Field Systems Integration: Customers

The First Judicial District of Pennsylvania.
City Hall, Philadelphia PA

The Prothonotary for the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania currently maintains an archive of financing statements for Philadelphia County, PA. Financing statements are received daily and are manually processed. Assuming everything is in order; namely, the form is legible and payment is included, a filing officer processes the form in the following sequence:

A unique filing number is designated for the financing statement.
The form is scanned and entered into an on-line document archive system.
A copy of the approved filing statement is returned to the party who filed the statement.
The original paper filing statement is archived as an official record of the transaction.

Copies of filed financing statements must be made available to the public according to Pennsylvania law. Records of this type must be kept available for over 70 years. Allowing the public to access filings from an electronic document archive reduces a considerable amount of time, time spent traveling to City Hall as well as time spent manually searching through filing cabinets of documents. An electronic document archive also reduces the risk that official documents may get lost or stolen.

The Prothonotary estimates that they have processed more than 1 million statements. They receive approximately 20 new filing statements every day. Many of these statements consist of a single page financial filing and multiple pages of attachments. The district has worked with Field Systems Integration to develop a prototype system designed specifically for financial forms (UUC-3 filings). A prototype system has been delivered, where it has been operational since November 1997. The district is currently evaluating their options for a complete migration into an online service, and is considering options for how this service will be made available to the public.