Like many other famous technology companies — Apple, Amazon, Google — FREY Municipal Software started in a garage.
Donald Frey founded Donald R. Frey & Co., also known as FREY Municipal Software, in April 1974. Initially, he operated the business out of his grandparents’ garage at 109 Holly Woods Dr. in Fort Thomas.
The business has long since outgrown the garage. Today, FREY Municipal operates out of an office building at N. Grand Avenue in Fort Thomas. Now approaching its 50th anniversary, Matt and Garrett Frey, Donald’s son and grandson, reflected on the family business and how its growth paralleled some of the most consequential technological innovations in history.
FREY Municipal offers accounting, payroll and utility billing software to cities and governmental bodies across the United States. The company’s primary customer base is cities with populations under 5,000 residents. These types of cities comprise three-fourths of all incorporated areas in the country, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
“We serve Americana — the folks that administer the small and medium-sized municipalities, and their utilities all across this country,” said Matt Frey, Donald’s son and current president of the company.
Garrett Frey, the company’s senior product manager and Donald’s grandson, told LINK nky that their software provides an “essential service” to those type of communities.
“Those towns are absolutely the backbone of America,” Garrett said. “They have to run efficiently, and they need accounting software to manage their finances. That’s a big essential service in a lot of ways.”
Locally, their customer base includes the City of Bellevue, Kenton County Public Library, Boone County Public Library, Cheviot, Sycamore Township and Anderson Township. Bellevue started utilizing FREY Municipal’s services in 1985 and is one of the company’s oldest clients.
FREY Municipal currently operates in 27 states – from Florida to California – with over 200 clients nationwide. In recent years, the company expanded internationally, winning contracts in Puerto Rico and The Bahamas.
When Donald first learned how to write software applications, it was before the days of personal computers and Microsoft Windows operating systems. Donald was trained in computer science and gained experience for a variety of local companies that specialized in computer programming prior to founding his own company.
When the company first started, it operated as more of a consulting company, Garrett said. That was until they found a profitable niche in the software market offering services for municipalities.
FREY Municipal’s business mirrored the rise of the personal computer revolution. Computer hardware decreased in size during the 1970s after the development of the microprocessor. This innovation led to personal computers becoming mass-market consumer products.
As computers became a mainstream tool for administrative duties and data collection, municipalities across the country turned to computers as a means to streamline their daily operations such as bookkeeping. This phenomenon allowed FREY Municipal to gain a foothold in the budding software market. In those days, hardware like the floppy disk was essential for business operations. Nowadays, the floppy disk is seen as a relic of the past.
“The tech changes that he saw there were pretty huge,” Garrett said. “People going from a computer being a very unique interesting item for a household to have to – you know, everyone has one.”
Matt joined the family business in 2000. During this time, Donald and Matt shepherded the company through the rise of the internet era. The economy was digitizing. Administrative services that previously had to be done in person could now be completed online. To coincide with these developments, FREY Municipal began offering new services for their clients over the internet.
“Offering things like online access to pay stubs, W2s for personal returns – all done through the internet,” Garrett said. “There were a lot of advantages in the self-serve nature with things like that.”
Looking forward, Garrett, currently 29 years old, is hoping to help usher FREY Municipal into a new era – one defined by artificial intelligence.
“AI can create some very interesting things that can make you significantly more efficient,” Garrett said.
Garrett believes AI will be able to assist FREY Municipal with services like financial record keeping and utility billings. He noted that it’s important for the company to begin testing and experimenting with these products now before they offer them to their clients.
“You want your small towns to not have a fire that they have to put out every other day utilizing some new fancy piece of technology,” Garrett said. “So going a little slower makes a ton of sense. We’ll apply the technology when it makes the most sense to do so.”
Even though the company is focused on remaining at the cutting edge, from Garrett’s perspective, part of what makes FREY Municipal endearing to its clients is the human element. As such, Garrett said he doesn’t want to scale too fast, potentially risking the company losing touch with their customers.
“We’re really hyper-focused on maintaining our high level of support,” Garrett said. “What you’ll see with a lot of companies that grow is they lose that personal touch and their customers become just a number. We never want to lose that.”
For Matt, working in the family business has been a rewarding experience, telling LINK nky he hopes the company can continue to empower communities across the country for many years to come.
“What I have always enjoyed most about this business is that I feel it provides a meaningful existence,” Matt said.