SAMPLE RFP TEMPLATE A

Transcription

1 SAMPLE RFP TEMPLATE A COMPANY PROFILE / GENERAL INFORMATION Outline your corporate structure, primary and secondary businesses, management philosophies, and core competencies. Provide a description of your company s history. Are you a public or privately held corporation? How long have you been in business? What is the background and years of experience of the management team heading up the company? What are your company s short and long-term plans (other businesses, etc.)? What is your total number of employees? Please list the number of employees within each department within your company (i.e., management, IT, data entry, audit, etc.). What is your employee turnover rate? Are any of your functions (audit, payment, etc.) outsourced to another provider? If so, describe the situation. How many customers have you fully implemented? Please provide 3 references for customers similar to our size and requirements (US, Canada, and Mexico). Please provide Audited Financial Statements including Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Statement of Change and Financial Position (with accompanying footnotes) for calendar year How many new implementations for freight payment did you perform last year? How long is your typical implementation? What was the length of your longest implementation and why? Describe the scale of your largest implementation. How many dollars did you pay to carriers in 2001 (for all clients)? Describe the number of transactions / invoices / $ per month for some of your largest clients? Also, supply company totals. Do you handle claims processing for any clients? If so, describe the process and any potential benefits. FINANCIAL PROFILE Provide the name and legal address of your company and all wholly owned subsidiaries to ensure accurate financial assessment. Provide your company s financial contact information. Do you have externally audited financial statements? If yes, please provide copies for the last two (2) fiscal years. Provide a copy of your SAS70 report? Are you bonded to protect against employee dishonesty? If yes, how much is your bond? Is the bond a broad bond that covers all activity, or is it customer specific? Please provide a certificate of insurance noting the amount of coverage and any exclusion from coverage. Describe some of your customers best practices for external auditing and control. How do you accommodate customer audits?

2 GENERAL OPERATIONAL PROCESSES Describe your rate management and freight payment capabilities. Describe your process flow and typical control points. Does your company use Roadway EZ Rates (Roadway 507A 1/90 for intrastate and Roadway 500F 10/87 for interstate)? Describe any experience you have in completing an LTL tariff conversion? Do you have the capability to pay bills from two tariffs during the cutover period? What versions of Czarlite have you implemented and for which countries? Do you have the capability to perform an offline re-rate of historical data for analysis purposes? Describe the process your customers use to maintain their rates in your system. How do you allow customers to view their rates for cost analysis purposes, i.e. an interactive interface? Is there an additional cost for this service (seat licenses, etc.)? Describe how effective dates for rate updates are managed by your system. Do you have the ability to show the effective date for an individual lane, as opposed to the entire SCAC? If you hold the master copy of our rates, do you have the ability to pass updates to us and other outside providers? If yes, describe your process. If we hold the master copy of our rates, describe your rate update process and any requirements you may have. Do you handle international shipments (overseas)? Do you have the ability to assign GL account numbers based on a set of business rules? Do you have the capability to allow carriers to submit invoices via the internet? Do you have the ability to allocate freight dollars by product? Describe your procedure for new vendor setup and W9 processing. FREIGHT INVOICE AUDIT Discuss your pre-audit process for correct rates and other charges. How do you ensure audit accuracy? How do you verify correct rate, SCAC, equipment type, origin / destination, etc? Describe how rates are verified against customer s service contracts and agreements. Describe your resolution process for audit errors. How do you detect duplicate freight bills and provide protection against duplicate payments? What criteria are used? How far back do you check? How do you check for duplicate pay on export shipments that involve both domestic carriers and ocean carriers? Do you have the ability to pay multiple invoices for different carriers on the same BOL? For carriers that recycle their invoice numbers, what is your validation process to ensure an invoice is for the proper shipment and shipment date? What criteria do you use to determine a duplicate BOL number? What is your process for notifying carriers/brokers/forwarders of corrections made against their invoices? What is your normal cycle time of audit-to-payment processes for both electronic and manual bills? What are the extremes? Do you have the ability to segregate multiple taxes by country, such as, GST,PST, and HST in Canada? Can LTL minimum charges be established by carrier?

