the summary of Terms of Contract. Proposal costs All costs incurred by the vendor in preparing the proposal, or costs incurred in any other manger by the vendor in responding to this proposal will be solely the responsibility of the vendor. All materials and documents submitted by the vendors in response to this RFP become the property of TREC and will not be returned to the vendor. Proposal Evaluation Criteria Questions for each the points below, please: i) Technical capability List and explain the technical skills (e.g. development languages, tools and experience) that equip you to address this RFP. Explain how you plan to network these skills together within your organisation to provide a product ii) Software capability
List and explain how your proposal software matches the requirements of the RFP; please refer to the attached workflow document and explain how your platform connects these steps Provide workflow documents that outline the processes of these previous products, or provide a sample of a previous/working product iii) iv) Functionality Outline how your product addresses each of the functional requirements listed in Project Scope and Functional Requirements Vendor support, responsiveness and follow-up time Outline the customer support model you use identifying communication channels and average response times for each v) Ease-of-use Briefly describe the planned user experience; for example, how much manual transfer of data will be required, will it easy to reprint receipts and certificates, is it a more text-based or visual ecosystem etc. How much training will be involved to use this product? vi) Flexibility and ease of product implementation Explain whether or not this product will be easily implemented into the current technical conditions of TREC as outlined in Organisational Background vii) Implementation plan and support Provide an implementation work-plan with key phases, dates and support/resources provided at each phase viii) Pricing Please provide a line item budget outlining all staff and project development costs that you will expense to this project ix) Timely and complete response to RFP This RFP will close: 28 November at noon Invitations for formal presentations will be sent out by 2 December Presentations will occur between 5 December 14 December A decision will be made by 16 December Vendor client references Please provide three past client references specific to database software development or projects you feel are related to this RFP. These clients should be from the past five years.
Financial Information Please indicate any planned mergers or acquisitions. Please indicated if your company is currently in bankruptcy proceedings Results of requested documents and presentations Please attach any documents that you feel will help enhance or more clearly explain your proposal. Summary of Terms of Contract The vendor will agree to provide the product, implementation, and training and support necessary for TREC staff to fully understand, utilise and manipulate the product as intended. After a specific date or achieving a pre-established list of objectives, TREC will pay the vendor for future support for a fee that will be determined by both TREC and the vendor. While TREC is flexible to different work processes, we would prefer that we are often involved in the development process to ensure that our needs our met. Contact Information Please send all documentation to james@trec.on.ca If an appointment needs to be made for demonstrations or a more in-depth discussion please contact James at james@trec.on.ca or by phone at (416) 977-5093 x2350.