Investment Accounting System

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) RFI NUMBER: 65-RFI07312020-AMW ISSUE DATE: July 31, 2020 TITLE: INVESTMENT ACCOUNTING SYSTEM ______________________________________________________________________________________ ISSUING AGENCY: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL PURCHASING SERVICES 104 AIRPORT DRIVE, SUITE 2700, CB #1100 CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA 27599-1100 ATTENTION: ALICIA WAYMACK USING AGENCY: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – Finance Division RESPONSE SUBMISSION Responses must be submitted via eBid (NC BIDS) on the State of North Carolina Interactive Purchasing System (IPS). For more information on NC BIDS, please reference the following website as provided by the NC Department of Administration’s Division of Purchase and Contract: https://ncadmin.nc.gov/about-doa/divisions/purchase-and- contract/nc-bids/nc-bids-vendors. Attempts to submit a response via

facsimile (FAX) machine, telephone, or e-mail will NOT be accepted. a) Submit one (1) signed, original electronic response via eBid (NC BIDS) on the State of North Carolina IPS - https://www.ips.state.nc.us/IPS/Default.aspx. b) All File names should start with the offeror’s name first, to easily determine all the files to be included as part of the offeror’s response. For example, files should be named as follows: Offeror Name-your file name. c) File contents MUST NOT be password protected; the file formats must be in .pdf, .jpeg, or .png format; and must be capable of being copied to other sources. Responses must be submitted no later than 3:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, September 4, 2020. Responses not submitted by 3:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, September 4, 2020 will not be considered. Submitting a response to this RFI does not guarantee that any offeror will be awarded a contract to provide services to the University, nor does completion of this application imply that any offeror has any type of procurement/contractual relationship with the University. Information provided by offerors is subject to disclosure pursuant to the laws of the State of North Carolina. about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank QUESTIONS All questions concerning this RFI must be submitted via email to Alicia Waymack at awaymack@unc.edu no later than 3:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, August 14, 2020. Please ensure that the subject line of your email states “Questions for 65-RFI07312020-AMW”. A summary of all questions and answers will be disseminated as an addendum via email (if possible) and posted on the State of North Carolina IPS. It is the offeror’s responsibility to ensure that all addenda, if any, have been reviewed, signed and returned in accordance with this RFI and the applicable addendum. CALENDAR OF EVENTS RFI Posted: July 31, 2020 Offeror Questions Due: August 14, 2020 by 3:00 PM Eastern Time Answers to Questions Issued: August 21, 2020 Offeror Responses Due: September 4, 2020 by 3:00 PM Eastern Time All events, dates, and times are subject to change at the discretion of the University. PURPOSE This Request for Information (RFI) is being issued to identify the range of options available for a software application to track and maintain investment account information (e.g., market value, contribution value, estimated payout) for University endowments and funds of associated entities that invest through the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation Investment Fund, Inc. This application would replace an internally developed application. The software solution is required to provide a variety of capabilities, including but not limited to the following: • Close and open financial periods. • Process monthly gifts to endowments. • Enter and calculate market value, share price, price per share. • Separately track reinvested income. • Process one-time or frequent withdrawals. • Calculate administrative fees based on formula (currently based on time-weighted endowment participation). • Process and store annuity payment information. • Add or delete annuitant. • Calculate and track investment income distribution (payout) accruals by individual endowments within each participating unit (University Foundations, University Endowments, and other). • Set up annual administrative fees and for processing, in absolute dollar amount, in subsequent year. • Set up accrual rate and apply rate each month to endowment shares to accumulate accrued payout. • Process periodic annuity distribution to annuitants. • Create and modify endowment profiles. • Import or export data representing one or more withdrawals. • Import accounting attributes from PeopleSoft. • Export data to PeopleSoft general ledger for recording financial transactions (administrative fees, additions, withdrawals, accruals, realized and unrealized gains/losses, payouts, etc.). • Provide a variety of reports to participants, campus users and accounting personnel. mailto:awaymack@unc.edu mailto:awaymack@unc.edu BACKGROUND INFORMATION The Investment Accounting Organization currently utilize the in-house developed application (referred to as ‘UAS’) to manage the following investment pools: o Real Estate Fund (comprised of only University endowments); o Diversified Fund (External (Government) Investment Pool); and o Florida Annuities Fund (all held in one Foundation business unit, comprised of less than 10 endowments). There are 23 active foundations, with