Pay Your Bills By Emailing Checks

I’ve written extensively about the need for insurance agents to accept electronic payments. It seems that everywhere you look there is a new electronic payment service available such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Strip, and who knows how many others.

To help explain the issues involved, I wrote a white paper detailing why now is the time to update your payment process.

Being able to pay your agency bills electronically has previously not been easy or possible – until now.

Deluxe Checks has created a secure process — called Deluxe eChecksPro — that allows you to send a check to anyone with an email address to pay your bills. You may know Deluxe Check as the company that sends the little box of paper checks when you open a bank account.

And, yes, you read that correctly. I can now send a check payment to anyone with an email address, virtually instantaneously, using the Deluxe eCheck platform.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create an eChecksPro account. Signing up for an account is free and takes just a few minutes. Once you’ve created an account, add a checking account and select the quantity of checks that’s right for you (the first five are FREE) so you can begin sending and receiving checks. The Separation of Controls feature allows you to add other users with specific authorizations that you, as the owner of the account, can choose.
2. Create a single check to send or set up to send multiple checks. It is also easy to send batch check runs by exporting a CSV file from your accounting software and uploading it to the eChecksPro service. With just a few clicks, you can deliver any number of checks quickly and easily.
3. Before you send a check via email, I recommend you send a separate email explaining how the process works.
4. Once the check(s) are created, the eCheckPro platform will send an email to the individual with a link allowing them to go to the eCheckPro site, retrieve and print the check.
5. Once printed, the eCheck contains the same elements as a regular paper check, including routing number, account number, signature, amount, payee, and check number.
6. The printed check(s) can be deposited as it normally would using Remote Deposit Capture by scanning, taking a picture with your smartphone, or just taking the check to the bank as part of your regular daily deposit.

It took me a bit of due diligence before I was willing to talk about the service. I have received checks via email and deposited them successfully. I have also started to use this service to send a check to others for payment of an invoice.

To receive your five (5) free checks, set up your account, verify your banking information (there is a video showing the process) and select the “Starter Checkbook.”

The cost of using the eCheckPro platform is about $0.50 per check sent. The per-check price decreases with the more checks you purchase at one time. That equals the cost of the stamp you use to mail the check. Seem like a deal to me.

The eCheckPro service from Deluxe is also an interesting example of an old firm learning how to reinvent their service to be relevant in the digital age. We could stand to learn from them.

What are you doing to reinvent your service so you too can be relevant in the digital age? Let me know in the comment section below.