PEACH PERSPECTIVE - Still Writing Checks? Here's What It's Costing You

Peach BPO
21 hours ago
8 min read

Why are businesses still using checks?

Despite better, faster options, checks are surprisingly common. They've been around forever, they feel familiar, and in some cases, they seem "free." But that doesn't mean they're the safest, or smartest, choice. We've seen the risks. And for teams ready to move forward, the good news is: there are better ways.

Source: Federal Reserve

Last updated: March 12, 2025

What you’ll get out of this month’s Peach Perspective:

Honest, ground-level insight from an expert team dealing with payment systems daily
The ability to spot inefficiencies and risks checks introduce into your current workflow
Confidence to move away from checks without disrupting your operations
A clearer understanding of what a more resilient and reliable payment process actually looks like

Checks are Still Everywhere — and That’s a Problem

Checks are outdated, inefficient, and increasingly risky. They expose businesses to fraud, disrupt cash flow, and burden teams with avoidable manual work.

For businesses that want stability, control, and clarity, checks are holding you back.

1. Check Fraud Hits Businesses Harder

Checks are among the easiest tools to exploit for fraud, and small businesses are especially at risk. Each check exposes sensitive details: your routing number, account number, and even a physical signature. That’s everything a fraudster needs.

To make matters worse, business accounts don’t have the same legal protections as personal ones. Federal consumer fraud laws don’t apply here — banks often assume businesses have their own internal controls. That means investigations can take longer, and reimbursement isn’t always guaranteed.

If check fraud does happen, the fallout is immediate and painful:

The bank may shut down your account to prevent further loss.
You’ll need to open a new account and update all linked systems.
Incoming payments must be redirected — and clients need to be notified.
Payroll, vendor payments, subscriptions, and auto-debits all have to be reconfigured.

What starts as one fraudulent check can become a full-blown operational disruption, and you’re left to manage the damage.

2. Checks are Unpredictable

Unlike digital payments, checks don’t clear instantly. This creates timing gaps that mess with your cash flow — and your peace of mind.

You might think you have funds available, until a check that was written weeks ago suddenly clears, throwing your cash flow off balance and potentially overdrafting your account.
Some checks sit on desks for weeks, uncashed and untracked. That means your financial records are incomplete, making it harder to know what’s actually been spent.
Others bounce unexpectedly, triggering penalties, damaging vendor relationships, and creating unnecessary back-and-forth.

This disconnect makes it harder to forecast accurately, manage expenses, or plan for growth with confidence. You’re left second-guessing your own numbers; not because your bookkeeping is wrong, but because the timing is out of your hands.

And the expectations are only getting higher.

With 24/7 online banking and real-time payment notifications, the expectation today is that businesses are monitoring their accounts regularly; not just reconciling at month-end. But checks don’t fit that pace. Their delayed processing, manual tracking, and unpredictability make it difficult to maintain accurate, up-to-date visibility.

Even if you check your account every morning, a check written weeks ago can clear unexpectedly and derail your cash flow.

3. Checks Waste Time

Checks create unnecessary, manual work for businesses and bookkeepers — work that adds up fast:

Tracking and scanning check copies, then manually attaching them to records for audit trails.
Following up with vendors who haven’t cashed checks, sometimes weeks later, creating uncertainty.
Resolving reconciliation issues when a check clears for a different amount, or doesn’t match what’s recorded in the books.

And worse: check-based systems don’t scale. The more vendors you add, the more paper you’re managing, the more approvals you’re chasing, and the more delays you face. What worked when you had five vendors becomes a liability when you’re managing twenty.

“If Checks Are So Risky, Why Are They Still Around?”

1. Checks are still widely used because they’ve become too familiar to question

Even after seeing the risks — fraud exposure, cash flow blind spots, reconciliation headaches — many businesses don’t feel a strong urgency to switch. Checks have simply become part of their routine. The person issuing them knows the steps. The vendor expects them. There’s a predictable rhythm, even if it’s outdated or inefficient.

That predictability creates a false sense of security. "As long as payments are going out and nothing seems broken, it feels safer to leave things as they are." But familiarity isn’t the same as reliability; and it certainly isn’t the same as security.

2. Business owners don’t have the time or bandwidth to explore alternatives

Finding a better payment system takes more than a quick Google search. It means researching options, understanding technical requirements, comparing fees, setting up new approval processes, onboarding vendors — all while keeping the business running.

Between payroll, sales, client relations, and operations, it often falls to the bottom of the priority list. Checks might not be perfect, but they’re the known path. Unless there’s a crisis, there’s little bandwidth to change what’s already functioning. The difference lies in having a partner who can clearly explain the steps, take on the challenging work, and fit new solutions into your current flow.

