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Positive Pay set up and processing

For live payroll processing only

Positive Pay is a service you can use to electronically share your check register with a selected bank. The bank will then pay only checks listed in and using the same specifications as that register, which reduces the likelihood of check fraud.

You can create Positive Pay files to send to your bank, but currently this feature is supported only for firm impound banks and those only using the Citizens
or Citizens with Payee Name
format.

note

It may be possible to use the Citizens
or Citizens with Payee Name
format with other banks as long as the Positive Pay file specifications of those banks are the same as the Citizens
formats.

Once you've registered with the bank to use Positive Pay, do the following to set up the bank to create Positive Pay files.

Set up the bank account

To set up Positive Pay information for the firm impound bank account, select Setup
, Firm Information
, then Impound Bank Accounts
.

In the

Impound Bank Accounts

screen, select the bank account then Edit
.

In the Positive Pay section, use the dropdown to choose the file format.

In the Transaction start date
field, select the date you want to begin including transactions from this bank account in Positive Pay files.

Select Enter
to save your changes.

Create and manage Positive Pay files

Do the following to create Positive Pay files to send to your bank:

Create and print checks from the bank account as usual.

Select Actions
, Process Positive Pay
, then Impound Bank Accounts
.

In the

Process Positive Pay Impound Bank Accounts

screen, transactions are listed in the grid by bank account. Expand the list of transactions and select individual transactions by marking their checkboxes, or mark the checkbox next to the bank account to select all transactions from that bank account.

Preview the files by marking the checkbox next to the bank account or next to individual transactions then selecting Preview Selected
.

With all applicable transactions selected, select Create Files
to create the Positive Pay files and store them in the default file location, which is shown at the bottom of the screen.

note

You can change the default file location for Positive Pay files in the File Creation
tab of the

File Locations

window.

If necessary, preview the created files by selecting Manage Files
to open the

Manage Files

window.

Positive Pay file structure

Some banks may not accept the Citizens Bank file format, but they might be willing to work on converting files to that format. The following table provides the positioning and maximum character information that a bank will need to accomodate the file structure.

Positions	Length	Description	Comment
01-10	10	Account Number	Right justified, left zero filled
11-20	10	Serial Number	Right justified, left zero filled
21-30	10	Dollar Amount	Right justified, left zero filled (Omit decimal – e.g. $$$$$$$$¢¢)
31-36	6	Issue Date	MMDDYY
37-37	1	Record Type	V = Void
38-52	15	*Additional Data 1	Repeat the first positions of payee name if desired for reporting
53-112	60	**Payee Name	Left justified with exact contents of the payee line as it appears on the issued check
113-180	68	Additional Data 3	Reserved for future use

*The first 15 positions of additional data, for each check, are displayed on the reconciliation reports and on the CD-ROM product.

**The Payee Name field is applicable only if the customer has subscribed to the Payee Positive Pay feature of Positive Pay.

This article applies to:

Product: Accounting CS
Subject: Payroll checks,Setup

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