Integrated Procurement and Financial Workflow Solution RFI

The County of San Mateo's Procurement Department is conducting market research to better understand available solutions that can support an integrated procurement and financial workflow lifecycle. The purpose of this RFI is to gather information from vendors regarding current systems, capabilities, and best practices in the marketplace.

The County of San Mateo is located in the heart of the Silicon Valley. As such, the County is committed to remaining informed of new technologies and evolving industry standards, and to conducting due diligence to verify its procurement processes reflect modern, efficient, and innovative practices.

All interested vendors should submit for this RFI, as it is not a requirement to have all the functionality listed.

No contract will be awarded as part of this Request for Information (RFI).

This RFI solicitation document is being issued for market research to obtain general information from suppliers about their products, services, and capabilities to assist the County in the development and issuance of a potential future Request for Proposal (RFP) solicitation for the Procurement Department.

Proposers may be requested to perform product demonstrations.

Background

The Procurement Department provides procurement services to all County departments and acts as a regulatory mechanism to help county departments obtain maximum value for each dollar spent while maintaining compliance with all relevant County, State and Federal, laws, ordinances and policies. Procurement also connects with and assists vendors in doing business with the County.

This RFI is being issued to better understand current market offerings for solutions that may support a broader and more integrated procurement and financial workflow lifecycle. The County is interested in learning about the features, capabilities, services, and innovative approaches available from vendors in the marketplace.

Project Details

• Reference ID: 2026-RFI-00413
• Department: Procurement
• Department Head: Jas Sandhar (Procurement Director)

Important Dates

• Questions Due: 2026-07-24T07:00:00.000Z

Evaluation Criteria

• Submission Deadline —

  Proposals must be electronically received by 5:00 pm, on Friday, August 7, 2026 via the County's eProcurement system.        

  Allow sufficient time for the upload to complete by the Due Date and Time. Partial uploads will automatically terminate, and proposals will be rejected. The eProcurement system submission time will be the official submission time. The County will not be responsible for and may not accept proposals that are late due to slow internet connections or for any other failure of the eProcurement system.

  NOTE: The County does not maintain the eProcurement system and is not liable for site failures or technical problems. To resolve technical issues, contact OpenGov Technical Support directly by using the real time chat located in the lower right hand corner of the screen, or via email at procurement-support@opengov.com

   https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/smcgov

• Background Information —

  The County is seeking information regarding solutions that can support a broader, integrated procurement and financial lifecycle. The solution may be a Source-to-Pay platform, Procure-to-Pay, ERP, or another platform with a similar function. The County is interested in understanding whether available solutions can consolidate, replace, or integrate functions currently handled through separate systems, including requisition intake, financial approvals, solicitation management, contract management, purchase order creation, and invoice processing.

   

  The County of San Mateo operates under a hybrid procurement process. Goods are centralized, whereas services are decentralized. As such, the solution may be used by multiple County departments, including the Procurement Department and department-level procurement staff. Each department will designate a lead procurement staff member that will be trained on the platform. Therefore, the County requires a solution that is easy to navigate for users with varying levels of proficiency, fosters collaboration across departments, and supports oversight from the Procurement Department and other administrative parties.

• Pre-submission Registration —

  Organizations or individuals interested in responding to this solicitation must register online with the County of San Mateo at:

  •  https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/smcgov

  It is recommended that organizations complete this registration as soon as possible. The County will not be responsible for and may not accept proposals that are late due to a failure to timely register with the eProcurement system.

• Integrated Procurement and Financial Workflow Solution Requirements —

  The solution should include, but is not limited to, the following components:

  General Solution Requirements

  The solution should:

  • Provide a centralized, configurable, and user-friendly platform to support procurement, contracting, purchasing, and related financial workflow activities across County departments.
  • Support role-based access controls and configurable permission levels.
  • Provide reporting/auditing/control functionality based on permission levels.
  • Support use by multiple County departments, including Procurement and department-level users.

