Courts: Is the Stack of Returned Checks Getting Any Smaller?

Court accounting and finance teams are used to working extra hard to make sure payments are disbursed to the right residents at the right time.

But with mounting pressures on your court’s staff, too many teams are now overwhelmed, overworked, and stretched to the breaking point. Exhaustion, understaffing, and the tedium of repetitive work can take down the efficiency and effectiveness of the most dedicated court finance team.

One of the biggest stressors your team likely faces is the ever-growing stack of returned checks on their desks.

However, there is a simple solution to help your exhausted and burnt-out finance department quickly and easily disburse juror payments, child support payments, restitution, and more — accurately and on time.

Returned Juror Payments

One of the leading culprits for returned checks to the court is jury payments. There are several reasons why a check might be returned by the USPS, and when it is, it becomes part of the pile that your finance team must deal with — requiring calling the juror, tracking down a forwarding address, reprinting, and remailing.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be rid of this headache?

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Tyler’s Court Funds card is the contactless way to disburse accurate payments to everyone on time, no matter which type of transaction — jury and grand jury payments, restitution, child support, bonds, witnesses, and more.

Child Support Payment Gridlock

To begin, let’s start with the issue of child support payments, which all too frequently make up the bulk of returned checks on the desks of your finance team.

If a parent refuses to pay child support, the court must intervene and garnish wages.

So what’s behind the backlog when it comes to paper checks? First, there’s the issue of address changes. If the parent receiving child support checks moves and neglects to provide a forwarding address to the court, the check will be returned. Following this, a member of your accounting and finance team must hunt down the payment recipient’s proper address and remail the check. It goes without saying that this is a very inefficient and frustrating process for everyone involved.

Additionally, if a custodial parent is divorced and moves residences, they may not want to share their new address with their ex-partner, the other parent, for safety concerns. All too frequently, this means the child support check may sit in the mailbox at the old address or be thrown away by the new tenant. But quite often, the check finds its way back to the court. When this happens, it’s up to your finance team to cancel the check and remail the payment to the recipient’s correct address.

This kind of tedious goose-chasing takes a toll on your finance team and can hurt productivity. Even worse? Those in need of on-time child support checks suffer from late payments.

The Restitution Logjam

In addition to child support payments, one-time and recurring restitution disbursements are also a major culprit in the huge stacks of checks sitting on the desks in your accounting and finance department. There are many reasons a check can be returned to your office, and when it is, it adds another figurative log to the jam in place.

The timely and accurate delivery of court-ordered restitution payments is vitally important to the fabric of a community. Community members, families, and victims owed restitution deserve to have payments delivered on time.

For elected officials, it’s also important to note that residents are more likely to express approval in tandem with timely restitution payouts.

The Unclaimed Property Headache

It’s well known that paper checks create many issues for your court’s finance team, including record maintenance and messy paper trails.

When a resident doesn’t cash a check, like when it’s sent to an incorrect address, your finance office is required to escheat it to the state.

Get Your Time and Sanity Back

For your court’s accounting and finance team, the problems with returned checks all add up to more headaches, more stress, and more of the repetitive, tedious work of hunting down correct addresses, reentering data, printing, and remailing checks.

The bottom line? Your court’s ever-growing tower of returned checks can be eliminated with Tyler’s digital disbursements solution, Court Funds.

From municipal and county to state and federal courts, Tyler’s Court Funds card is the contactless way to disburse accurate payments to everyone on time, no matter which type of transaction — jury and grand jury payments, restitution, child support, bonds, witnesses, and more.

With Court Funds your finance team can:

• Reduce disbursement customer service issues.
• Curtail unclaimed property and escheatment incidents.
• Reduce bank account reconciliation time.
• Provide instant access to funds for residents.
• Increase efficiency through contactless technology.
• Reduce check fraud risk.
• Reduce cash handling on site.
• Slash disbursement costs.
• Eliminate lost or stolen checks.
• Interface with court, jury management, case management, accounting, and financial systems.

Take Another Look at Your Desk ...

How many returned checks can you count? Is that stack getting any smaller?

If you’re tired of tracking down correct addresses, mailing checks, or looking at a new heap of returned checks every day, Court Funds can make your job much easier.

Are you ready to eliminate the stack of returned checks and juice your productivity?

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