3. The alternatives are seen as too expensive or complicated

Some digital payment tools come with visible fees, and that alone creates hesitation, especially for businesses already managing tight cash flow. Many have tried (or heard of) options like credit cards or third-party platforms that charge high processing rates. That experience sticks, creating the impression that all alternatives are either pricey or difficult to use.

Checks, by comparison, seem “free.” Aside from the cost of printing and postage, there’s no upfront transaction fee. That illusion of zero-cost convenience makes checks harder to walk away from, even when they quietly introduce risks, delays, and inefficiencies.

On top of that, switching systems often means getting others on board; and not everyone is eager. Team members are used to the old steps, so they may not want to learn a new platform. The resistance isn’t always about money; it’s about effort, learning curves, and limited time to take on yet another change.

4. Vendors want certainty, and checks feel immediate

A check is something you can hold — tear from a book, drop in the mail, scan for your records. For many vendors, that physicality feels like a guarantee. It seems trackable and safe, even though in reality, checks can be delayed, lost, or forged.

For vendors unfamiliar with Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments or digital tools, a new system can feel confusing or out of their control. There’s fear around “not seeing the money” and questions like: Will it go through on time? What if something goes wrong? Who do I call?

So even when a business is ready to modernize, it hesitates. They don’t want to jeopardize a good vendor relationship by introducing something the other side doesn’t fully trust or understand.

But vendors don’t really need a check in hand — they need predictability. What they care about is knowing when and how they’ll be paid. And a well-structured Accounts Payable (AP) cycle delivers that with more clarity, consistency, and less risk than a check ever could.

And while most vendors do have access to a business bank account, there are still cases, especially in informal industries or cash-based setups, where they don’t. If that’s the case, we help identify practical workarounds or payment methods that protect your business without straining the relationship.

What We’re Offering: A Better Way Forward with Peach

At Peach BPO, we know that payment systems aren’t just for sending money. They're deeply tied to your bookkeeping, cash flow, and overall business stability. When something goes wrong at the payment level, it creates ripple effects across your records, reports, and decisions.

And switching isn’t as simple as clicking “sign up” on a new payment app. There are vendor relationships to manage, records to protect, habits to change, and internal systems to adjust. Most businesses know checks are inefficient, but they stick with them because no one’s ever offered to handle the heavy lifting — until now.

1. Review your current payment process: Before anything changes, Peach takes the time to understand exactly how your current process works. We map out your existing payment workflow:

Who requests payments and who approves them?
Are approval policies formalized or handled ad hoc?
What tools, platforms, or bank portals are in use today?
How are payments tracked, recorded, and reconciled?
Where do delays, rework, or missed payments tend to happen?

This discovery process often uncovers gaps you may not even be aware of, such as manual approvals happening through email or text, no audit trail for accountability, or payments getting stuck simply because someone was out of office.

2. Recommend vetted digital alternatives: Too many businesses get pushed into payment platforms that don’t fit — tools that are too complex or too expensive. That’s not how we work. At Peach, we help you weigh the options, share what we know, and offer guidance on what we’ve seen work well for a team like yours. The goal is to help you choose a setup that fits how your team already operates and what your business actually needs.For some, that might mean a simple, modern platform that gets the job done without adding cost or complexity. For others, it might involve layered approval features or user roles to support existing internal controls. We guide you toward the best-fit option.

For example, Classic City Bank offers an online ACH payment module through their business online banking platform. Unlike many payment platforms with high monthly subscription fees and per-transaction fees, Classic City's solution is available for a low monthly rate with no per-payment fees. With the reduction of check stock, postage, and employee resources for accounts payable, this solution will reduce expenses.

If your team still needs to issue paper checks, Classic City’s Positive Pay service adds a layer of fraud protection. You upload a list of issued checks, and the system compares it against the checks clearing your account. It flags any mismatches in the check number, amount, or payee name. It’s a strong line of defense against increasingly common check-washing schemes.

We can walk you through the pros and cons of the options available to you and help you make an informed choice that balances ease, cost, and security — without adding another complicated tool to your tech stack.

3. Build a structured AP cycle: Peach works with you to design an actual Accounts Payable (AP) cycle you can stick to. We make sure it's built around your cash flow, your bookkeeping cycle, and your team's capacity.

A structured AP cycle doesn’t eliminate the complexity, but it gives you a framework to manage it better. That structure becomes a safeguard: keeping payments timely, approvals accountable, and records intact.

4. Coordinate account setup with the provider: Once you choose a payment solution, Peach takes the lead in setting it up — so your team doesn’t have to figure it out alone or risk missing critical steps.

5. Monitor payments and reconcile as part of our ongoing work: Peach acts as your long-term partner by continuously overseeing and enhancing your payment system within the bookkeeping framework.