Cheque printing: Best practice for personalising company cheques
Cheque printing is still an integral part of many businesses and popularity has increased again since the introduction of cheque imaging. There are many advantages when it comes to businesses using cheques, be it for paying contractors or vendors, interest payments to lenders or simply to create a paper trail which can be easily reviewed.
If your business uses a lot of cheques, it may have crossed your mind to start personalising cheques. This means your cheques can have their own unique brand and style as well as including a whole range of security features such as micro text or security numbering to protect your business from cheque fraud.
Before you start personalised cheque printing, there are a few things to take into consideration. First of all, you’ll need authorisation from the bank where you hold an account. Then you must show evidence that you are aware of the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company’s (C&CCC) Standard 3.1 which relates to the automated processing of vouchers and that you are able to meet the necessary level of quality and security controls.
As one of the largest specialist cheque suppliers in the industry, we can design and provide personalised cheques that meet all the standards set by the C&CCC. Get in touch to find out more about the secure cheque print service we can provide.
If you plan on printing personalised cheques yourself, you will require base stock which is a special type of cheque printing paper on which the coloured security background comes pre-printed. All cheques in the United Kingdom must be printed on base stock and any business printing cheques that plan to use a laser printer to personalise cheques must order base stock printed on laser grace CBS1 paper.
If you intend to print the personalisation data and the MICR code using a laser printer, you’ll need the bank to confirm it is a Smithers Pira approved Grade 1 printer which has been approved by C&CCC to print code lines. It’s also required that you use only the black toner that is listed with the printer, which you can find out more about on the C&CCC’s website.
Next, you will need to ensure that you have all of the correct security controls in place. This means educating your staff on C&CCC standard 3 which you can purchase on the C&CCC’s website. Anyone tasked with printing cheques will also need to regularly check that the quality of the code line is maintained as well as its positioning, which can be tested with a positioning gauge.
Does all this sound like a lot of work? You could just hand over all of your cheque printing to the expert team at Hague who can take care of all of your cheque printing requirements. Enquire now and a member of our team will contact you to set up a free consultation.
