Midwest Bonding / Process Map v2 / Supersedes sheet 2 expansion

The Bond
as a State Machine

Julie's framing, made literal: a bond is an inventory item that moves through states, and if it misses a marker it goes back. What the original sheets drew as one process is actually three lifecycles running on the same bond at different speeds, joined at four points. This version covers sheets 2 and 4 together, because the most valuable path in the business crosses between them.

CoversSheet 2 and sheet 4, plus customer service note capture

Out of scopeSheet 3 receivables detail, bookkeeping, office management

ReplacesSheet 2 task expansion, v1

StatusDraft for Julie

Section A

The spine

Read across a row to see what all three lifecycles are doing at the same moment. The joins are where they touch, and they are the only places the three can be reconciled against each other. Everything in the office that feels like chaos is one of these tracks moving without the others knowing.

Phase

Liabilitythe bond, court and surety facing

Powerthe instrument, surety facing

Premium and collateralthe money, customer facing

P1Origination

No bond Jail roster lead sheet run each morning against current clients. Agent contacted, defendant qualified. Case may not exist yet.

In agent stock Serial unassigned, sitting in an agent's car or office. Expiry clock already running. Nobody knows the stock level without counting paper.

Quoted Gross premium set. Nothing collected. Indemnitor identified.

P2Execution and closure

WrittenSubmittedIn reportReworkClosedReported Handwritten packet to Dropbox, keyed to form, sorted per agent, proofread, defects returned to the agent. Closure is the gate. First court date entered if it came with the paperwork, otherwise looked up. Join 1: execution binds all three tracks to one serial

ExecutedReportedPaidReplenished Serial bound to this bond. Enters the weekly surety file, exported to CSV, imported to Lexington. Check written for powers consumed, replacement stock requested one for one and mailed back. VoidedSpoiled powers cancelled on the ledger. No second reader today. Join 2: closure gates the surety report

Paid in full Premium plus fees collected at signing. Receipt issued. No receivable. This is the clean path and it ends here. Financed Partial or no payment. Promissory note signed, entered in QuickBooks, duplicate invoices generated, customer enters the statement cycle. Collateral held Cash or mortgage. Cash over $10,000 triggers an IRS Form 8300 filing. Segregated handling required under Chapter 60M. Join 3: card transactions reconciled to the report before closure

P3Active servicing

Active, date known Dialer reminder placed. Appearance checked in the public record the morning after every hearing. Active, no date Three distinct populations currently in one list. 3a No case attached: bond written before charging, cannot be searched by case number at all, rechecked twice a month. 3b Case exists, unscheduled. 3c Warrant outstanding, no new date. Each needs a different action. Rule: no new date within 7 days moves a bond to the no-date list

Dormant, liability open Nothing happens on this track for months. The only scheduled event is the annual sweep, when every unused power in agent hands expires on January 1 and must be accounted for. Unaccounted The dangerous state. A serial that is neither executed, voided, nor in hand is open exposure the surety cannot see.

CurrentAging Statements run on the 5th. Financed customers tracked to 60 days, then routed to collections by dollar band. Settlement customers reviewed for payment activity monthly. Bankruptcy stay Notice from federal court halts all collection immediately, regardless of where the account sits.

P4Distress

FTA, no warrantFTA, warrant These are independent flags, not one branch. A defendant can miss a hearing without a warrant issuing, and that case behaves nothing like the warrant case. Forfeiture ordered Court notice received, or in some cases never received and caught only by the no-date sweep. Internal hold policy by amount decides what happens next. In recovery Entered to the arrest alert service, skip trace and case update prepared, field team dispatched. Join 4: forfeiture detonates across all three tracks at once

Exposure crystallized The face value becomes a real debt to the court. The 90 day payment clock starts on the order date. Statewide suspension Non-payment at 90 days automatically suspends the surety and its agents from writing anywhere in Minnesota, for 30 days from the date the principal is paid. Every other bond in the pipeline stops. This is the single worst outcome on the map and it lives on the power track, not the liability track.

Forfeiture billed Cosigner invoiced in QuickBooks for the forfeited amount, plus the recovery fee, typically ten percent for an in state recovery under the indemnity agreement, plus extradition and legal costs. Statement cycle Forfeiture statements printed and sorted by hand into bad address, write off under $149, and collections at $150 and up.

P5Resolution

Petition draftedWith attorneyFiled Draft assembled from the forfeiture record and case updates, reviewed, sent to outside counsel, filed. Extension requests are a separate, earlier petition type. ReinstatedR and DR and D with penaltyDenied Four possible orders. Reinstatement returns the bond to active servicing, which is the most valuable transition in the business and the one that crosses back from sheet 4 to sheet 2. Exonerated Case concluded. Liability released and reported weekly.

