Last year 1.1 billion cheques were issued, 620 million were personal cheques and 493 million were made out by businesses.
Back in June I wrote about the cessation of the cheque guarantee scheme and the U-turn the Payments Council had taken in relation to cheques. It was genuinely feared that cheques and cheque printing would be phased out by 2018 and be replaced with?
With what?
Last week I was delighted to hear and read that the Payments Council is now reviewing the re-introduction of the cheque guarantee scheme this is where cheques to the value of £50.00 and £100.00 are honoured by the Bank.
Although chip and pin is very much part and parcel of our everyday lives we still have the problem of writing personal cheques for things like school trips, book clubs, subscriptions or pay the domestic plumber.
Cheque printing is still an integral part of many businesses?
Many companies will pay their suppliers via BACs but there are local government departments and educational institutions who by outsourcing cheques and payments will generate manual cheques and they are an important component in their payment stream.
But what if making payments by cheque and electronic means is becoming… well a bit of pain..
Using an electronic & Cheque payment solution/Payments Bureau will save you time and money. A service that prints and personalises cheques including the signatory all in one pass to APACS and C&CCC (Cheque & Credit Clearing Company)
Printing and personalising cheques can be a costly exercise and also a security issue!
Using an end to end service affords flexible credit and cheque outsourcing and fulfilment that satisfies the following:-
outsourced cheque printing & mailing
outsourced credit printing & mailing
no minimum or maximum data quantity
no specific file format required
Using a Payment Bureau service gives flexibility to outsource regular and one off payments and can be used for:
Bacs
Faster Payments
Cheques
Direct Debit
Remittances
The automation of payments and collections can be administered without costly software.
A payments bureau is ideal for combining cheque and electronic transactions from one secure payments file and in the event of your system failing ensures that all your important payments and collections are made on time.
Cheques and cheque printing along with Bacs payments can work effectively.
So before we say good bye to the cheque book forever spare a thought for the importance it still retains in our everyday lives.
For all your cheque and payment processing drop Digital Print Management a request to call and we can discuss the best and most cost effective solution for processing your payment!
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This is the second part in a series of articles that covers cheques, cheque printing and payment processing.
Outsourcing your payment processing to a Payments Bureau gives you the flexibility to remove the onerous task of managing a mix of cheque and electronic payments. Outsourcing the process gives you the flexibility to do regular and one off payments.
Why not combine your cheque and electronic payments and outsource to a payments bureau?
Why Use A Payments Bureau Service?
Bacs
Faster Payments
Cheques
Direct Debit
Payment Advices/Remittances.
Using a Payments Bureau allows you to automate payments and collections without going to the expense of purchasing or administering software. Outsourcing this process gives you peace of mind that payments are being made at the time of your choosing.
Optimising the facilities of a Bacs approved Bureau powered by Experian Payments UK Gateway is ideal for combining your cheque and electronic payments from a secure payments file. The Bureau will take care of all data files, exceptions and reporting.
Using an integrated payments solution your payments can be issued from a single platform and include Bacs, Direct Debit collections with cheques and remittance advice printing and posting.
By combining cheque and electronic payments, a payment bureau will save you time and money
With access and expertise to the following services, payment processing couldn’t be simpler:
Cheques
Cheque Printing Systems for In-House Use
Bacs Software
CHAPS
Pre-paid Cards
Credits & Deposit Slips and Books
Find out more about Cheques and Payment Solutions. By clicking here!
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Cheque printing and BAC’s payments are being used in vast quantities daily for payments to suppliers and customers alike.
The difficulty with combining both methods can be costly and labour intensive particularly when you are hand matching cheques and separate remittances factor in cheque distribution for various signatories and the task suddenly becomes cumbersome. A customer recently expressed his frustration at what seemed like an endless stream of cheques to sign; in reality that wasn’t the case, it just felt like it to him!
By using an end to end service for cheque printing and sign-writing the process becomes a completely automated, flexible outsourced fulfilment service for cheques and credit printing all prepared to C & CCC standards.
I am going to make the case here for why organisations should seriously consider outsourcing this process.
So here’s a list of tips to consider before cheque outsourcing!
1/ What do you hope to achieve by outsourcing your cheques? Is it cost reduction, time saving, automation of the process or a combination of all three?
2/ How many payments do you make monthly/weekly and is this inconvenient or difficult to manage?
Outsourcing enables a company to combine cheque and electronic payment transactions from one secure payments file, a bureau can take care of data separation and exceptions reporting too.
3/ Are you wanting to continue with a mix of cheque and BACS payments?
Using a payments bureau gives you the flexibility to outsource regular and one off payments and can be used for BACS, Cheques, DD Payments. You can automate payments without having to purchase or administer software.
Cheques are still needed to make payments to people and businesses.
4/ Does your system allow you to create cheque remittances? Or is it something you’ve never made the time do? By amalgamating a cheque with a remittance portion simplifies the printing and sending of cheques, no separate cheque and remittance run.
5/ Outsourcing cheques is not like asking your local printer down the road to print your stationery requirements; you need to ensure that the printer has APACS accreditation and C & CCC (Cheque & Credit Clearing Company) along with ISO27001 the information management accreditation which demonstrates a company’s process regarding the handling of your information and data.
This is critical in any outsourcing process but even more so for cheques and payments. A due diligence visit to the security printer is a must to authenticate process and procedures are in place for the handling of cheque data.
6/ Professional – Do your cheques currently convey your brand or they are simply bank standard issue?
By outsourcing your company cheques they can be personalised with your company image and design.
7/ Administration – How much time is it really taking to print and process cheques in-house?
Outsourcing cheques and payments will be done quickly, accurately and can be tailored to be processed daily, weekly or monthly.
8/ Security – what happens when cheques are distributed around the business for signing they can easily be mislaid or misappropriated and non infilled cheques pose a security risk.
Outsourcing gives you secure cheque design with additional security features UV, aqua-fugitive and holograms plus an audit trail for all cheques printed and not where’s that cheque I sent up to the 4th floor for signing gone?
9/ Do you have multiple sites?
If your organisation needs to manage stocks across a branch network or across many sites using a customer automated stocking or replenishment system will automatically manage and replenish stocks at each branch.
10/ And finally, do you need cheques for overseas banking?
Cheques can be printed in any format in any denomination – sterling £; euro € , dollars $ or even multi-currency options as A4 cut sheets, cheque books, continuous binder cheques or pressure seal mailers personalised using MICR printers, sign, fold, insert and post out.
Digital Print Management can offer independent expert advice on what kind of printed cheque a company should use and can advise you on the latest cheque formats and security cheque printing solutions.
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