Automated Stale Dated Letters | Voters

Automated Stale Dated Letters

Rommaneth Dumawal

Collin County is requesting if SMIGL/Bank Rec can be programmed to automatically generate stale dated letter, similar to how Refund Trac automatically generates refund letters.

Due to the volume of their refund checks exploding, so has the number of stale dated letters they need to send out. So many days after a check has been issued, if the check hasn't been cashed, they have to send out a letter asking the payee to either cash the check or request a replacement. Then 30 days later, they sent out a 2nd request. Creating a number of letters manually has been overwhelming to them.

February 29, 2024

Krysta Bates

Scott Osborne, I'm not necessarily convinced it will help bringing your attention to this, but wanted to exhaust all means possible.

Scott Osborne

Krysta Bates could you send me a example letter you manually write up?

Krysta Bates

Scott Osborne

I emailed it to you, but here it is also.

GenLet(rev)over50

Krysta Bates

This is the spreadsheet that has to be filled out in order to be able to mail merge the letters and that is what takes so long. We can copy and paste some information for several checks at a time, but the bulk of it has to be manually keyed in by individual check/account listed.

2025GenLet(rev)over50data_entry

Krysta Bates

As I sit here compiling yet another listing of stale dated letters (135) to be printed and wondering why I'm even using my time to add to this request that will likely never move beyond where it is now, I'm still wondering and wishing why this process can't be made more efficient. While I don't know what is required to make it happen on Spindlemedia's end, I know it can't be much different than the letters Refunds sends out when overpayments occur on an account. There has to be a better, more efficient way to accomplish this.

Angel Gonzalez

I support Krysta's ideas. The proposed changes would help streamline her job and reduce tedious work.

Krysta Bates

I'm not sure how to get this request any more attention since we've been trying to get something going with this for at least 2 years, but I guess I'll keep adding replies every few weeks and maybe it will get more attention. With the steady increase in the amount of stale dated refund checks we have to handle, we need a better way to generate letters than having to manually key information into a spreadsheet for 100s of refund checks in order to produce a mail merge letter. If a letter can be generated when a refund is initially generated, I'm not sure why a follow up letter can't be generated when the refund check has not been presented for payment.

Krysta Bates

I'm currently working on another month's worth of stale dated letters and there's once again over 100 that I have to manually key into a spread sheet in order to produce a mail merge letter to be sent out. It would be really nice to have access to something that would make the process a little bit easier and not so time consuming. The numbers are definitely not going down and I'd like to send out 2 months worth but it takes too long to input more than a month at a time.

Krysta Bates

This was input almost a year ago and I think there's documentation on it as far back as 2023. But the amount of stale dated letters has increased even more. And It's not slowing down. Where we used to have maybe 20 letters to send out, we easily have 100+ to send out and that's if we aren't behind. There has to be a better way than manually typing a spreadsheet listing to create a mail merge letter for that many accounts each month. Hoping we can get some forward progress on this soon.