Georgia Public Sector ERP Modernization: Moving to Infor CloudSuite

Across Georgia, public sector organizations are facing a decision that cannot be deferred much longer. State agencies, county governments, municipal utilities, and school districts that have relied on Infor Lawson for years—sometimes over a decade—are confronting end-of-support timelines, aging infrastructure, and a workforce that increasingly expects modern tools. The question is not whether to modernize but how to do it without disrupting the essential services that Georgia residents depend on.

The Public Sector ERP Landscape in Georgia

Georgia has one of the larger Infor Lawson install bases in the Southeast public sector. State agencies in Atlanta use Lawson for financial management and procurement. County governments across the state—from Fulton and DeKalb in metro Atlanta to smaller counties in middle and south Georgia—rely on it for payroll, HR, and fund accounting. Municipal utilities serving populations from 50,000 to over 1.6 million customers use Lawson to manage everything from work order management to customer billing integrations.

What makes Georgia's public sector ERP landscape particularly complex is its diversity. A state agency in downtown Atlanta has fundamentally different requirements than a rural county government or a water utility serving the coastal region. Yet many of these organizations are running similar versions of Lawson, and they all face the same migration imperative as Lawson v10 approaches end of support in December 2030.

Why Georgia Public Sector Organizations Are Moving Now

Several forces are accelerating ERP modernization across Georgia's public sector:

• End-of-support pressure: Organizations still on Lawson v9 are already past end of support. Those on v10 have until 2030, but a public sector CloudSuite implementation typically takes 18 to 24 months—meaning planning needs to start now, not in 2028.
• Workforce expectations: Georgia's public sector competes with Atlanta's private sector for talent. Employees accustomed to modern consumer technology will not tolerate a green-screen HR system. Self-service capabilities in CloudSuite—for time entry, benefits enrollment, and expense reporting—are becoming table stakes for recruitment and retention.
• Audit and transparency demands: Georgia taxpayers and oversight bodies increasingly expect real-time financial transparency. Legacy Lawson environments with manual reporting processes cannot deliver the kind of on-demand financial visibility that modern governance requires.
• Infrastructure costs: Maintaining on-premise Lawson servers, managing upgrades, and retaining the shrinking pool of people who understand Lawson's technical architecture is becoming more expensive every year. The economic case for CloudSuite's subscription model is increasingly compelling for budget-constrained public organizations.

GASB Compliance and Multi-Fund Accounting

Public sector ERP implementations are fundamentally different from private sector ones, and the biggest reason is fund accounting. Georgia public organizations must comply with Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) requirements, which means the ERP system must support:

• Multiple fund types: General fund, special revenue funds, capital project funds, debt service funds, enterprise funds, and fiduciary funds—each with its own accounting rules and reporting requirements.
• Encumbrance accounting: Public sector organizations must track commitments (encumbrances) against budget authority before expenditures occur. This is not how private sector accounting works, and CloudSuite must be configured specifically for this.
• Budgetary control: Unlike private companies, public organizations cannot legally overspend their budgets. CloudSuite's budgetary control features must be configured to enforce Georgia's specific appropriation and allotment rules.
• CAFR/ACFR reporting: Georgia public entities must produce Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports that comply with GASB standards. CloudSuite must be configured to generate the data for these reports without requiring extensive manual manipulation.

Georgia Procurement Rules and CloudSuite Configuration

Georgia's public procurement process adds complexity that must be reflected in the CloudSuite supply chain configuration. The Georgia Procurement Manual, overseen by the Department of Administrative Services (DOAS), establishes rules for competitive bidding, sole-source justification, and vendor registration that differ from private sector purchasing.

For county governments and utilities, procurement often involves additional layers: local preference policies, minority and small business enterprise (MSBE) requirements, and board approval thresholds that vary by jurisdiction. CloudSuite's procurement workflows must be configured to enforce these rules automatically, not rely on manual compliance checks that are easily bypassed.

I have seen Georgia public organizations attempt to use CloudSuite's procurement module with default private-sector configurations and then spend months adding approval workflows, vendor qualification checks, and reporting capabilities after the fact. Getting procurement right during initial configuration is far less expensive than retrofitting it later.

Multi-Entity Challenges: A Georgia Utility Case Example

One of the more complex public sector implementations I have been involved with was for a Georgia utility serving approximately 1.6 million customer accounts across multiple service areas. The organization operated as a multi-entity structure with shared services, separate operating divisions, and a capital projects program running in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The implementation took 22 months and was phased by functional area: financials and procurement first, then HR and payroll, then asset management and project accounting. The phased approach was critical because it allowed the organization to maintain operations while transitioning off legacy systems one module at a time. Attempting a big-bang go-live for an organization of this complexity would have been reckless.

What Georgia Public Sector Organizations Should Consider

Based on my experience implementing Infor solutions for public sector organizations in Georgia and across the Southeast, here is what I would advise any Georgia public entity planning a CloudSuite migration:

1. Start with an honest assessment of your Lawson environment. Document every customization, every integration, every report. Many Georgia public organizations have customized Lawson extensively over the years, and each customization must be evaluated: replicate in CloudSuite, replace with standard functionality, or eliminate.
2. Require public sector experience from your implementation partner. Not just "we have done government work" but specifically "we have configured Infor CloudSuite for GASB-compliant fund accounting." The difference matters enormously. Read more about this in my guide to migrating from Lawson to CloudSuite.
3. Budget for change management. Public sector employees often have longer tenures than their private sector counterparts, which means deeper attachment to existing processes. A structured change management program is not optional for public sector CloudSuite implementations—it is essential.
4. Plan for Georgia-specific configurations upfront. State procurement rules, GASB reporting requirements, and Georgia-specific payroll tax configurations should be part of your initial requirements, not discovered during user acceptance testing.
5. Phase the rollout. For multi-entity organizations, go live one entity or functional area at a time. The incremental risk reduction is worth the extended timeline.