Program Update June 30, 2022

BEST Summer Update

The Executive Sponsors and Program Management Office have been hard at work to develop an updated Request for Response (RFR) for the BEST Program. We’re excited to share with you new details on BEST’s Procurement process and our posting on COMMBUYS.

We continue our focus on the Program’s goal to replace the Commonwealth’s current financial management and human resources enterprise systems with a new cloud solution that will bring new functionality, improved business processes, real-time access to data at your fingertips, and continued enhancements for both our business and technology platforms. The magnitude of this undertaking requires careful planning and phasing of implementation tasks. The decision has been made to focus first on the procurement of new financials software as the initial step in this transformative vision.

This May we released an RFR for Phase I of the BEST Program, requesting combined bids from system integrators and software product owners to implement Financial Management, General Ledger, and the Labor Cost Management functionality to replace the Massachusetts Management Accounting and Reporting System (MMARS). During this procurement the Commonwealth will seek information about and review, but not make an award for, payroll and human capital management product offerings that would integrate with the financial solution. An award for Phase 1 is planned for the end of this calendar year (2022) with project tasks beginning shortly thereafter.

We look forward to working with our Evaluation Committee and various Subject Matter Experts in the review of Phase 1 RFR submissions throughout this summer. An updated timeline is currently in development and will be posted to the BEST website.