An article in this mornings news highlights a growing area of fraud. This scheme involves printing fake bank checks – with your company name, account and routing information.

Thanks to the miracle of technology printers and software capable of creating such fake checks are cheap and extremely easy to use.

The scam typically involves a short term employee who you pay with a check. This dishonest person copies your account number, routing and bank coding from the face of the check into software which allows them to perfectly create a replica check in whatever amount they desire.

When presented to the bank – the check appears genuine since all the account information is valid.

Only later will – typically during reconciliation – will you uncover the theft. In many cases the bank covers the loss but requests that for future checks you issue to them what is called a positive pay file.

Positive pay is simply a listing of all the check numbers you’ve written, the payees and the amount. This data is loaded to the bank’s systems so when someone tries to cash one of your checks the bank knows whether the check is valid or not.

How do you create a positive pay file?

Users of Sage 100 ERP have this capability already built into their Bank Reconciliation module from which you can choose from a set of common bank format templates – or easily create your own layout.

Sage 100 ERP exports this data to a text file which you then upload to your bank for their use in seeking out possible fraud on your checking account.