Vendor Registration Program

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

The Maricopa County Department of Finance is responsible for the setup and maintenance of vendor records used by the Maricopa County financial system. The previous vendor registration solution collected minimal amounts of data, and allowed anyone to register as a vendor with Maricopa County regardless of whether or not they actually did business with Maricopa County. This resulted in over 70,000 vendors, of which under 3,000 were active vendors doing business with the county. In a joint effort with the Office of Enterprise Technology (OET), the Department of Finance developed a solution to replace the old Vendor Registration application. The new solution receives electronic forms from vendors after a contract is awarded. The forms enter an electronic approval process that automatically creates a vendor record in the Maricopa County financial system. Automated email notifications are sent to vendors with instructions on how to sign up for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). Additionally, the forms collect vendor contact and tax information, eliminating the need to collect separate Internal Revenue Service (IRS) W-9 forms for 1099 processing. The overall reduction in processing time has resulted in a savings of more than $20,800 annually.