What are the options for getting card transactions into MSI?
Harris Local Government MSI has no published public API, so card activity cannot feed into it directly from any platform. The finance office's options are manual entry from monthly statements or MSI's file import routines. Beyond a handful of cardholders, the import path is the workable one.
Why is the manual path so costly?
A bank statement export is not an MSI import file. It carries the bank's columns and merchant strings, with no fund, department, or account coding. Making it importable means re-shaping the spreadsheet, coding every line, matching receipts for the audit file, and fixing rejected rows — a project that recurs every month and lands during close. The cost is not the import itself; it is everything before it, and it grows with every card the municipality issues.
What does the import workflow look like?
1. Capture the transactions. Each charge is recorded with merchant, date, and amount, with a receipt image attached for documentation.
2. Code each charge. Every transaction is assigned its fund, department, and account from the municipality's chart. Coding at transaction time, by the person who made or approved the purchase, is more accurate than back-coding a statement weeks later.
3. Build the import file. The coded transactions are arranged into the exact layout your MSI import routine accepts, using your chart of accounts.
4. Import into MSI. Inside the municipality's environment, run the import, review the batch, and post. With a matched file, this step takes minutes.
How does Vergo automate the preparation?
Vergo covers steps 1 through 3. Its corporate cards capture spend in real time; cardholders attach receipts from their phones; coding happens in Vergo with rules auto-coding recurring vendors; approvals are logged per transaction. Vergo then produces a custom-built CSV export matched to the import format your MSI installation expects — so what the finance office downloads is already importable.
This is a file-based integration, not an API sync — MSI publishes no API for anyone to sync with. Because MSI runs on-premise, the file handoff also fits the environment: nothing external touches the municipal system, and the import runs inside your walls on your schedule.
What should be confirmed at setup?
Which MSI import routine and field layout your installation uses for this transaction data, and that Vergo's coding structure mirrors your chart of accounts. Vergo matches the export format once and then maintains it.
Can card transactions feed MSI automatically?
Not through an API — MSI has none published. The automated path is a structured import file, which Vergo prepares matched to your MSI layout; the finance office imports and posts on its own schedule.
What format does the MSI import file need?
The layout your installation's import routine expects, with your actual fund, department, and account codes. Vergo builds the export custom to that layout.
Who codes the charges, and when?
Cardholders and the finance office, inside Vergo, at transaction time — with rules handling recurring vendors. Coding, receipts, and approvals travel with each transaction into the import file.
Does the on-premise deployment get in the way?
No. The file downloads from Vergo and is imported inside the municipality's own environment, so MSI never needs an outside connection.