over 4200 endowments, that participate in the Diversified Fund. The activities and performance by endowments and by participants are to be tracked and reported on. Campus users, foundations, and accounting personnel in select offices utilize the current application to access reports. INFRASTRUCTURE PLATFORM A cloud-based solution is preferred. SECURITY AND ACCESS The software solution / offeror must: • Adhere to all applicable UNC Chapel Hill Information Technology Services (ITS) security requirements and standards. • Pass an ITS Security Risk Assessment and maintain a passing status upon re-review. • Provide a SOC 2 Type II report, comparable third-party assessment, or complete a questionnaire provided by the University and submit accompanying documentation at any time upon request by the University. • Integrate with Shibboleth for use of UNC SSO (Onyen) using SAML 2. UNC Chapel Hill prefers use of the Eduperson schema. RESPONSES All responses are subject to the conditions outlined herein. All responses shall be controlled by such conditions and the submission of other terms and conditions as part of an offeror’s response shall be waived and have no effect on this RFI. REQUIRED RESPONSE CONTENT Qualified firms are encouraged to submit a response for providing the software and performing the services as described herein. All responses shall be submitted in accordance with the requirements of this RFI. Responses shall be prepared simply and succinctly providing a straightforward, concise description of the offeror’s abilities to satisfy the requirements of this RFI. Emphasis shall be on completeness and clarity of content. The information shall be prepared and submitted in a clear and logical order. • Describe how your proposed solution addresses the required features in Appendix A and the preferred features in Appendix B. • Share similar customer use stories and case studies as well as contact information for current customers to discuss these experiences. • Provide recommendations for an implementation timeline and services. • Provide details for maintenance and support services. • Address the questions in Appendix C. • Provide pricing for initial and recurring costs – reference Appendix D. • Provide documentation described in Appendix E. STATEWIDE TERM CONTRACTS, SYSTEM-WIDE CONTRACTS, CONSORTIUM CONTRACTS Identify any contract(s) that may be utilized by the University in procuring the services described in this RFI. Any proposed contract must be for Public, Education, and/or Government agencies or institutions and comply with the public bidding requirements as required by the State of North Carolina. Offeror shall provide samples of all contract documents for the proposed contract(s). In addition, all pertinent contact information shall be provided for the consortium organization as well as the public agency sponsoring/hosting the contract, as applicable. EVALUATION OF RESPONSES Designated University staff members shall evaluate the responses received in accordance with the following factors. These factors are not necessarily listed in order of priority. After all responses have been evaluated, the University may request any number of offerors to provide a demonstration of their proposed solution either on- site at the University’s campus in Chapel Hill, NC or via virtual demo tools to see how system features are best utilized. A. Solution match with required and preferred features B. Overall experience and qualifications of the offeror C. Experience and/or credentials in providing implementation, training, data conversion, maintenance, and support services D. Performance of the offeror as evaluated by the references supplied E. Pricing F. Security Offerors are cautioned that this is an RFI, not a request to contract, and the University reserves the unqualified right to reject offers for any reason when such rejection is deemed to be in the best interest of the University. ORAL EXPLANATIONS The University at its option may request oral presentations, or discussions with any or all offerors for the purpose of clarification or to amplify the material presented in any part of the response. However, offerors are cautioned that the University is not required to request clarification; therefore, all responses should be complete and concise. The University shall not be bound by oral explanations or instructions given at any time during the process. REFERENCE TO OTHER DATA Only information which is received in response to this RFI shall be evaluated; references to information previously submitted shall not be evaluated. COST OF RESPONSE PREPARATION Any costs incurred by the offeror in preparing or submitting responses are the offerors sole responsibility; the University shall not reimburse any offeror for any costs incurred to include costs associated with presentations or demonstrations, if requested. CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION To promote maximum participation and to protect the RFI process from being used to obtain information that would normally not be available otherwise, the University shall maintain the confidentiality of certain types of information. All such information intended to be kept confidential must be designated in writing as “Confidential.” The obligations of non-disclosure shall not apply to the following: A. Information which, at the time of disclosure is in the public knowledge; B. Information which, after disclosure becomes part of the public knowledge by publication or otherwise, except by breach of this section; C. Information