Within the scope of jail and prison management, there is nothing more important than inmate trust fund accounting. It is absolutely critical that trust fund administrators be able to perform an ever-increasing variety of transactions to inmate trust fund accounts. These transactions must be performed efficiently and accurately, but most importantly an audit trail must be maintained. Human errors must be easily corrected that include reversing transactions where audit trails of the original (erroneous) task, the reversing task, and the corrected task are all maintained and which can be recalled and verified on a moments notice. CACTAS meets this challenge by offering an extremely rich set of trust fund functions.
CACTAS maintains an unlimited number of subsidiary accounts by inmate ID number. In addition to a user defined inmate ID number, the CACTAS database allows the user to maintain personal ID numbers and social security numbers for each inmate. The personal ID is intended to be a permanent identification that does not change from one booking to the next. Additionally, the CACTAS inmate record contains the following data elements: Last Name, First Name, Middle Name, Address, Dob, Gender, Account Index/Pin, six levels of housing hierarchy (Facility, Building, Pod, Section, Bay, Bed), Classification, Class Override flag, Account Override flag, Created on date, Booked on date, Released on date, Transferred on date, Prior Facility, Balance checked on date, and Notes.
CACTAS allows the user to define an unlimited number of received on account (ROA) transaction types. At the discretion of the user ROA funds may be applied to the inmate account immediately, or they may be placed in a pending state to be applied later by batch processing after allowing time for checks and money orders to clear. Each ROA type may be defined to automate specific requirements for that type of deposit. For example, inmate wages may require that distributions be made to specific recipients such as dependents, crime victim funds, court filing fees, or savings. Upon execution of a ROA transaction certain standard data elements are always captured by the user. Examples would be ROA type, amount, serial number, check #, etc. Other ROA types may require capture and reporting of certain additional data elements that are not usually captured. An example may be withholding information contained on the stub of a work release paycheck. In order to meet these special requirements CACTAS utilizes the ability to define custom forms and attach them to specific task types. Once the custom form is defined and attached to a task type the form will automatically pop-up upon execution of the task and allow the user to capture the information required. CSi utilizes this capability to meet the reporting requirements of certain PIE, joint venture, and work release programs as it relates to inmate paycheck withholding data.
Accounts, Account Types, and Case Management
Each inmate will be assigned a default account and any number of point-of-sale accounts (POS discretionary spending accounts). The default account accumulates any inmate funds that are not reserved for some specific purpose. The total fund balance of all POS accounts may be used at the discretion of the inmate for such things as commissary purchases. The default account may also be a POS account but it does not have to be.
CACTAS allows the user to define an unlimited number of account types. Each account type is flagged as either a personal (example would be POS account) or a non-personal account (example would be medical co-pay). Only account balances for personal accounts are returned to the inmate upon release. Any subset of account types may be associated with each inmate trust account; the subset of account types assigned is usually determined by inmate classification. However, the set of account types associated with any given inmate may be modified at the inmate level. Inmate collection and disbursement of funds are processed through these vehicles.
Often times there are requirements to track the disbursement of inmate funds at a more detailed level than the account type that collected the funds. CACTAS has employed a detailed case tracking functionality to accommodate this need. An unlimited number of unique court ordered case numbers may be defined and tracked for each inmate account type. The cases may be created from the same page and at the same time that the original court ordered debt is created (resident charge task page). Cases are often created for child/spousal support, court ordered victim restitution, or any form of inmate debt that requires detailed payment records and debt balance tracking. Disbursements may be calculated as fixed amounts or percentage amounts that prorate payments across all cases for the collection account type or paid sequentially via priority of the cases. Case payments (disbursement of funds) are made to predetermined recipients. These recipients may be individual recipients or they may be payees that receive similar funds from multiple inmates and cases. When the payee is an individual the pay to and address of the recipient is entered on the case record itself and established at the time the charge task is executed. Enterprise payees are maintained from a separate maintenance page and they may also have sub-payee levels. An example may be a payee that represents a state wide social service agency that receives all court ordered child support payments and a sub-payee level may be the county within the state where the court order originated. CACTAS tracks collection and disbursement activity in detail and is able to generate detailed reports that accompany the disbursement checks to inform the receiving agency which individual cases and what portion of the group check to apply to each case.
CACTAS allows for inmate account types to collect incoming funds per 4 account type status selections. The status selection established stopping rules for collection of funds for the account type in question. The type of charge assessed for a give inmate and account type determines the status of the account. A given account will be in one of the following status settings: off, debt, date, or perpetual. The off status means that the account will not attempt to collect any incoming funds. Debt status means that the account will try to collect some specified amount per the collection rules that have been established for the account type and inmate. Once the debt amount is satisfied the account will discontinue collections until another charge is made. Date status means the account will collect funds per the established collection rules until the specified date has been reached. The perpetual status means that the account will continue collections per the collection rules indefinitely (examples would be child support orders that demand payment be made but do not specify a specific debt amount).
