In May of 2005, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1863 which mandated the development of the Collections Improvement Program.
The Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) was tasked with implementing the program across the state.
At that time, only one software program existed for collections managers but the system was so primitive that no counties in Texas were using it.
Although i-Plow had not yet been formally established, we responded to the Office of Court Administration’s Request for Information (RFI) regarding collections software. By coincidence, we had already been developing a database management system that we believed could be adapted to support court collections. With some adjustments and additional development, the system proved to be well suited for the program.
The Office of Court Administration agreed.
Early Development
Dianna Spieker, Treasurer of Tom Green County, invited us to use her Collections Department as the initial development environment for the system.
Tom Green County continues to provide an excellent example of the system in action. As of Fall 2023, Tom Green County has collected $37,279,171.04 using i-Plow.
Their data provides a strong reference point for evaluating i-Plow’s Plan Performance & Expectations Report, which is discussed in our handbook.
Growth
Over the years, i-Plow LLC has continued to expand and refine what we now refer to as Government Collections & Compliance.
When development began, the two partners of i-Plow had nearly 30 years of combined experience in county government IT and have been focusing exclusively on government collections for nearly two decades.
Today, i-Plow has automated the collections and compliance processes for more than 40 counties.
Flexible Implementation
An i-Plow implementation can range from a few courts in a small county to more than 60 court processes in larger jurisdictions.
While every county operates differently, one of the keys to i-Plow’s success has been the system’s ability to adapt to the specific processes used by individual courts. In many cases, even a single court may require multiple collections workflows.
Continuing Development
The original design specifications were relatively limited. At the time, it appeared that basic data entry and payment plan management would meet most needs.
Over time, however, the realities of government collections proved to be far more complex.
As a result, i-Plow has continued to evolve. Each year, new tools and capabilities are added to support collectors and improve compliance.
Many of these tools are described in the Special Features section of our handbook.
Our objective was to engineer a sole-source, all-inclusive, holistic solution, at a fair, firm and fixed value, that could serve small and large governmental entities. It must accommodate small rural counties like Kaufman and Van Zandt as well as large urban ones such as Dallas and El Paso.
We succeeded!