  Requisition Intake and Financial Approval

  The solution should:

  • Support the submission, review, and approval of requisitions or purchase requests before the start of a solicitation or purchasing process.
  • Support budget approval workflows based on County-defined policies, thresholds, funding sources, or purchasing authority.
  • Allow approved requisitions or purchase requests to move into the appropriate next step, such as solicitation or purchase order creation.

  Solicitation Assembly, Evaluation, and Award

  The solution should:

  • Ability to draft, post, submit, and evaluate RFI, RFP, IFB, etc.
  • Support informal purchasing, price-only bids, and other purchasing processes.
  • Allow previous solicitations and related records to be viewed, searched, and referenced within the platform.
  • Allow County staff, non-staff evaluators, and other authorized participants to use the platform for evaluations.
  • Support different evaluation methods, including weighted scoring, numerical scoring, bonus points, pricing evaluations, and allow scores to be calculated and documented within the platform.
  • Support award workflows.

  Contract Lifecycle Management

  The solution should:

  • Support the creation, review, approval, execution, storage, tracking, amendment, renewal, and closeout of contracts.
  • Assist users with creating contracts using County-provided templates, standard language, or forms.
  • Track contract terms, expiration dates, renewal dates, amendments, performance measures, and other key contract information.

  Purchasing, Purchase Orders, and Invoice Processing

  The solution should:

  • Support purchasing activities after requisition, solicitation, contract, or other approval.
  • Support purchase order creation, approval, issuance, tracking, modification, cancellation, and closeout.
  • Allow purchase orders to be generated from approved requisitions, contracts, quotes, solicitations, or other approved purchasing records.
  • Support invoice submission, invoice intake, invoice review, approval routing, and invoice status tracking.
  • Provide visibility into purchase order status, invoice status, remaining balances, payment status, or other related transaction history.

  Workflow, Approvals, and Collaboration

  The solution should:

  • Support internal and external collaborations.
  • Allow redlining and document collaboration for contracts, solicitations, amendments, and other related documents.
  • Support workflows with checkpoints at various stages of the procurement, contract, purchasing, and financial approval process.
  • Support general County-wide approval workflows and unique departmental workflows.
  • Notify users when corrections, approvals, or additional actions are needed based upon standards set by the County.
  • Guide users through processes using prompts, templates, required fields, workflow steps, or similar tools.

  Vendor Engagement and Participation

  The solution should:

  • Support a free and accessible public facing portal for all vendors interested in conducting business with the County.
  • Support the submission of questions, proposals, bids, invoices, and any other related action item through the platform.
  • Support vendor questions and answers, addenda, notices, proposal or bid submissions, and receipt acknowledgements.
  • Support DBE, LBE, etc. certifications, including but not limited to State, Federal, and Local designations.

  AI Functionality

  The solution should:

  • Include available automation or artificial intelligence, where applicable.
  • Support AI-assisted drafting of requisitions, solicitations, contracts, and purchase orders.
  • Support compliance checks, error detection, validation tools, recommendations, analytics, or insights based on procurement and financial data.

  Security, Access, Compliance, and Records

  The solution should:

  • Provide security and data protection appropriate for public-sector procurement, contract, purchasing, and financial workflow activities.
  • Provide functionality to assist with Public Records Act request responses. (This could be removed to encourage more responses to solicitation from private sector vendors.)
  • Provide information regarding system availability, backup and recovery, and disaster recovery.

  Implementation, Training, Support, and Continuous Improvement

  The solution should:

  • Be updated regularly with:
    • Bug fixes
    • Deploying new features
    • Commitment to continuously improve the platform
  • Be compatible with and capable of integrating with other systems and applications used by the County.
    • Includes, but not limited to: Single Sign-On solutions (Okta)
  • Include a sandbox/test environment
  • Support training for County staff, hosted by the solution provider.
  • Provide guides, manuals, and other resources that can assist users.
  • Contain a live support system that is available for users to troubleshoot.
• Submission via eProcurement Portal —

  Required Documents

  Documents requested in the RFI

   Electronic Submissions 

  Include the proposer name and the RFI title and number in each filename. Submit proposals via the eProcurement website, allowing sufficient time for the upload to complete by the Due Date and Time. As noted above, the eProcurement portal submission time will be the official submission time, and partial uploads will automatically terminate, and proposals will be rejected. Contact eProcurement Portal with technical questions regarding this site.

