Questions to include in a RFP (Request for Proposal)

This list of questions is comprehensive. Some questions may not be relevant to all companies in each case. The key is to pick the relevant questions in the case at hand.

General Information

Pricing/Maintenance/Support

Cash Management

Debt/Investment

Risk Management

Foreign Exchange

Security

Technology

General Information

1. How long has the company offered corporate treasury applications? What modules are available?
2. How many systems have been installed worldwide?
3. When was the current version of the software released? How many clients use the current version worldwide?
4. What are the company's gross revenues?
5. What percentage of total revenue is attributable to corporate treasury installations?
6. How many employees does the company have and where are they based?
7. What are the staffing levels for sales, implementation, consulting, research & development, support and client services?
8. How often are application upgrades planned? When is the next scheduled upgrade?
9. Does the company license the source code?
10. Does the company sponsor a corporate user group with regular meetings?
11. Does the company have a procedure for dispute resolution?
12. Provide the names and contact numbers of three current system users, preferably of similar size or in the same industry as the RFP issuer.
13. What are the company's strategic goals? Is the company currently in mergers & acquisitions talks? Please provide details to the fullest extent possible. 

Pricing/Maintenance/Support

1. How is the system priced? Is a lease option available?
2. What is the annual maintenance fee?
3. Does the annual maintenance fee cover all upgrades?
4. Is training and implementation covered in the licensing fee?
5. What is the extent of onsite training provided at implementation?
6. Is follow-up training available? At what charge?
7. Is consulting available? How is it priced?
8. How is consulting differentiated from implementation?
9. What technical support is included as part of the annual maintenance fee?
10. Where are technical support personnel based? How do you arrange for implementation, training and support in countries where the company does not support staff?
11. During what hours is technical support available by phone?
12. What is the fee to write custom interfaces to other applications?
13. What are the incentives for beta customers?

Cash Management

1. Can bank polling and parsing routines be set up for automatic execution?
2. Are preloaded script files available for bank communications?
3. Is there a limit to the number of bank account downloads that can be programmed for automatic execution?
4. Does the system reconcile transactions and debt and investment activity with the previous day's account balance?
5. How many types of currency will the system recognize?
6. Is the system euro compliant? Will it triangulate currency conversions?
7. Are wire transfer and automated clearing house (ACH) initiation supported from within the module?
8. Does the system provide an interactive daily cash position worksheet with drill-down capability to the individual transaction level?
9. Is cash position reporting available by bank and currency?
10. What time horizons are available for forecasting?
11. Does the system report variances between actual and forecast cash balances?
12. Will the cash management module interface with the corporate general ledger?

Debt/Investment

1. Does the system allow for user-defined financial instruments and interest rate accrual on a user-defined basis?
2. Can the system track investments in different currencies and dual currencies?
3. Can the system provide daily unrealized profit/loss and investment?
4. Can the system rank investments in order of maturity?
5. Can the system generate portfolio returns for any time frame selected?
6. Can the system provide a listing of cash flows for any selected time frame?
7. Does the system provide journal entry reports on a cash and/or accrual basis showing security description, maturity, transaction type and date, unamortised premium/discount, accrued interest receivable, investment revenue and gain/loss on investment?
8. Does the system include a holiday calendar and check this calendar against maturity schedules?
9. Can investment data previously entered be edited with the original data maintained as part of the audit trail?
10. Can the system maintain multiple portfolios? If so, how many?
11. Does the system interface to real-time pricing sources? If so, which ones? Does it mark-to-market automatically?
12. Does the system include a commodities investment module?
13. Can the system update and report mortgage-backed security yields based on principal and interest paydowns?
14. Does the system track call dates for callable securities?

Risk Management

1. Does the system support interest rate sensitivity and gap analysis?
2. Does the system provide value-at-risk (VAR) analysis? If so, what form of VAR is supported (historical analysis, variance/covariance, Monte Carlo)?
3. Does the system interface with J.P. Morgan's RiskMetrics?
4. Can interest rate scenario analysis be maintained with mark-to-market updates?
5. Does this system support graphical displays and outputs?
6. Does the system include an option-pricing calculator?
7. Can the system aggregate counterparty exposures?
8. Can the system calculate hedge equivalents?
9. Does the system provide duration and modified duration analysis?
10. Can the system perform optimisation anlysis? Are the foregoing analeptics limited to predefined instruments, or can user-defined instruments be analysed with the module's risk management tools?
11. Can the system be programmed to provide a warning or alert when the gap between a hedge and its underlying exposure exceeds predefined tolerance?

Foreign Exchange

1. Can the system support cross-currency trades?
2. Can the system revalue outstanding forward foreign exchange (FX) contracts?
3. Does each FX transaction contain settlement instructions?
4. Can the system pool company-wide positions for netting?
5. Can exposures be user defined and automatically updated (A/R, A/P, intercompany positions, etc)?
6. Is there an interface with FX Match?
7. Does the module track bank counterparties, both those accepted and rejected?
8. How many competitive quotes can be entered?
9. Are trades matched against counterparty risk limits?
10. Does the system allow for straight-through processing, updating cash management, risk management and accounting with each transaction?
11. Are interfaces already established for FX Fox, Sonnet or any other FX execution system?
12. Is a comment field available?

Security

1. Does the system require users to have a log-in ID and password?
2. Can user access be restricted within the system? If so, upon what criteria are the restrictions based?
3. What is the process of trade authorisation and approval? How are supervisory personnel informed when authorisation limits are breached or when a trade approval is required?
4. What security measures are taken to safeguard access to the funds transfer module and to protect transmission of funds transfer instructions?
5. Can a system administrator manage log-in and password changes and additions, authorisation levels and other security maintenance without assistance from the vendor? If yes, please explain.
6. Can the user directly access the database to make changes?
7. Describe the database utilities included with the software.
8. Can the workstation be programmed to shut down after a specified period of inactivity?
9. Can the system detect inappropriate access and issue an alert? If, how? Will the system react to repeated access attempts with an incorrect password? If so, how?
10. Can screens and menus be customized for individual users or workstations?
11. Describe the audit trail tied to specific transactions and the audit trail associated with use activity in the system.
12. What disaster recovery/back-up capability comes standard with the system?