Gwinnett County Recorder’s Court
Gwinnett County, GA
Integrated Software Doubles Court’s Online Revenue
Gwinnett County Recorder’s Court – Gwinnett County, GA
The Challenge:
While planning to implement a new case management system (CMS), the administrators of the Gwinnett County Recorder’s Court realized that they also needed a more efficient online payment processing system.
The court processes more than 130,000 citations and $16 million in fees and fines each year. The court’s previous online payment system wasn’t integrated with its CMS, the staff had to manually re-enter citizen information into the old payment system. This chore equated to more than 40 hours of work each week.
“It was mindless and meaningless; there was no reason to be rekeying that information,” said Karla White, Gwinnett’s Business Manager. The lack of integration also meant a significant lag time between when payments were made and when they were recorded in the court’s case management database. This time lag ultimately led to questions from confused citizens on why their payments were not recieved.
Gwinnett needed an online payment system that:
- Easily integrated with its CMS
- Made online payments easier to manage
- Increased staff efficiency
The Solution
The Gwinnett County Recorder’s Court turned to nCourt, the leading independent payment processing solution for government agencies for help.
In Gwinnett County, nCourt partnered with Journal Technologies, Inc., creator of the eCourt case management solution, to seamlessly integrate its payment software with eCourt. nCourt and Journal Technologies worked together to create an integrated system that met all of Gwinnett’s needs. Chris Forslund, Journal Technologies’ Senior Implementation Consultant, said the collaboration helped the project move faster and reduced stress for the client. He said “It’s especially refreshing to work with a payment processing solution that understands how courts work.”
nCourt offers a variety of payment services, all free of charge to the courts they serve. Gwinnett selected nCourt’s Premium Solution, which allows staff to upload payment transactions in real time. All payments are automatically recorded in the court’s eCourt CMS to ensure payments are complete and helps citizens avoid potential delays and additional penalties. Additionally, the Premium Solution gave Gwinnet access to nCourt’s Citizen Payment Center, a bilingual U.S.-based call center to serve citizens and answer questions about payments.
nCourt and Journal Technologies worked together to ensure the implementation went smoothly, by providing onsite support before going live.
The Results
The implementation was uneventful, which is exactly what the court wanted. Court Clerk Jeff West said “It was a piece of cake… I’ve worked with a lot of vendors, and nCourt was the easiest one to go live with.” nCourt and Journal Technologies went live in Gwinnett County at the same time. Not only was the implementation a success, but the combined solution helped Gwinnett to improve in a number of ways:
- nCourt’s payment processing solution helped double the court’s online revenue, increasing payments from $4M in 2013 to $9M in 2014. West credits the jump to the court’s increased ability to handle a higher volume of service.
- nCourt’s integration with the CMS meant court staff no longer manually entered data from one system to another and began saving time as soon as the solution went live.
- Reduced the wait time for citizens making payments on premises and calling with questions.
With the nCourt/Journal Technologies partnership, Gwinnett improved speed and efficiency, and more than doubled its online revenue.
White says the combination of nCourt with their new eCourt CMS continues to exceed expectations. “There’s so much to gain from processing payments online,” White says.