Released Exoneration or successful reinstatement and discharge returns the exposure. Reported to the surety on the weekly cycle. Paid and closed Forfeiture paid, bond lost, money deposited to the state treasury.

Collateral returned Only once the surety has written evidence of discharge and no other liabilities are outstanding. Mortgage collateral requires a release. In collectionsJudgmentDocketedWritten off The receivable outlives the bond. It continues on sheet 3 long after the liability is closed.

The evidence layer, underneath all three tracks

Not a step. A capture layer every state writes into, with an author, a timestamp, and a category. Julie built the first version of this already and named the reason exactly: proof that "we did talk to his mom, he was going to be here," and the problem that "that stuff is all over the place." The output is the petition.

Categorized notesAuthor, timestamp, category, free text. Filterable so a petition writer pulls only what is relevant.

Dialer dispositionsAnswered, machine, bad number, and whether the person confirmed they would appear.

Contact attemptsCalls, texts, emails to defendant, indemnitor, family and references, with outcome.

Case updatesSkip trace results, addresses, phone numbers, social media, mugshot, custody checks.

Field agent notesAttempts, addresses visited, contact made, uploaded from the recovery team.

Custody confirmationsArrest alert, jail roster, corrections lookup, with the roster saved to the file.

Factor 1Cause, purpose and length of the absence. Comes from the appearance record and the no-date sweep.

Factor 2Fault or willfulness of the defendant. Comes from dialer dispositions and contact attempts showing notice was given.

Factor 3Good faith efforts to apprehend and produce. Comes from case updates and field agent notes.

Factor 4Prejudice to the state. Reduced by speed. Comes from time to recovery.

Section B

The clock register

Every deadline that can hurt MWB, in one place. This is the specification for the rules engine, and it should be configurable and versioned rather than written into the code, because the court can change it. Rows in red are the ones that can stop the business.

Clock	Starts on	Length	What happens if it is missed	Track
Forfeiture payment	Date of the forfeiture order	90 days	Automatic suspension of the surety and its agents from writing anywhere in Minnesota, running 30 days from the date the principal is paid	Power
Full reinstatement window	Date of the forfeiture order	0 to 90 days	Petition is heard by the judge who ordered forfeiture, on terms the court sets. Full reinstatement is possible in this window and not after	Liability
Penalty reinstatement window	Date of the forfeiture order	90 to 180 days	Requires the chief judge to concur, and carries a mandatory minimum penalty of ten percent of the bond. Courts have no discretion to forgive it	Liability
Absolute reinstatement cutoff	Date of the forfeiture order	180 days	No reinstatement is available. The bond is lost regardless of recovery effort	Liability
Extension request	Court due date	File 2 weeks prior	Internal practice. Missing it forfeits the chance to extend before the window closes	Liability
No new court date	Last hearing	7 days	Internal rule. Bond moves to the no-date list, where the current sweep takes two weeks to come around	Liability
Power expiry	Issue of the power	Annual, void after January 1	Unused stock becomes worthless and must be swept and accounted for. Agents holding expired powers cannot write	Power
Surety reporting cycle	Report closure	Weekly, entry Monday and Tuesday, package Tuesday	Replenishment does not ship. Agents run out of stock and stop writing	Power
IRS Form 8300	Receipt of cash over $10,000	15 days	Federal filing penalty	Premium
Statement cycle	5th of the month	Monthly	Aging is not detected. Accounts pass 60 days without routing	Premium
Collections routing	Statement date	60 days past due	Routed by band: under $1,000 to the collection arm, $1,001 to $15,000 in house to conciliation court, $15,000 and up or out of state to outside counsel per the consent order	Premium
Settlement non-compliance	Missed settlement payment	3 months, final notice at 4, non-compliance at 5	Affidavit of non-compliance not filed, settlement not enforced	Premium
Conciliation docketing	Judgment entered	23 days	Judgment is not transcribed to district court and cannot be enforced the same way	Premium
Bankruptcy notice	Receipt of notice	Immediate	Collection activity after a stay is a serious problem	Premium
Producer license and SCAO approval	Prior renewal	Biennial	Agent cannot write. Approval is statewide and so is the lapse	Power

Internal hold policy sits on top of these clocks and should be configurable, not assumed: forfeitures of $2,000 and under are paid immediately, $5,000 and under are held 30 days to see whether they resolve, and above $5,000 are held about a week before going to recovery. That policy is spending real money against the 90 day clock, and nobody can currently see the tradeoff.

Section C

Tools and artifacts

The definition of done, expressed as things that stop existing. This is a starting inventory from the interviews and the walkthrough. Julie has a list started that should be merged in, and every row needs a real file name and location before the build begins.