which was in the possession of the University at the time of disclosure and which was not acquired, directly or indirectly by recipient from the disclosing party, and which prior possession can be proven by documentary evidence; D. Information received from third parties, provided such information was not obtained to their knowledge by said third parties, directly or indirectly, on a confidential basis; E. Information which is independently developed by the University’s personnel not privy to the Information; F. Information contained in any pricing schedules. ADVERTISING In submitting the response, the offeror agrees not to use the results therefrom as a part of any news release or commercial advertising without prior written approval of the University. TITLES Titles and headings in this RFI and any subsequent documents are for convenience only and shall have no binding force or effect. EXECUTION OF REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI NUMBER: 65-RFI07312020-AMW ISSUE DATE: July 31, 2020 QUESTIONS DUE: August 14, 2020 RESPONSES DUE: September 4, 2020 TITLE: INVESTMENT ACCOUNTING SYSTEM FIRM NAME: ADDRESS: CITY, STATE, ZIP CODE: PHONE NUMBER: WEBSITE: FEDERAL TAX IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: PRINCIPAL PLACE OF BUSINESS IF DIFFERENT FROM ABOVE: NAME: TITLE: SIGNATURE: DATE: EMAIL ADDRESS: APPENDIX A Category Required Features Functionality & Configuration Close and open financial period. Each month the current monthly cycle is closed out so that the new monthly cycle can begin (including market value, withdrawals, new gifts, and additions). Import data representing new monthly gifts and reinvested income from Peoplesoft. Enter and calculate market value, share price, price per share. On a monthly basis, Investment Accounting personnel manually enter the total market value for the three investment pools. Separately track and record shares, contribution value and market value for reinvested income and donor principal. Process one-time or multiple withdrawals. Withdrawals are input into the system and export files to import into Peoplesoft need to be created. Calculate administrative fees based on formulas, i.e. time-weighted endowment participation. Quarterly, the Investment Accounting team withdraws a fee from endowments in the Diversified Pool that support certain activities. For entities that are exempt from the fee, no withdrawal is made from its endowments. The system should be able to accommodate exceptions. Process and store annuity payment information. Each quarter, gift annuity payments are withdrawn from their respective investment accounts and the money wired to the gift annuity program administrator. Add a new annuitant or change or delete existing annuitant. If new annuity agreements or changes to the annuity agreements are received by Development, they are entered into the system. Calculate, track and post endowment distribution (payout). Payout accrual rate is established at beginning of fiscal year and the system at each monthly cycle calculates and stores the new accrual and market Value for each endowment. Note: flexibility in this annual payout cycle is also required. The Board may wish to go from annual to quarterly payouts, for example. Set up annual administrative fees and process absolute dollar amount per endowment. Calculate and set up annual administrative fees according to established policy. Administrative fees are based on prior year’s donor contribution shares. Fee amounts are stored and assessed in subsequent years on a quarterly basis. Set up accrual rate and apply rate each month to endowment shares. During the May cycle (final cycle of fiscal year) and before rolling the system into the new fiscal year, this is done after additions and withdrawals for that cycle. The desired payout rate (dollar/share/year) is determined by the Board. Process periodic annuity distribution to annuitants. Create and modify endowment profiles. Import data representing one or more withdrawals. These are not intended as “mass” withdrawals, such as administrative fees, but multiples of withdrawals from one or more endowments associated with a particular participant or business unit. Import accounting attributes from Peoplesoft at least monthly (or on demand) needed to create journal files back to PeopleSoft and for reporting/calculation purposes. Export to PeopleSoft financial system for recording applicable financial transactions, including administrative fees, additions, withdrawals, accruals, realized and unrealized gains/losses, and payouts. Ability to allow other UNC associated entities to be configured and maintain funds and security separately. Ability to convert historical data from current system. Reporting Run administrative reports to provide Investment Accounting with the information/data needed to complete their monthly, quarterly and year-end processing. They are also used for reconciling with Peoplesoft. Run participant reports to be used by endowment managers, Development Office and others whose focus is on the specific amounts of contributions, fees and payouts as well as the performance of individual endowments. Reports should be customizable Some specific reports include: Stewardship reports Audit Reports Administrative Fee Calculation. Support Services Professional 24 hour support Clearly identified help desk support structure, including support hours and escalation process. MUST have a support structure in place for support in case of outages. Timely notification of any planned outages, preferably during non-critical times Ability for university to provide comprehensive technical support Professional onsite installation support Transparent backup process for saving data consistently, along with ease of requesting data recovery services Peoplesoft integration support APPENDIX B Category Preferred Features Software Integration Integrate security roles from PeopleSoft financial system. Automate imports to the system from PeopleSoft financial system. Current interfaces include: 1. Accounting attributes from PeopleSoft Financial System. These include valid chartfield strings such as Departments, Accounts, Fund and Source Codes. 