3 Describe your ability to pay small package carriers at the BOL level? How do you typically handle UPS invoices? Do you have the ability to pay UPS bills at package level detail? Does your system allow for charges to be made at the customer level, such as, unloading charges? What program do you use for mileage verification for the US and Canada? FREIGHT INVOICE PROCESSING What is your account support structure? Do you have client-dedicated resources available? What processes do you follow for problem resolution? What performance metrics do you provide to measure the success of a client relationship? List your internal quality metrics. Provide copies and examples of how these metrics are used to manage and improve your business and processes. Do you double-key any data fields to ensure data accuracy? If so, which ones? Identify the modes that you currently process and pay. Can you capture multiple modes for the same carrier? If yes, please describe your process. What accessorial charges do you currently capture? Are you capable of easily adding to this list and at what cost? Describe your process for capturing and managing fuel surcharges? Describe ability to assign GL account numbers based on a given set of rules? Is there an additional charge? How are adjustments made to paid BOL s for additional charges, such as, detention? Describe your ability to assign / allocate freight dollars to business units given a set of business rules? Do you have the ability to rate at all freight classifications? Do you have the ability to handle spot market contracts? Describe this process. Do you have the ability to combine multiple bills of lading? Describe your process for establishing payment tolerances. FREIGHT INVOICE PAYMENT Does your system have a specific day-of-the-week close out? What are the frequencies of payments to carriers? What is your recommended payment period? Describe the options you offer to handle payment to carriers. What percentage of your customers utilizes each method? What is the financial impact associated with each option? How do you handle the float? Describe the information flow during the payment process. What is your funding/reconciliation process? If the customer pays the carrier, do you typically receive a payment confirmation back for reporting purposes? Describe the process. Discuss how your company can be flexible in meeting different payment terms and providing cash management services. How do you handle payment in foreign currencies? Do you pay carriers outside the United States? If yes, in what countries and what currencies? Do you have the ability to auto-pay carriers using only a BOL? If so, describe your process and the benefits. Do you have the ability to age invoices? What is the process?

4 EXCEPTION MANAGEMENT Describe your process for handling exceptions. Exceptions might include: No shipment history received for invoice Information associated with a BOL is incorrect (i.e., wrong equipment code, wrong destination, or wrong carrier)? Master BOL s that must be split No rates on file Include methods to identify an error, resolution, and customer notification. CHANGE MANAGEMENT Describe the processes and tools you have in place to manage changes to your freight payment solution. Describe your application change management procedures. (If you have shared and non-shared servers, describe any differences in the procedures.) Are application changes dynamically applied? If not, do you schedule downtime for application changes? How is this scheduled outage communicated to your customers? Describe the customer notification process and backup capabilities for scheduled hardware changes, preventive maintenance, hardware or network elements (routers, telephone lines, etc.). Describe the process for emergency changes to your freight payment application to resolve problems. Is a standard methodology followed for the resolution? Describe the process for customizing your application for a customer s business process. Is a standard methodology followed? What is the blended rate that you charge for application changes? Are there separate versions of your freight payment application based on customer s needs? Do you force application version upgrades? How many versions do you support? INFORMATION SYSTEMS / TECHNOLOGY PROFILE Outline current hardware / software platforms, network communications infrastructure, long-term technical strategic direction. Is there a plan to change this infrastructure within the next 2-3 years? What impact, if any, has infrastructure changes had to your clients in the past? Do you use any consulting or operational partners? Who and for how long? For EDI, provide the translator version(s) used and a list of all transaction types supported (e.g., 850 s, 214 s,etc.). Identify your procedures to ensure that all EDI batches are received. Describe your batch FTP / EDI environment. How many clients use EDI, FTP? Is your system capable of processing XML transactions? Have you standardized on specific DTD s? Have you defined your own DTD s? Describe your EAI capabilities. If you are not capable today, describe your future plans and timing? If you use EAI, who is your primary EAI partner? Describe your EAI/B2B environment. Do you provide BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) How many of your clients use EAI? Provide 2 or 3 references of customers using EAI. Can you process EDI transactions through your EAI/B2B environment? Do you have customers who maintain their own rates and send you updates? If so, what is the update frequency and any additional cost?