Artifact	Used for	Owner	Disposition
Dropbox defendant file folders	Agent uploads the handwritten packet	Field agents	Integrate becomes document storage against the bond record
Microsoft intake form	Keying the handwritten packet	Julie, Bri	Retire replaced by intake with document extraction
Form download workbook	Landing place for form responses	Julie, Bri	Retire
Per agent report spreadsheets	Report plus that agent's commission calculation	Julie, Bri	Retire becomes a filter and a generated report
Agent assignment sheet	Telling a colleague the upload happened, to avoid a phone call	Julie, Bri	Retire replaced by workflow state
Lexington import file	CSV of executed powers for the surety	Ellie	Keep as output generated, not maintained
Master forfeiture spreadsheet	Every forfeiture, status, resolution method, colour coded for petition assignment	Mandy, Ellie	Retire this is the highest value single replacement on sheet 4
Case tracking spreadsheet	Open recovery files	Emma	Retire
No-date list	Bonds with no known next court date, about 35 pages	Sarah	Retire becomes a query with three subtypes
Exoneration list	Weekly release report to the surety	Sarah, Ellie	Retire becomes a generated report
Cash collateral table	Cash held, by bond	Julie	Retire
Mortgage collateral table	Real property pledged	Julie	Retire
Large cash and 8300 table	Cash over $10,000 and the federal filing	Julie	Retire becomes a triggered task with a deadline
Dialer upload list	Daily reminder call list, built by hand	Sarah	Retire and note the dialer itself is expiring
Jail roster lead sheet	Morning bookings matched against current clients, sent to agents	Angela	Integrate origination, currently off the map entirely
Recovery agency file	Skip trace, addresses, mugshot, map, colour coded by area	Angela	Integrate generated from the bond record
QuickBooks	General ledger, receivables, invoicing	Accounting	Keep integrate, do not replace
Arrest alert service	FTA monitoring and custody alerts	Angela, Emma	External receive alerts into the bond record
Public court record	Appearance, warrant, next date, case detail	Sarah and others	External assisted lookup, human in the loop
Card processing system	Premium collection and reconciliation	Julie, Tif	External reconcile automatically against the report
Access prototype	Julie's working model of sheet 2	Julie	Becomes the specification not the shipped product

What changed from v1

Three lifecycles instead of one processThe original sheets drew fourteen tasks in sequence. The bond, the power, and the premium move on different clocks with different owners and only touch at four joins. Most of the confusion in the office is one track moving while the others are blind to it.
Report generation is an assembly line, not a boxHandwriting to form to workbook to per agent sheet to filename formula to check image to card reconciliation to proofread. Six or seven hops. Drawing it as one step hid where the labour actually is.
The surety import already existsPowers are no longer hand keyed into the surety system. They are exported to Excel and imported as CSV. The friction flag on that step comes off. The remaining keying is into MWB's own spreadsheets.
Failure to appear is a two by twoAppeared and warrant are independent flags. No appearance with no warrant is a different animal from no appearance with a warrant, and the map now separates them.
The no-date list has three populationsNo case attached, case unscheduled, and warrant outstanding. The first cannot be searched by case number at all, which is why those bonds are structurally invisible.
Collateral is on the mapCash and mortgage, with segregated handling under Chapter 60M, a federal filing above $10,000, and a return process gated on written evidence of discharge. None of this appeared before.
The worst outcome is on the power trackNon payment of a forfeiture at 90 days suspends the surety and every agent statewide. That is not a bad day for one file, it is every bond in the pipeline stopping. It belongs at the top of the risk list.
Evidence is a layer, not a stepCategorized notes, dialer dispositions, contact attempts, case updates, field notes and custody confirmations all write into one place, and the petition is the report that comes out.
Sheets 2 and 4 are one mapReinstatement returns a bond to active servicing. Drawing forfeiture on a separate page hid the most valuable transition in the business behind a page break.

What has to be answered before the build

What is the consent order, who issued it, and which of these steps does it constrain? It shows up in report closure and in collections routing, which means it touches two of the three tracks.
Where does the forfeiture order date come from, and is it ever wrong? Every clock in Section B hangs off that one field.
How often does the court fail to send a forfeiture notice, and how are those actually being caught today besides the no-date sweep?
What does the power series code mean, and how are large bond limits authorized?
How many powers are in agent hands right now, and what is the real annual expiry loss?
Does the surety import accept exonerations and reinstatements, or only new powers? If it is bidirectional the weekly reports collapse into one file.
Which of the four possible court orders is most common, and what is the current reinstatement success rate? Without that, nobody can price the hold policy against the 90 day clock.
If the dialer becomes text messaging, where is consent captured, and does the current intake paperwork support it?