In order to upgrade purchasing software and its server, the District of Kitimat had budgeted $45,000 for the work.
But staff sought and received a $15,000 amendment to the budget due to unforeseen licencsing costs for the Microsoft Structured Query Language (SQL), a crucial component to the new system.
According to the District of Kitimat, the now $60,000 price tag for the upgrades will considerably improve the town’s purchasing system. Namely the process now, they say, is based on paper and manual processing. The price tag includes software licenses, installation and training, among other costs.
The new system will save time and improve reporting, the town says.
As for the Microsoft SQL addition, the town says there are specific features of Microsoft’s SQL that are needed for the system which are not on other versions of similar software.
There are free versions of the SQL, however those are very limited in their functionality.