Visitors to the Registry

A group from the Massachusetts Association of Tax Collectors and Treasurers visited the registry today. After a tour of our operations that followed the path that a document takes when it is recorded, we viewed a slideshow that depicts the electronic recording process. Town treasurers and tax collectors are prime candidates for electronic recording. Consider municipal lien certificates. Now, the customer sends a letter and a check requesting an MLC to town hall. Town employees enter data into a computer program and print an original MLC. That document is then mailed to the customer who requested it. He takes it to the registry and pays the recording fee. At the registry, we enter the data into our computer and scan the document to create an electronic image which become the official record. With electronic recording, there might never be a paper document produced. The customer requesting the MLC could send the request, the fee for the MLC and the registry recording fee to the Treasurer. The Treasurer would then enter the data needed to produce the MLC but instead of hitting the “print” button, he would click “send” and the data embedded in an electronic document template would be transmitted to the registry. It would arrive here as an incoming electronic recording package. Once accepted by us, the data and the document image would flow right into our computer system with no further scanning or data entry. This method would greatly increase the efficiency of the customer, the Treasurer and the Registry. Best of all, it’s not all that far away – months, not years.