Tips for Improving Payment and Recording Accuracy

Keeping accurate payment records is important to small business management, but it can be something that falls into neglect when more urgent issues arise. When the payment system becomes disorganized or haphazard, late charges and penalty fees can result, as well as strained relationships with vendors, suppliers, and customers. Consider some tips to get the payments and their records more organized and accurate, and some of the ways online check printing can help:

Double-check invoices before issuing payment

Reviewing bills and invoices as they come in takes time and seems tedious, especially when many dates, items, and services are listed that need to be cross-checked with in-house records, but it is an important step that can reduce headaches later. Reduce the risk of overpayment, underpayment, duplicate payment, or payment for services not rendered by carefully reviewing each invoice just as you would any other financial statement. Checkeeper offers integration options with Odoo and Xero to import data from unpaid invoices and have them converted directly into check payments. Payments due to the same vendor are consolidated into a single check, reducing both paperwork and the ability for errors and duplicate payments to occur. Checks are sent with an attached invoice table that breaks down the total, streamlining the bookkeeping process for both payor and payee. Need bill payments mailed promptly? Order your checks printed and mailed by Checkeeper before 4pm EST and they can be in the mail by the end of the business day according to the priority delivery speed of your choice.

Make sure payments are clearing

Ascertaining that bank records and financial statements match in-house records is a vital part of keeping clean records and an accurate sense of cash flow. Reconciling statements every month, quarter, or even more frequently can help spot mistakes as soon as they occur, instead of months later when records don’t match and fixing them becomes costly, time-consuming, and may require professional intervention. Checkeeper not only prints your needed payment checks on demand, but it also provides automatic recording and storing of payment data in a smart check registry that can be searched according to any check field or custom time frame for tracking down expenses. When you need to reconcile check spending with bank and other statements, run a comprehensive report through Checkeeper to pull up a spreadsheet of all checks created within the designated time frame. The report will list the data for each check—payee, date, amount, memo, check number, etc.—as well as the authorized user who created each check and the date/time of its creation. This adds accountability and accuracy to the payment process and assures that in-house spending records match other statements. Checkeeper also integrates with QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks, and other accounting software to categorize check expenses automatically and keep data synced and consistent across multiple platforms.

Standardize the payment system

Small offices in which multiple people are authorized to issue payments benefit from adopting a standardized, easy-to-follow system to which every person adheres. Multiple eyes on the books can be a good thing for enhancing security and providing oversight and accountability, but it can also lead to confusion and duplicated efforts when everyone is doing things their own way. Checkeeper gives outdated systems for accounts payable a needed update by offering a customized business check option to complement the other payment methods used. Checkeeper allows account holders to authorize multiple users and to limit each person’s access to only the features needed. Checkeeper accounts can also be set to require an approval before a check can be printed or sent out. Reports run through Checkeeper list the authorized user who initiated each payment so that account holders have maximum oversight and everyone stays accountable. Checkeeper is online and cloud-based, allowing data to be updated in real time so that all users—no matter where they are working, traveling, or logging into their accounts—have access to the same, accurate data and payment records.