Fraud Prevention With Dynamics GP Safe Pay And EFT

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In today’s world, where we use on-line banking to pay our bills and we write fewer and fewer checks, as individuals, we worry most about identity or credit card theft.  But what about the company you work for?  How is it protecting itself against theft? 

Most small to mid-sized businesses still write manual checks to their Vendors.   Those manual checks make your business susceptible to various forms of check fraud, t he most common of which is Check Alternation.   According to the Association of Financial Professionals 2008 Payments Fraud and Control Survey, almost two-thirds of check fraud victims experienced altered payee names on the checks they issued.

Several years ago, I had a client in Washington State that had 2 of their AP checks stolen out of the mail and the payee name altered on them.    As a result of the altered checks, the client was subpoenaed to appear in a Florida court to testify against the defendants in the case.   I don’t believe they were ultimately responsible for the amount of the checks, but they did incur the time and money it took to go all the way across the country to Florida to testify. 

After being the victim of check fraud, the client’s bank insisted that they start supplying check information to the bank on a daily basis.  The client wasn’t a Microsoft Dynamics GP user, so they were forced to purchase a customization to their accounting package to provide the required information to their bank.  Had they used Dynamics GP, they could have easily implemented the Safe Pay module. 

The Safe Pay module in Dynamics GP can be configured to generate an electronic file with the details of your daily check run in the format requested by your bank.  The file is then transmitted to your bank daily.  Your bank then verifies each check number against the date, dollar amount and payee submitted for each check.  If any of the items don’t match, you will be notified. 

With Dynamics GP, you can also go beyond the implementation of Safe Pay and utilize the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) for Payables Management module to pay your vendors via electronic transmission to their bank, basically the equivalent of your personal on-line bill pay, but for a much larger volume.  This eliminates the paper check copies sent in the mail that can be subject to alteration. 

Implementing either or both EFT and Safe Pay will reduce your risk of being a victim of check fraud.  While adding these features with your bank may come with a bank fee attached, the security it brings knowing that you are less likely to be a victim of fraud is well worth it.  Unless of course you are looking for a reason to take a trip to Florida.

Learn more about Safe Pay and EFT by reading the eBanking in Microsoft Dynamics GP fact sheet or contact The Resource Group at 425.277.4760.

By Denise Hawes, The Resource Group –Washington Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner

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Tags: 3. Microsoft Dynamics GP Best Practices, Seattle Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner, Washington Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner
Posted in Dynamics ERP for Financial Services, ERP Software Information, Finance Department Tips & Tricks, Microsoft Dynamics ERP Functionality | 2 Comments »

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