"ThirdLine spoon-fed us the information we needed to clean up our vendor database. Their work easily saved us 2.5 weeks of work. Now our resources can focus on other areas, rather than spending time managing the vendor list." - John D’Amelio, Purchasing Director, City of Wilmington, DE
Wilmington, Delaware, a city of 71,000,leverages its $282 million budget to provide essential services such as public safety, parks, and licensing. Central to these efforts is the Department ofFinance, particularly its Procurement Division, which plays a crucial role in vendor management and compliance.
The Department of Finance is central to the city’s functioning by
Procurement responsibilities lie within The Division of Procurement and Records, led by John D’Amelio. Mr. D’Amelio and staff are the connection between the city and local businesses. They build relationships to set up vendors for the city, set contracts and purchase orders, and partners with the Wage and Business License Division who ensure business owners are following state and local business license laws.
Organizations like the City of Wilmington may have hundreds, if not thousands, of active vendors performing a range of services or providing goods. This could include finding a cleaning service for maintaining recreation centers, fleet maintenance for the police, or musicians for a public event at the library. Overtime, multiple thousands of vendors can accumulate in their systems overtime.
As of 2024, Wilmington had about 8,000 active vendors in their system, Tyler Enterprise ERP powered by Munis®. The Procurement Manager knew many of these vendors needed to be cleaned out, but the volume of work and data access were barriers. In fact, many of these challenges began with the transition between their old ERP old and new to Tyler Enterprise (Munis) ERP in 2006. For example, many outdated vendors were included in the transition.
Over the last 18 years the problem snowballed as the city performed its procurement functions. Further complicating their vendor management capabilities is that as the new ERP evolved. These evolutions changed the location of data to new schemas or field names, rendering useless the reports Mr. D’Amelio created to manage their vendors.
One of the greatest effects of these issues was the city could not implement cost-savings functionality within their ERP. For example, a vendor portal to streamline the procure-to-pay process. Additionally, the city also knows many vendors are not in compliance with business license laws, like being registered. Not only is this a financial hit to the city on business license revenue, but creates an issue during audit season.
In 2022, the City of Wilmington’s Auditors Office purchased ThirdLine’s Reporting & Analytics and Roles and Permission software. After learning from the City Auditor that the software could be beneficial beyond his audit shop Mr.D’Amelio approached ThirdLine with his problem. Within a few months he had his solution.
Mr. D’Amelio understood the root causes of his vendor management problems were data access and quality. While he and his staff had expertise in tools such as Crystal Reports to pull information from Tyler Enterprise ERP, in many cases they had become obsolete.
"The location of fields kept changing [making it impossible to make new reports]. With ThirdLine's support we don’t have to worry about that anymore."
Because of this, he could not begin to address the clogged vendor database which in turn prevented him from implementing his new vendor portal or begin to identify which vendors needed to update their business licenses.
ThirdLine’s developers and data scientists and Mr. D’Amelio outlined a three-step solution that resulted in an automated vendor cleanup and then identify business license deficiencies - all on a nightly refresh basis
Step 1: Data Access Simplified. Working with Mr. D’Amelio, ThirdLine identified which fields were needed to address his issues. Within weeks his data access issue was surpassed.
Step 2: Vendor Database Cleanup Automated. Based on Mr.D’Amelio’s specifications, ThirdLine created algorithms to identify which vendors could be cleaned out of the database. Pairing ThirdLine’s understanding of Tyler’s Enterprise ERP inner workings, and their proprietary method for integrating information across Tyler’s modules, they identified over 2,500vendors that could be removed with over 99% accuracy. ThirdLine then incorporated the solution into the software application, automating the indicator that a vendor should be moved from Active to Stop.
Step 3.Business License Review Simplified. With the vendor list cleared up, Mr. D’Amelio and Thirdline created a second algorithm to identify businesses operating within the city without a business license. This required joining information from modules that the Procurement team didn’t regularly work with.
“I didn't know whereto look. I knew the data was in a different module, but I didn’t have the ThirdLine’s expertise to find the fields we needed “
ThirdLine's solution was fast and effective. The city cleaned out over 2,500 vendors from their database, a barrier they’ve had for years. Now identifying stale vendors is automated.
"ThirdLine spoon-fed us the information we needed to clean up our vendor database. Their work easily saved us 2.5 weeks ofwork. Now our resources can focus on other areas, rather than spending time managing the vendor list."
Additionally, the Division of Procurement and Records can implement their vendor portal. The portal will improve the city’scommunication with vendors and improve the procurement process.
Finally, Mr. D’Amelio can address issues with business licensing.
“It is going to create some revenue, help us do our job to not only verify, but to maintain compliance.”
Are you facing similar vendor management challenges with Tyler’s Enterprise ERP? ThirdLine’s data-driven solutions are helping cities like Wilmington boost efficiency, compliance, and savings. Discover how we can transform your procurement process today.
ThirdLine is not only a software solution but works closely with their clients to build new features to alleviate your specific pain points. Our in-depth expertise in both Tyler’s Enterprise ERPsystem and our method of building out analytics offer endless opportunities for you to improve efficiency and effectiveness of your financial management processes
“The support we are receiving from ThirdLine is awesome. Even if we come up with these one-off situations, it was never a ‘no’ it was a ‘let me look into it’. “
JohnD’Amelio, Procurement Manager Wilmington, DE.
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