We have been using Blank Cheque Stock for about 2 years now. We purchased this through our Adagio Agent. We have been getting numerous complaints from our banks. They say that their machines cannot read the coding and we may need a different type of ink. Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

Hello:

If the bank is having trouble reading your cheques, there are usually 2 possible causes: toner and cheque formatting.

Do you use a laser printer? If so, are you using a magnetic toner cartridge? Originally the banks' equipment to read the MICR line (the funny characters at the bottom) relied on a tiny amount of magnetic material in the ink (in fact, MICR stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition). That would require you to swap out your regular laser cartridge and insert a special cartridge with magnetic toner to print cheques. There's debate about whether their equipment still relies on the magnetic ink or whether it uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition). I've never used magnetic toner and I've never had a problem.

The other possible cause is formatting. The MICR needs to be in the right position on the cheque. Adagio also comes with a number of fonts for the MICR so you might want to try different ones (I use AdagioMICR successfully).

Your Adagio dealer can help you. Based on the feedback from the bank, I would start with the toner if you aren't already using a magnetic cartridge.

We have been using blank cheque stock using standard toner for about two years also and we have only received one call (from RBC fraud detection services) after verifying that one cheque everything went through normally.

We have been using blank cheque stock for many years and have never had a problem. Last week, we purchased a scanner to do electronic deposits. I tried to deposit a cheque from one of our related companies (same office, same cheque stock, also using Adagio) with our new scanner and I received an error saying the cheque was rejected and not a valid account. (I had successfully deposited several other cheques from other companies, so it was not the scanner or program). Today, I received a call from a vendor who tried to e-deposit a cheque that I had mailed to her, and she had the same problem. She could not deposit the cheque - her error was "not a valid Canadian bank". She is using a different bank to do her e-deposits, so it is not our software, or my scanner (she takes a picture with her phone). When I spoke to the RBC help desk, they did indicate that perhaps it was the ink, but now that I have a second complaint trying to deposit with a different program, I am led to believe that it may be the way Adagio is printing the MICR encoding. Suggestions? Our banks have never had an issue with the MICR font before (that I am aware of). I also don't see where I might change the font for the MICR encoding.

Thanks,
Donna

We install nine different MICR fonts with Adagio Payables to take into account the varying print weights of laser printers. You can right mouse click on the MICR text in the cheque specification and see the fonts available for selection.

Personally, I'd send the image to the bank and ask them why it's generating the message "Invalid Canadian Bank".

Thanks Andrew.

Donna:

Don't bother sending the cheque to the bank and asking for an explanation. 100% of the time the answer is bad MICR but they cannot tell you anything more than that.

We, along with many of our clients, use the Wellsprings Red/Blue blank cheque stock and print the MICR line directly from Adagio (no PrintBoss). When one of these clients sends me a cheque printed this way I have no problem depositing the cheque using my mobile phone app (though it does give me some grief with other cheques).

Resolving issues with banks not reading the MICR line takes a considerable amount of expertise. Hopefully your Adagio consultant can help you out.

Hi Doug,

I was suggesting sending the image, definitely not the cheque.

Douglas, What font are you using for your MICR encoding? I am using AdagioMICR. Is it just a matter of trial and error with the 9 available fonts?

Thanks,
Donna

Andrew:

Sending an image to the bank isn't likely to get you far. Most likely they will just ask you to send the original for testing.To the best of my knowledge they will not do any testing on an image. In any event refer to option 1 "the test is meaningless don't bother".

Donna:

We have been using the same cheque spec since before there were optional MICR fonts, so I had to look - the font name is AdagioMICR.

It's not likely the font, instead it will be quality of printer, quality of toner, or MICR line alignment (left/right and up/down). For that matter it could be a scanner issue. I've not tested one as I just use the mobile bank app to take a picture.