What is Positive Pay and How Does It Protect Check Fraud?

Positive Pay is an essential part of every check fraud prevention program. It prevents check fraud, helps attenuate your liabilities, and assists in maintaining your valuable reputation. By implementing positive pay software, you can protect yourself and your business from the billions of dollars in check fraud that occur annually.

What is Positive Pay?

Positive Pay is a fraud prevention service offered by most banks designed to protect against forged, altered, and counterfeit checks; reducing your risk and responsibility for check fraud. Your bank will compare the check details; amount, check number, payee against a list provided by you detailing the details of your check. The bank will compare every endorsed and cashed check against the Positive Pay report you provide, giving you the power and control to stop potential check fraud in its track, before it impacts you and your funds.

Benefits:

• Reduced check fraud risk
• Save time & money
• Automated service
• Preprints and blank stock supported
• Positive Pay

Guard against Check Fraud

Check fraud does not have to affect your business anymore. Positive Pay helps prevent check fraud by means of a digital confirmation of checks presented for payment. When used together with a highly secure check, Positive Pay can protect your business against fraudulent activity and reduce the risk of unnecessary losses.

With Checkrun’s Positive Pay software, we make it easy to convert your check data into files that match your bank’s specifications. We offer the largest positive pay library and uses .csv files to create universal formats that are bank specific.

Easily secure your check payments

Before check distribution, the positive pay process involves converting check-issue data to your bank’s specific format and electronically transferring the file to your bank. The bank compares check data from this file with checks presented for payment. If any unmatched items appear, the bank notifies you for check verification.

Checkrun makes it easy to convert your check data into files that match your bank’s specifications. We are the only check management application to integrate services for Positive Pay and also offers other levels of security for your protection:

• Data encryption
• Workflow approval process
• Warning notifications
• User permissions
• Event logs
• Secure audit trails

Preprints vs. blank check stock

Blank check stock enables you to print from multiple accounts onto the same stock and eliminates costly preprinted stock. With blank check stock you can quickly and easily print all your checks, from multiple accounts, without ever having to change the stock in the printer. Checkrun’s software works with preprints or blank check stock and multiple check layouts are supported.

Our TruPrint blank check stock adds over 15 advanced security features to your checks including: secQR code, security fonts, microprint and more. Each check represents your corporate image and has the additional responsibilities of passing your bank’s processing stands and preventing fraud.

How Positive Pay works with Checkrun

You simply print checks as normal from Checkrun. Whether you are using QuickBooks Online Pre-prints, Blank Check Stock or our print and mail service, a Positive Pay file can easily be generated within Checkrun and formatted to your banks Positive Pay specifications for you to submit to your bank.

Checkrun’s extensive library of positive pay formats support the majority of US banks allowing you generate a report with all the pertinent details your bank will use to protect you from check fraud. Checkrun also supports a universal file format, csv.

1. Positive Pay File Conversion – As you issue checks, Checkrun converts them from a wide array of possible client export formats into a single, positive pay format required by your bank.
2. Payee Positive Pay Compatible – We can generate positive pay files for payee name verification. The file includes a record of the:
   • Date
   • Amount
   • Check number/account
   • Payee name

Check fraud by the numbers

With significant changes occurring in accounts payable technology, preventing check and payment fraud has become an increasingly top-of-mind concern. “Unfortunately, payments fraud attacks are the ‘new normal,’ and advancements in technology have opened the doors for fraudsters,” as reported in the 2020 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report.