Issues to Consider When Selecting a Collections Vendor

Why do I need JIMAS Collections Tools when I could just issue warrants?

JIMAS Collections Tools not only helps you identify delinquent accounts, but organize, develop and maintain your communications with account holders. With regard to issuing warrants in your collections efforts, the Tools will let you provide one last due process notice -- a courtesy reminder backed with a firm notice that arrest will be your next course of action. The benefit of this approach is that it provides payors a chance to save face and avoid the disgrace of an arrest, which is something they might remember favorably come election time.

Why do I need JIMAS Collections Tools when I could just refer cases right to a collection agency?

When referring a delinquent backlog, JIMAS Collections Tools will let you provide one last due process notice. And it can also transfer the cases electronically to the agency, saving data entry work. But the biggest benefit is with respect to new cases, where you can set up payment plans, monitor the payments made and send notices to those who are getting behind. As a last resort, you can refer entire batches of delinquent cases to the collection agency. In short, you can:

Take steps to ensure that you don't get another backlog
Avoid the need to refer some of your constituents to a collection agency --which is going add a 30% surcharge on top of what is owed

Do I need PC JIMS to use JIMAS Collections Tools?

If you plan to refer cases to a collection agency and you plan to take payments on collection cases at the court, you must use PC JIMS. Why? To ensure that the agency gets its share of each payment made at the court, Clerk staff must always distribute the appropriate portion of each payment to the SA Collection fee. And only PC JIMS has the sophisticated "auto-distribute" feature which ensures that this happens.

Will Goodin create a tool for importing payments?
We were considering doing so, but it turns out to have some serious quirks, such as:

What if the litigant name on the agency's payment record doesn't match that in JIMS?
What if a defendant pays off the account at the court, but then gets a call from the agency and pays them too?

We know these are scenarios that shouldn't happen, but JIMS has to be prepared if they do. Since the court can't just kick the entire funding check back to the agency due to one bad payment, a payment importer would have to be able to accommodate these scenarios. Our initial thought was to process "problem payments" as non-standard bonds, then let clerk staff figure out what to do with the money. Ugh!

Furthermore, it could take a long time for us to break even on our investment to automate the OTHER end of the process, where the court's delinquent cases are made available to the agency electronically- we don't want the COURT to have to pay for our efforts, but the agencies' willingness to share the statutory 30% collection surcharge is limited.

So until we make sure that courts really need an importer due to the success of their collection agencies, our fear that there may be other "devils in the details" has caused us to put the brakes on a payment importer, at least for now.

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