Many companies have already converted most of their
reports and forms to print on Laser printers. Generally cheques and invoices
are the last forms to be converted. For many customers we have designed laser
invoices to print on company letterhead with the addition of the appropriate
headings and columns. Other companies have gone the route of pre-printed laser
invoices. This has the advantage of a wider use of fonts, colours and shading.
Up until now most companies that did print their cheques
on a laser printer did so on pre-printed forms. Cheques have specialized fonts and magnetic account detail that
traditionally makes it difficult to print on plain paper. A relatively new feature
using a dedicated printer and a special toner cartridge makes it possible to do
this now with a variety of benefits to the company that employs it.
The first benefit is cost savings. Laser cheques printed
on plain cheque stock are less expensive than pre-printed cheques. Most
pre-printed cheques cost anywhere from twenty-five cents to a dollar dependant
on the sophistication of the cheque and the volume purchased. Cheques printed
on plain cheque stock usually cost between seven and fifteen cents per cheque.
This cost includes the blank cheque stock and magnetic toner cartridge usage.
The cost varies dependant on the volume of cheque stock purchased.
Another benefit of blank cheque stock is that it can be
ordered and shipped within a day or so as compared to weeks for pre-printed
cheques. You can also use the same stock for multiple companies and bank
accounts. In this way you are much less likely to run out of cheques for any
one company or bank acct.
Since blank cheque stock is just blank paper it is also
less likely that a cheque will be stolen and forged by opportunistic thieves.
Normally you would have to factor in the cost of a
dedicated Laser Printer into the cost of a laser cheque. A special program from
Fischer Computers provides a free rental of a Laser Cheque printer providing
you purchase six laser toner cartridges. These cartridges do not have to be
exclusively for your Laser Cheque Printer. You could purchase two cartridges
for that printer and a mixture of four toner cartridges for your other laser
printers. Another feature of this arrangement is that Fischer services the
printer free of charge.
As mentioned, one of the benefits of using blank cheque
stock is that it reduces cheque theft and cheque fraud. Many banks are now
offering a service called Positive Pay Processing. This system requires that
you transmit a file to the bank each time you do a cheque run. The bank in turn
will only clear cheques that match the number, amount and payee of the items
that you have transmitted to them. The clearing process requires that cheques
meet a specific spacing requirement. We have already confirmed that our Laser
Cheques meet this requirement if you want to subscribe to one of these new
services.
Another feature that many banks provide is an electronic
cheque listing of cheques that they have cleared. We have developed routines at
several clients to import and reconcile these cheque records automatically. The
process prints out an exceptions report noting any duplicated cheques or
cheques where the numbers or amounts do not match those in the matching
Accounts Payable database.
Some companies are also actually paying bills
electronically using direct deposit services similar to that used by many of
our payroll clients. This service is now available if it is something that you
are interested in using.