5 What technology is used to send the updates? Are you open to COMPANY maintaining their rates at COMPANY and pushing changes to you? What technology would you prefer to push these changes? Do you support communication to WAP-enabled devices? What are your capabilities in regards to passing EDI214 (delivery status) data back to COMPANY? How far back does your online payment history extend? What is the availability of accessing processed data online? Is there an additional cost? If so, describe. DATA WAREHOUSE / REPORTING Describe your process for providing data feeds to a customer. At what level can you pass data to the customer (BOL, BOL line level, etc.)? Do you have the ability to pass updates (changes and deletions) to data, such as, BOL records? What is the frequency of updates? Describe best practices for internal audit procedures. What are the best practices? Provide sample reports. Describe the reports you offer for accrual reporting. Provide sample reports. Are reports available online? Outline current reports you provide to customers utilizing similar services. Provide sample reports. Are ad-hoc customer queries available in your standard application? What query tool will you provide and is there an additional charge for this tool? Do you offer any type of internet-based service that allows carriers to complete payment inquiries? Describe any real-time reporting that is available? SYSTEM SUPPORT & MONITORING Describe the processes and tools you have put in place to monitor your systems and applications environment. What are typical performance expectations: # of seconds per online transaction, # of seconds for typical file transfer? Are there any file size limitations? What are the line speeds currently supported for data transfer (i.e., 56K, T1, OC3, etc.)? What monitoring do you perform to verify successful transfer of data, online response, database performance, network connectivity? Are alerts produced for different types and levels of problems? If so, please provide a description. Are these alerts to your support staff, your client or both? Describe the types of alerts for each user group. Are any types of statistical reports produced? Describe your company s philosophy and financial commitment regarding reinvestment in information technology support and infrastructure. Provide description of help desk support. Are there different levels of support? Describe them with costs and timing of response. Describe the support facilities and communication channels provided to your customers. Describe how you measure your support process and associated service levels. Do you have a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with every customer? If not, why? Please describe a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that would best reflect our arrangement. Are your SLA s punitive? If yes, describe.

6 Describe any firewall functions or procedures. Are these functions or procedures audited by external sources? Is you firewall fitted for intrusion alerts? If so, describe response process. Where will you host our system? Provide an architectural drawing. BACK-UP, RECOVERY & DISASTER RECOVERY How long do you maintain historical information for each client? Do your retention periods vary depending on the data (i.e., EDI transactions, payment confirmation, etc.)? Do you have the capability to retain data for longer periods if needed and at what cost? Describe the processes and tools you have put in place for backup and recovery. Include historical downtime for past year. Does an additional charge apply when performing a recovery from backup tapes? How long does it take to recover from a backup? How does your company control the backup tapes? Are the backups stored offsite or on? Where is the facility located? If it is an external company providing this service, is the process of retrieving and managing the data invisible to the customer? Describe the processes and tools you have put in place for disaster recovery. List frequency and security from other customer s data. Is your disaster recovery solution maintained in a separate physical environment? Are you using shared servers? Do you provide host failover and geographic failover capability? How often do you test your disaster recovery procedures? Does the test include recovery of a customer s application and data? Do customers participate in your tests? Does it include recovery from environmental disaster and network disasters? Do you publish results of your disaster recovery testing? If so, to whom are the results published? Are audits accomplished by independent agencies? Are the results available to your clients? SECURITY Is a customer s data secured from another customer s? Describe what tools/security software is used. Is each customer s data kept in separate database instances? Is the customer s data secured at all times, even outside the database? How? Define which encryption software you use, if any, and in what applications you use it. At what computing tiers does data encryption reside (i.e., presentation/input, transfer, application/business logic, database)? If data is input from online transactions or through Internet, describe security for segregation of one customer s data form another s and any methods of prevention from outside or internal intrusion. Describe any firewalls used to prevent intrusion from outside your network. Do you test this? If so, describe method and frequency. Are these solutions proprietary or industry standard? 8700 W Trail Lake Drive, Suite 100 Memphis, TN Tel: Fax: info@a3freightpayment.com