Bandera County Automates Reporting With Cloud ERP Pro

Organization Profile

• Industry: Municipal
• Tyler Client Since: 2023
• Number of Employees: 250
• Population: 22,000
• Location: Bandera, Texas
• Tyler Products Used: ERP Pro, Content Manager, Enterprise Justice

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Challenges

In the Hill Country of Texas, Bandera County earned its place as the Cowboy Capital of the World through ranching tradition and the work of 250 county employees serving roughly 22,000 residents. But the county's finance offices were running on aging on-premises software that did not match the demands of modern county government. "All of our data was stored on our servers," said County Auditor Darryl Sadler. "If anything went wrong, if somebody broke into them, we were out of luck."

On top of the security exposure, the legacy system's interface still relied on DOS-era prompts. "To view a document we had scanned, I needed to open three programs on my computer," Sadler said. Online requisitions were not an option, leaving departments to make purchases without a clear view of available funds. "A lot of departments were buying stuff without knowing if the money was actually there," he said.

Sadler understood cloud-based software could address these challenges, but moving to the cloud meant overcoming a cultural barrier as much as a technical one. "Not many years ago, nobody wanted to go to the cloud," Sadler said. "Especially in rural Texas, it was, 'No, if our information is out there, someone will steal it.' We briefed the Commissioners' Court on how cloud architecture protects data across distributed locations. When you use the cloud, you're saving your data in different states, even different countries sometimes," Sadler said. "It makes it easier to protect it. It also makes it easier to access it no matter where we are, even in a disaster."

Solution

Bandera County moved its accounting, payroll, accounts payable, and reporting to Tyler Technologies' cloud-based ERP Pro software. The cloud architecture answered the security question that had stalled modernization for years and replaced the on-premises footprint with a platform built to scale. Choosing the cloud was the easy part. Making the move successful meant committing to training.

Training ran ahead of go-live, even when staff did not yet have a frame of reference for what they were learning. "When you do the training before you start the implementation, you may not quite understand what you're doing," Sadler said. "But when you start doing the implementation, it will click." For Sadler, the conversion gave him something his legacy vendor never had: the reasoning behind the work. "When we switched over to Tyler, they started showing me, 'This is why we're doing this. This is how you should do it.'"

The implementation moved 2,400 lines of code and multiple years of historical data into ERP Pro. Tyler's implementation team ran payroll in parallel with the legacy system through cutover, repeating the run as many times as the county needed. "They really worked with us to make sure we were comfortable, that we were where we wanted to be," Sadler said.

Results

The cloud implementation changed where county finance work could happen. Data that once lived on local servers now follows Sadler and his team wherever they need to be, protected in a distributed cloud infrastructure rather than on hardware in a county office.

With the platform modernized, reporting that once consumed team member time now runs automatically. The county scheduled automated monthly reports to every one of its 35 departments. "I put in a bit of information, push a button, and every single month for the next 20 years they're going to get that report in their email on the same day every month," Sadler said.

Accounts payable saw the most visible shift in transparency. Before the move, Commissioners’ Court members signed off on long packets with little detail. "Sometimes they were approving stuff they weren't sure of. They just trusted me," Sadler said. "With ERP Pro, we can send over a document that has a link to every transaction." Instead of a 25- to 30-character description, the system enables court members to see the full invoice behind every approval.

Sadler's advice to peers preparing their own cloud transition begins with preparation. "Before starting a software implementation, take advantage of all the training you can," he said. He points to Tyler Connect, Tyler University, and Texas user group meetings as the resources that keep the software paying off.

For Bandera County, the benefits come back to the working relationship behind the move. "You're not just getting a product from Tyler," Sadler said. "You're getting a partnership. They will work with you. If something isn't working the way you need it to, you can contact them. They will find a way and give you options to make it happen."

That partnership lets a small county handle more work without adding people. "As the county grows, we won't have to hire more people because it's being more automated," Sadler said. "The ability for leaders in your organization to get this information without having to go through you every time is incredible."