2. New Gifts 3. Withdrawals from endowment funds. Automate exports from the system to load into the Financial System. Functionality & Configuration Set up a test environment as needed for testing and support purposes. New releases of the web software will be available on the test system in advance of implementation on production. APPENDIX C Other Questions Please describe how your customers communicate issues to you? What is your service level agreement? Does your product provide on-line help? What training do functional users and technical support personnel typically require to implement and use your product? Do you provide training? On premise, online? Please describe how you communicate planned system changes and unplanned outages? How do your customers typically handle conversion of existing data? Do you provide APIs to upload the data? What is your release/upgrade schedule? How many years of historical data can be migrated? Describe the customization process and how it is supported/priced? APPENDIX D Pricing Pricing should include all relevant costs, including but not limited to initial implementation charges and annual maintenance and support charges Provide description of pricing model Detailed information for services provided as part of ongoing maintenance and support costs Provide hourly rates for consulting / customization / integration services Ability to purchase desired number of hours as part of the maintenance agreement and if not used, returned to maintenance cost APPENDIX E Providers of services that contain UNC sensitive information must have a robust data security program in place. Please review the following elements of an information security program and provide documentation on the proposed product’s data security program. Governance • A written security policy. • An information security officer responsible for ensuring a secure environment and reporting deficiencies and potential risks to the Director. • Regular security reviews performed at the leadership level of the organization. • A documented procedure for reporting, investigating, remediating and notifying affected organizations about security incidents. Physical Security • The facility housing the data should have a controlled perimeter. • The facility should be attended. • There should be controlled access to the facility. • The facility should be monitored with fire and break-in detectors and alarms with automated notification to local fire and police protection. • The data center should have protection against power failure. Staff • All staff should have satisfactorily passed background checks • Staff should sign confidentiality agreements before being given access to the facility and be subject to termination for violation of confidentiality requirements. • Policies should be in place and enforced to ensure effective and secure security practices are maintained by staff, including a requirement for passwords on all devices from which systems are accessed, prohibitions from downloading data to workstations, prohibitions from installing unapproved software, etc. • Access to data should be restricted as tightly as possible to only those who must access it to perform their work. Network • The network should be appropriately protected, firewalled, and monitored. • Firewalls should be managed, monitored and controlled. • Break-in detection tools should be in place and monitored. Systems, Applications, and Data • All applications, operating systems, databases, and other software should have security patches up-to- date. • All systems should have antivirus and antispyware running at all times. • Change control procedures and logs should be utilized. • Backups should be in place to prevent data loss. • There should be a regular program for ensuring off-site storage of back-up data. • Back-up media should be controlled and secured. • Documented business continuity and disaster recovery plans should be in place, reviewed and rehearsed at least annually. • The system should have logging and monitoring in place. • Development and Test environments with live data should be subject to the same protections as Production environments. • Data should be encrypted at rest and in transit. System Access • Access controls should be in place. • There should be a documented procedure for authenticating and authorizing access to the system and regular reviews of the names of individuals who are authorized to access systems. • Provider should restrict and control third party access to vendors with which a Business Agreement is in place. Security Testing and Reviews • Regular security reviews should be performed by operational staff. • Penetration tests should be performed regularly. • An annual external audit of security controls should be conducted and a report on its findings issued to institutional leadership. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)