  Conflicts between Certain Requirements 

  It is recommended that organizations complete this registration as soon as possible. The County will not be responsible for and may not accept proposals that are late due to a failure to timely register with the eProcurement system.

  Format

  Documents should be created in the following format:

  • Text should be Times New Roman (12-point minimum font size) and unjustified (i.e., with a ragged-right margin)
  • Pages should have margins of at least one inch on all sides (excluding headers and footers)
  • If the proposal is lengthy, a Table of Contents should be included.
  • PDF format is preferred.

  Errors in Proposals 

  The County will not be liable for any errors in proposals. Proposals may be rejected as unresponsive if they are late, incomplete, missing pages or information, or cannot be opened for any reason. The County may waive minor irregularities, but such waiver will not modify any remaining RFI requirements. 

• Presentation —

  The County may schedule up to ten (10) firms to provide demonstrations of their solutions.

  The presentation should be a high-level overview of the solution as it pertains to the details listed in the SOW above, or any other added benefits. Presentation shall include a demonstration of workflow, functionality, etc. for requestors, fiscal approvers, department approvers, executives, etc. Please include roadmap of future innovations, including but not limited to, AI assisted functions, integration efforts, etc.

Submission Requirements

• Minimum Qualifications
• Firm has a minimum of three (3) years of providing an eProcurement, source-to-pay, financial, or other related solution to government entities. (required)
• Submit Appendix A - Solution Summary (required)
• Name of Organization (required)
• Name of Solution. (required)
• Technical Proposal —

  (Please see Scope of Work for reference to the below questions.)

• Please describe how your solution meets the general requirements. (required)
• Does the solution support requisition intake and financial approval? (required)
• Requisition Intake and Financial Approval —

  Describe the solution's requisition intake and financial approval. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

• Does the solution support solicitation assembly, evaluation, and award functions? (required)
• Solicitation Assembly, Evaluation, and Award —

  Describe the platform's solicitation assembly, evaluation, and award features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

• Does the solution support contract lifecycle management? (required)
• Contract Lifecycle Management —

  Describe the platform's contract lifecycle management features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

• Does the solution support purchasing, purchase orders, and invoice processing? (required)
• Purchasing, Purchase Orders, and Invoice Processing —

  Describe the platform's purchasing, purchase orders, and invoice processing features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

• Does the solution have workflow, approvals, and collaboration features? (required)
• Workflows, Approvals, and Collaboration —

  Describe how the platform provides workflow, approval, and collaboration features. If any required specifications are missing, please state below.

• Does the solution foster vendor engagement and participation? (required)
• Vendor Engagement and Participation —

  Describe how the platform supports vendor engagement and participation with County solicitations or purchase orders. If the solution is missing any required specifications, please state below.

• Does the solution utilize artificial intelligence? (required)
• Artificial Intelligence —

  Describe how the solution utilizes artificial intelligence to enhance the user experience. If the solution is missing any required specifications, please state below.

• Does the solution have security, access, compliance, and records features? (required)
• Security, Access, Compliance, and Records —

  Describe any security, access, compliance, or records features available on the platform. Please include example reporting, analytic, and dashboard functionality.

• Implementation, Training, and Support (required) —

  Describe the solution's implementation, training, and support features. If the solution is missing any required specifications, please state below.

• Is the platform committed to continuous support? (required)
• Additional Features —

  Reference any additional features not listed here.

• Additional Documents or Media —

  If there are any sell sheets or media prepared for the solution, please submit them here.

• Current Innovations —

  Reference any notable innovations or improvements that you expect to provide (with respect to, for example, efficiency, technology, sustainability).

• Name of Contact Person (required) —

  Name:

  Title:

  Contact Email:

  Contact Phone Number:

• Use Electronic Line Item Pricing? (required)