Positive Pay Guide

To sign up for Positive Pay or any of our Cash Management Services, please contact us or visit your local GenuBank branch during banking hours. A staff member will schedule an appointment with one of our Branch Managers or Relationship Manager who will meet with you to review the service and your specific needs.

Our customer service representatives are always here to help you during banking hours. Visit one of our branches in person, or give us a call. You can also email us at treasurymanagement@genubank.com and our team will respond accordingly.

There is a monthly maintenance fee of $50 for each account enrolled in Positive Pay. Please contact us or your relationship manager directly for our Fee Schedule.

Yes. Your business will designate an administrator of the Positive Pay service. The administrator can add additional authorized users with specific user permissions with access by account and by function. Please contact us or your relationship manager for further details and assistance with adding authorized users to your account(s).

You can access Positive Pay via your online banking account. Once logged in, you can review and action your alerts as well as set up user controls. You are in complete control of the items you choose to approve, and our team is on standby to assist with any questions or issues that may arise.

You can always add additional accounts to your Positive Pay service. We recommend you contact us or your relationship manager for further assistance.

Yes, you can choose to receive transactional level alerts (e.g., an alert for every transactions that is flagged) or account level (e.g., consolidated alerts per account). You can customize your alert setting in your admin console.

If there are exceptions to be processed, you will receive a notification by email (treasurymanagement@genubank.com) or SMS. Reminder emails are sent one hour prior to the exception processing deadline.

Businesses use the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system to send and receive payments within the United States. ACH enables electronic bank-to-bank transfers such as direct deposit and vendor payments.

To keep these types of payments secure, consider using ACH Positive Pay. ACH Positive Pay refers to a service allowing users to review all incoming and outgoing ACH transactions before they’re cleared for deposit in a bank account. With custom filters, you can choose to block suspicious ACH debits and credits until you’ve had a chance to authorize them.

For more details, see our video tutorial.

When you sign up for the ACH Positive Pay service, your business creates a list of approved vendors. This should include anyone you send regular payments to. Listed vendors are cleared through Positive Pay to receive automatic payments, with filters including expiration dates and caps on the amount submitted in any single payment. If an electronic transaction takes place outside of this approved list, the system generates an alert allowing you to determine whether to approve the ACH transfer.

For more details, see our video tutorial.

Being vigilant and knowing who you transact with is important to identify any potential fraud. One example of ACH fraud is if an unauthorized person or company obtains your account and routing numbers to initiate an ACH transaction through the internet, telephone, or when a check converts to ACH.  These types of transactions are caught with ACH Positive Pay.

You can choose to block and return all ACH debit transactions from being presented against accounts that should not have any ACH activity.  Filters allow you to make decisions on exception transactions that do not meet certain rules established within the Positive Pay system.

The daily cut-off time is 11 AM Pacific, Monday through Friday. To safeguard your accounts, exceptions not processed by 11 AM Pacific will post to your system in accordance with the exception rules you have created.

Positive Pay doesn’t only apply to ACH transfers; it is also used by banks as a tool to deter and prevent check fraud. Businesses can sign up for the automated Positive Pay service to ensure that issued checks match those used for payment. For example, the service ensures that each check lists the correct check number, account number, and dollar amount.

If any checks don’t pass muster in the Positive Pay system, it’s returned to the issuer for further investigation. The customer will be notified with an exception report, and payment withheld until the company authorizes the check as valid or invalid. Both check and ACH Positive Pay help safeguard against loss and liability.

For more details, see our video tutorial.

You can manually delete each check in the Check Search page. Otherwise, you can contact us for support and our team will delete the entire file for you.

You can upload a check issuance file by logging into online banking and entering the Positive Pay portal. From the main menu, click on "Perform" and then "Issue File Load." 

For more details, see our video tutorial. Once in the tutorial screen, click on "Checks" to skip to the check section.

Any checks presented to a teller in a branch are compared to your company’s issued check file. If the check does not match the information in the file, GenuBank will contact your business for authorization to cash the check. Calls are made during normal banking hours Monday through Friday.

Issue check files should be in a Microsoft Excel or CSV format. Your file should include the following check information: Check Number, Payee, Issue Date, and Amount. The issued check file may contain additional information, such as a memo, but is not required.

If the issued check file contains other information, the system will ignore those items as long as they do not contain a Check Number, Payee, Issue Date, and Amount.

If a check is written after a file has been submitted, you can either send a new updated file or submit the check(s) manually. To manually enter checks one at a time, go to the main menu, click "Perform," and then click "Manual Issue Entry." This option will allow you to manually enter checks without having to create and upload a new file.

The daily cut-off time is 1 PM Pacific, Monday through Friday. To safeguard your accounts, exceptions not processed by 1 PM Pacific will post to your system in accordance with the exception rules you have created.