Skip to main content

Positive Pay

Positive Pay is a service offered by most banks to combat check fraud. The basic routine is after each batch of checks are produced you send a file to the bank for the checks you are issuing. The bank validates both the payee and the amount. If somebody tries to cash a check that they do not have on file, it is stopped. Companies that generate multiple batches of checks per day and mail them out all at once can transmit multiple batches together.

I know this process works as I was present at a client’s site when somebody tried to cash a check that the bank did not have record of, and they were called. In this case the check was legitimate, they had just forgotten to send the batch to the bank, but the point is the process works and, had that been a fraudulent transaction, it would have been averted. Since the bank also validates amount you are protected by check washing or similar scams.

Currently four banks are supported:

TD Bank Canada

Bank of Montreal – Canada

Bank of America – CashPro CSV

HSBC CA300

Positive Pay Export​

AP > Utilities > Positive Pay

img

The fields shown on the screen change with each Positive Pay format. Once you fill in the values, EPASS saves them so you do not need to fill them in each time.