EARO Payroll Services

https://www.crs.org/about/bid-opportunity Please visit the CRS website for the full scope of work and attachments.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

RFP NO. US0422_EARO PAYROLL SERVICES

SaaS PAYROLL SERVICES

CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

April 21, 2022

Dear Prospective Vendors:

Your company is invited to participate in this Request for Proposal (RFP) for Payroll Services. Catholic Relief Services – USCCB (CRS) is requesting proposals from suppliers that will allow us to evaluate experiences with similar clients, and, strategic and tactical approaches to a cloud based SaaS Payroll Services solution for our EARO locations.

As the Procurement professional responsible for facilitating this process, the rules of engagement are for you to contact me via e-mail at [email protected], with CC to [email protected]. Please include RFP #0422 EARO Payroll Services on the subject line.

CRS will accept questions through 12 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 26, 2022. Interested Bidders can submit their questions to the email addresses above. CRS will provide answers to all relevant questions by email to all known participants.

Please refrain from communicating with other staff of CRS in regard to this RFP. Any communication outside of this process may result in disqualification. Please follow the instructions provided in this document for your responses to the RFP. CRS looks forward to working with you throughout the RFP process.

Sincerely,

Regina Hill

**

Contents

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND.. 4

I. CURRENT CAPABILITIES. 4

II. SCOPE OF WORK.. 4

III. ACTIVITIES. 6

IV. DELIVERABLES. 7

V. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. 7

VI. PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS. 7

VII. PROCUREMENT PROCESS AND DATES. 8

i. Table 4. Procurement Due Dates. 8

VIII. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION.. 9

IX. Proposal Evaluation Criteria. 9

a. Functional Fit. 9

b. Technical Fit. 9

c. Implementation Methodology. 9

d. Total Cost of Ownership. 10

1.0 Executive Summary. 11

2.0 Technical Proposal 11

3.0 Financial Proposal 16

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Catholic Relief Services – United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (CRS) was founded in 1943 to serve World War II survivors in Europe. Since then, CRS has expanded in size to reach more than 130 million people in more than 100 countries on five continents.

For over 75 years, our mission has been to assist impoverished and disadvantaged people overseas, working in the spirit of Catholic social teaching to promote the sacredness of human life and the dignity of the human person. Although our mission is rooted in the Catholic faith, our operations serve people based solely on need, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity. CRS engages Catholics to live their faith in solidarity with the poor and suffering people of the world.

In EARO, CRS works in nine (9) countries with a physical presence in six countries, namely, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. In these countries, staff are remunerated in local currency adhering to the local labor and tax laws.

Currently each country program has an independent payroll solution locally domiciled in their servers in their respective offices. With the roll out of the new ERP that has a HR module but without a payroll component and also with retirement of the local servers agency wide, a cloud based solution that is scalable to accommodate the different country program payroll solutions is desirable.

I. CURRENT CAPABILITIES

1. Country program generates payroll – Each CP is currently able to generate their monthly payroll documentation which enables disbursement of remunerations as per the available local payments’ methodologies. The effort required in generation of the monthly payroll is not the same across the different country programs.

2. Existing Payroll Solutions – Some Country programs have SQL based solutions that are supported by external vendors at an annual fee. Some of the vendors are one-man institutions thus placing the country program at risk in case of vendor unavailability or downtime, coupled with slow turn around by vendor due to competing requests from other clients. Other country programs are currently using a hybrid of Access data base and excel workbooks, which do attract audit queries.

II. SCOPE OF WORK

CRS EARO is seeking a full-service Software as a Service (SaaS) or integrated systems solution provider for payroll services with the following capabilities:

· Provide interfaces to synchronize data with the CRS ERP (Insight) in real-time through a robust API supporting both queries and updates.

· Have a mature Access Control List for the different Country Programs including select Regional Staff.

· Scalable to accommodate the various currencies used in the EARO Country Programs.

· Capacity to convert basic pay to local currency for taxation purposes, and then reconvert to dollars for salary disbursement.

· Compute the respective statutory contribution as per each country program adhering to the local laws.

· Publish reports for the various statutory deductions for disbursements.

· Ability to send individual staff pay slips via mail.

· Ability to function in an occasionally connected environment.

III. ACTIVITIES
CRS EARO is seeking services for a cloud based/ SaaS payroll solution for South Sudan and Sudan,
and possible onboarding of the rest of EARO Country Programs after the performance review of the
solution.
The specific activities required for this effort will vary slightly based on the
bidder’s
proposed solution.
Table 1 identifies the activities for bidders.

Activity **

· Detailed review and confirmation of CRS requirements

· Development of project plans including management, implementation, testing, data migration, training, deployment, transition and change management plans

· Definition of the services that will be provided to meet CRS requirements

· Specification and/or design of an application system to meet CRS requirements

· Specification of the development, test, and production platforms required to support the system

· Configuration of software services

· Configuration, and/or development of the application

· Configuration of CRS provided operating platform

· Initiation of software services

· Initiation of hosting services

· System integration and acceptance testing

· Data migration

· User and administrator training

· Modification of system as required in response to pilot results

· On-going software services and technical support

· On-going hosting services, application maintenance services and technical support

· On-going application maintenance services and technical support

IV. DELIVERABLES
Table 2 Identifies the required deliverables for bidders.

V. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
The selected vendor will attend weekly meetings with the project team to discuss project status,
issues, risks, and mitigation actions during system implementation and deployment. In addition, the
vendor will submit a written report weekly that discusses progress against the project plan,
identifies any variances to the plan, impact on project cost and schedule, and planned mitigation
actions. The report will also highlight project risks and issues and track the status of actions
taken to address them.
VI. PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS
Overview
The bidder’s proposal must be limited to 35 8.5 x 11 pages of text not including the required
attachments as indicated in Table 3.

Responses should be succinct, accurate, and complete. Responses must be organized in accordance with the outline given in Appendix A.
Proposals should be provided in Microsoft Word compatible format and adhere to the outline provided in Appendix A. Attachments 1 and 2 should be provided in Microsoft Excel compatible format.
VII. PROCUREMENT PROCESS AND DATES
The major steps of the procurement process are listed below. The entire selection process is expected to take 12 weeks and will begin on the day of RFP distribution. The project will culminate with a decision announced by the CRS EARO payroll solution selection committee. Table 4 identifies the chronological order of the RFP process. Any changes to the dates of the RFP will be posted on CRS.org.
i. Table 4. Procurement Due Dates

Proposals must be valid for a period of 120 calendar days following RFP close date. All proposals will be treated as bidders’ proprietary data and not subject to disclosure beyond CRS and CRS consultants supporting the procurement process without bidder permission.