Generally there are two general ledger accounts associated with each resident account type. One to track the collected balance of the account and one to track the account debt balance. CACTAS design will allow multiple inmate accounts to be tracked by common general ledger debt accounts and/or balance accounts if appropriate however. Debt balances of a given account type are carried as negative balances and reflected in the debt general ledger account balance. Collected funds are reflected as positive balances and carried in the collected account balance general ledger account.
The debt balance for a given account type always represents uncollected funds. Collection of funds will of course reduce the debt balance and be reflected as a positive collected account balance. Collected account balances may be negative (representing an overdraft) but debt balances will never have a positive balance. For example the units that accumulate indigent inmate charges for personal hygiene items distributed through their indigent programs would expect to see negative POS balances for their indigent population. Positive account balances are easily disbursed to approved payees in the form of checks or cash.
Collection/Debt accounts are used to collect and disburse funds to specific recipients, such as medical co-payments, victim restitution, property damage, per diem fees, and other user defined inmate charges. As charges are assessed, the funds may be taken from the inmates default account or the user may designate another account if desired. Available funds are deducted form the inmate’s personal balance and placed into the charge account balance that is available for disbursement to the appropriate recipient in the form of check, cash or EFT. If funds are not available at the time of assessment, or if the user chooses not to collect funds at the time of charge, a negative balance or lien will remain in the charged account’s debt balance to be collected as funds become available for this purpose.
CACTAS also has a powerful funds transfer capability that allows transfer of funds between accounts of an individual resident, or even between inmates within the same institution.
Other Fund Accounts
CACTAS allows using facilities to define an unlimited number of facility accounts (other fund accounts). These accounts represent money that is on deposit in the trust fund bank account but that does not belong to inmates. Funds may be transferred into these accounts from inmate accounts or funds may be transferred out of other funds accounts to inmate accounts. Funds may be deposited directly into these accounts and funds withdrawn for other funds accounts in the form of checks or cash. Journals may be done between other funds accounts and even between other funds accounts and selected system general ledger accounts such as checking, cash on hand, checkbook adjustments, un-disbursed commissions, etc. Other funds accounts may be configured to allow overdraft of the inmate account with other fund transfers or to deny overdrafts. Typically if inmate services that are collected through other funds transfer are denied when the inmate does not have sufficient funds the user would configure the other funds account to deny inmate overdraft. Typical uses of other funds accounts would be to collect inmate payment for certain services and/or items such as postage, copies, etc.
Release Disbursement Capability
CACTAS has a rich release disbursement functional capability. All inmate personal account balances are displayed on this screen giving the user a complete real time status of the inmate to be released. The user may issue gate funds at the time of release, return any portion of the inmate funds in the form of cash if desirable, and prepare an exit check for the balance, all possible from the same release disbursement page. At the time of release, CACTAS accounts are not purged from the database but they are made inactive. Upon booking of the same personal ID at some future date, the inactive account is then made active and all balances are reinstated as they were at the point of release. Therefore a subsequent booking will reinstate unpaid debt and unclaimed funds that are not settled at the time of release.
Reports
A suite of standard reports is available that will meet the needs of most users. All CACTAS standard reports allow for a high degree of user customization. CACTAS report screens support such capability as single and multiple column filters, single and multiple column sorting, drag and drop of columns, and a drive down feature to display another level of detail where appropriate. Selected sections of larger reports may be displayed and printed while omitting the unselected portions. Custom formatted versions of selected reports are available by default and others may be created from standard report lists. Any CACTAS report may be saved to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or in Adobe .PDF formats if desired.
CACTAS supports powerful ad hoc custom processing and reporting tools. First, we distribute a custom query window for users to develop and run custom ad hoc reports. Any custom report queries that we develop for our user community but do not include as part of the standard suite of CACTAS reports are made available to all users through this user-friendly program. The user simply clicks the open folder icon; opens the SQL text file desired and clicks go. The custom report is generated and is available for printing with the same customization tools (column add & delete plus saving as Excel spreadsheet) as standard CACTAS reports. Users can develop custom reports of their own by using this same tool. When used in this way a minimum level of SQL programming skills are required.
Secondly, CACTAS provides the capability for users to define custom processes, reports, and data capture forms. A minimum level of Microsoft standard query language (SQL) skill is required by users to set up this powerful capability. If your organization does not have access to the level of SQL skills to independently create the desired process, the CSi Help Desk will gladly assist. Typically this functionality is utilized in one or some combination of the following ways: