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PERSONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PROVIDER

USER MANUAL

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TABLE OF CONTENTS User Manual ........................................................................................................................... Page 3 Appendix A – Creating a PDF ................................................................................................ Page 18 Appendix B – Adding a joint Debtor Certificate as an Attachment ...................................... Page 21 Appendix C – CM/ECF Help Desk Information ...................................................................... Page 24 PLEASE NOTE: This User Manual was developed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern

District of Michigan to inform you of the instructions regarding filing the Certificate of Completion of a Personal Financial Management Course. It should not be considered legal advice.

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PERSONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PROVIDER USER MANUAL Instructions for Filing a Certificate of Completion of a Personal Financial Management Course Introduction BANKRUPTCY RULE 1007(b)(7) As an approved personal financial management course provider, you are now allowed to file the certificate of completion of the post‐petition personal financial management course for debtors directly with the court. Bankruptcy Rule 1007(b)(7) has been amended to streamline this process and is scheduled to go into effect on December 1, 2013.

• As an approved personal financial management course provider, you will need to register as a CM/ECF limited filer in each court where you will be filing personal financial management course certificates on behalf of debtors.

• Each court in which you will be filing will provide you with a limited filer agreement.

• Training material for filing these certificates are included in this document.

• Go to each court’s public web site for instructions on how to get a CM/ECF login and

password. Deadlines associated with filing certificates of debtors’ completion of this course are critically important to the debtor and your responsibilities as an approved course provider.

• In a chapter 7 or 13 case, if the statement of the debtor's completion of the course is not filed within 45 days after the first date set for the §341 meeting, amended Fed. R. Bankr. P. 5009(b) will require the clerk to notify the debtor that the case will be closed without entry of a discharge unless the statement is filed within the applicable deadline under Fed. R. Bankr. P. 1007(c).

• In a chapter 11 or 13 case, this certificate of completion must be filed no later than the

last payment made by the debtor as required by the plan. The risk to the debtor, if the provider fails to timely file the certificate, is that the debtor’s case could be closed without a discharge. See Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4004(c)(1)(H). Some courts may revoke a provider’s limited filer privileges if the provider does not file a certificate in a timely manner.

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• The failure to do so could result in the closing of the debtor’s case without a discharge.

• In the event your limited filer privileges are revoked by a court, the court will notify the Executive Office of the U.S. Trustees or Bankruptcy Administrator of the revocation.

If you need to review what has been filed in a case, you will need to register with the PACER Service Center to obtain case information at http://www.pacer.gov/register.html

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Steps for Filing the Certificate of Completion of a Personal Financial Management Course

• Access to a debtor’s case is through the court’s Case Management Electronic Case Filing (CM/ECF) system.

• CM/ECF is a Web based software program used by all the bankruptcy courts in the

country.

• CM/ECF can be accessed successfully using Internet Explorer 8.0 and 9.0 and Mozilla Firefox.

• Internet Explorer is the recommended Web browser.

The following pages provide the steps to file a personal financial management course certificate electronically to the debtor’s case.

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APPENDIX A

CREATING A PDF There are two primary methods for creating PDF documents:

• formatting text documents into PDF at the time of creation or • scanning imaged documents from paper into PDF.

Of these two methods, formatting at the time of creation is preferable. This method reduces the amount of labor involved, requires less storage space, and allows for text search capability. When Adobe Acrobat is installed on your system, the PDF Writer installs a printer driver. Therefore, when a text document is converted to PDF format it is done similarly to printing the document. Users will often refer to PDF creation as “printing the document in PDF.” The PDF Writer is the recommended tool for creating PDF documents from word processing programs. PDF requirements for the Eastern District of Michigan are outlined in ECF Procedure 8(a) of the Administrative Procedures for Electronic Case Filing.

** The following pages have step‐by‐step instructions for creating a PDF. **

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Creating PDF files from Word Processing Programs

Converting a word processing document to a PDF file is as simple as printing it to a standard printer if you have Adobe Acrobat writer installed on your computer. Once you have input the word processing document or opened a saved word processing file, you proceed as follows: Step 1: Select File > Print.

Step 2: Choose Acrobat PDF from the Name menu in the printer selection box and click

Print.

Step 3: In the Save PDF File As dialog box choose the locations to save the PDF document/file. Enter a file name for your document/file and verify that the “Save as type” contains the extension for PDF files (*.PDF) and click Save. Your word processing document has now been saved as a PDF document/file.

Scanning Paper Documents into PDF

For those documents that must be imaged, the preferred method is to scan the document(s) directly into PDF format using Adobe Acrobat. Scanning to a format other than PDF adds both delay and labor. It requires not only the document(s) to be scanned but also to be converted into PDF format after scanning. The process for scanning a document directly into PDF format is as follows: Step 1: Launch Adobe Acrobat. This may be done by clicking on the Adobe Acrobat icon

or clicking on Start > Programs > Adobe Acrobat.

Step 2: Select File > Import > Scan.

Step 3: An Acrobat Scan Plug‐in dialog box will appear. Select the correct scanning device and format using the down arrows, then click Scan.

Step 4: A scan dialog box will appear. Select the appropriate setting for the document you are scanning. The document should be filed in black and white so the file size is as small as possible. Click Scan. Note: Scan dialog boxes vary depending on printer models.

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Step 5: Another Acrobat Scan Plug‐in dialog box will appear. If multiple pages are being scanned, remove the previously scanned page from your scanner and insert the next page to be scanned and click Next. Once you have scanned all pages, click Done.

Step 6: Once this is done, Adobe will open the scanned document. The document can be saved as a PDF file by selection File > Save/Save As.

Note: Each PDF being uploaded to the court’s database cannot exceed 5 megabytes. If the PDF exceeds 5 megabytes, you must either lower the resolutions on your scanner or break the document into separate parts.

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Page 223 of 24

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APPENDIX C

CM/ECF HELP DESK INFORMATION

Email [email protected]

Phone Bay City: (989) 894‐8840 Detroit: (313) 234‐0065 Flint: (810) 235‐4126