Payment Automation
One payment run, from the ERP to the bank, with the manual steps removed
Accounts payable, payroll, and student refunds go out with the stock, the signature, and the positive pay file handled inside the run. The controller gets the audit trail without chasing it, and treasury gets a bank file nobody assembled by hand.
Trusted by business offices at public universities, private institutions, and community colleges
The situation
Four offices, one process, and no single map
Every group involved is doing its part correctly. The gaps are in the handoffs between groups, where nobody owns the process, and that is where the manual steps and the exposure sit.
Checks are also the payment method fraudsters target more than any other, according to the Association for Financial Professionals' annual payments fraud survey, and every accounts payable run still produces some, along with payroll for the employees who have not moved to direct deposit.
01
Accounts payable and payroll built the same workaround separately
Two offices, two versions of the same manual step, neither aware the other was solving it. Nobody compared them because nobody owns both.
02
The controller answers for controls nobody wrote down
Who can authorize a reprint, what happens to a void, who applied the signature. The practice exists. The documentation does not, and the audit asks for the documentation.
03
Treasury gets a Positive Pay file somebody assembled by hand
The control that is supposed to catch a fraudulent check depends on a manual step upstream of the bank, which is an odd place to put it.
04
A signature waiting on somebody to be at their desk
Routine disbursement becomes an escalation because one person is traveling, and it happens at month end more often than any other week.
05
A late student refund is your phone queue and their rent
The office experiences the delay as call volume. The student experiences it as whether they can pay for something this week.
The handoffs
Remove the steps that live between the offices
Most of the manual work sits in the gaps: accounts payable hands something to whoever runs the print job, payroll does its own version, and somebody carries a file to treasury. Nobody designed those handoffs. They accumulated because the parts were never built to talk to each other.
Running disbursement inside the ERP environment removes them. No exports, no imports, and no file waiting for somebody to pick it up. IntelleCheck runs inside Banner today. Support for other ERPs varies by environment, so tell us what you run before you go further. Blank check stock replaces pre-printed, pre-numbered stock, and signature rules are applied by the system rather than waited on, so a run keeps moving when a signer is away.
- Accounts payable and payroll on the same process instead of two versions of it
- No transfers between systems, so nothing waits in a place neither office owns
- Blank check stock instead of pre-printed stock, so there are no numbered boxes to secure, count, or reorder
- Conditional signatures applied by rule, with dollar thresholds the controller sets, so a routine run never waits on a signature and the exceptions still get a person's attention
- Student refunds and direct deposit advices in the same run
One record across four offices
The controller gets the evidence without chasing it
The questions an audit asks cross every office involved. Who authorized this reprint, who applied the signature, what changed between the batch and the file that reached the bank. Today each answer lives with a different group, and assembling them is somebody's week.
One run produces one record. The controller can answer for the controls without asking accounts payable to reconstruct what happened, and treasury gets a Positive Pay file generated from the run rather than assembled by hand upstream of the bank.
- One audit trail covering the whole disbursement, not one per office
- Controlled reprints and voids, each with a recorded reason
- Positive Pay generated from the run itself, and included rather than sold as an add-on
- MICR alignment handled by the system rather than checked by eye
- Reporting the controller can hand to an auditor without assembling it first
Student refunds
Refunds that reach students on time
A delayed refund produces calls to Financial Aid and the Bursar during the busiest weeks of the term, from students frequently least able to absorb the delay.
Through BankMobile's Refund Management service, students choose how they receive a refund and IntelleCheck transmits all payments. It also supports alignment with Department of Education requirements for distributing Title IV funds.
- Students choose their refund method instead of waiting on a mailed check
- IntelleCheck transmits all payments regardless of the method chosen
- Supports alignment with Department of Education Title IV distribution requirements
- Direct deposit advices delivered as AES-encrypted, password-protected PDFs on a schedule
- Fewer calls during the weeks the office can least absorb them
The cost case
Savings across four budgets, from one run
The cost survives because nobody sees all of it. Stock sits in one department's supplies line. Postage sits in another. The staff hours are spread thin enough across accounts payable and payroll that neither office would call it a problem on its own, and the reprint that took an afternoon never appeared anywhere.
Add them up in one place and the number surprises most people. One institution put the annual figure at over $100,000 once paper, toner, and staff time were counted together.
- Pre-printed stock, its reorders, and its obsolescence removed; secure storage and counting greatly reduced
- Postage replaced with electronic delivery for the recipients who accept it
- Staff hours returned to accounts payable and payroll rather than to one of them
- Two of the most common holdups in a run eliminated, so month end stops being an escalation
- A searchable digital trail in place of a physical one
One run, no handoffs
Accounts payable, payroll, and refunds issued from the ERP with the stock, the signature, and the positive pay file handled inside the run. See it in a demo.
In their words
The offices that stopped handing the run to each other
“
We estimate that we have saved over $100,000 a year in paper costs, toner costs and employee time with direct deposit, electronic copies of checks and integration with image solution.
John Bilmont, Chief Financial Officer
City College of San Francisco
Business Office and Payroll
Paper, toner, and staff time counted together across accounts payable and payroll rather than office by office.
Related
The offices on either side of a payment
Finance and the Business Office
Accounts payable, the monthly close, and the reporting around both.
Financial Aid
Disbursement timing, refunds, and the calls that follow a delay.
Human Resources
Payroll, direct deposit advices, and position control.
IT
The platform, the ERP environment, and the security review a payment run has to pass.
How it fits
Where this sits relative to what you already run
With the offices that run the payments
Accounts payable, payroll, and the bursar keep their processes and their approvals. What moves is the production, the delivery, and the evidence, so no office gives up control of its own run in order to stop hand-carrying it to the next one.
With your bank and the controls you already have
The banking relationship does not have to change. Positive Pay works with your bank's existing program, and role-based permissions support the separation of duties you already operate instead of asking you to redesign it.
With an audit cycle that is already on the calendar
The questions auditors ask about disbursement are consistent: who approved it, who ran it, what was voided and by whom. Institutions often take this on after a cycle where assembling those answers took longer than it should have.
Trust and security
You take security seriously. So do we.
The Trust Center is published and the HECVAT is available on request, so a reviewer can start before anyone schedules a call.
Nothing sits between steps
On-premises, IntelleCheck runs inside the ERP environment with no transfers, imports, or exports between steps. In Banner SaaS, the FormDirector hands the run directly to IntelleCheck. Either way, no payment sits unattended in a file somewhere waiting for a person.
Positive Pay
Included rather than sold separately, and integrated with your bank's existing program.
Audit trails
Who logged in, when, and every payment they processed, plus visibility into other users' access where the role permits.
Separation of duties
Role-based permissions inside the software support your existing controls instead of replacing them.
Encrypted delivery
Direct deposit advices as AES-encrypted, password-protected PDFs, formatted with your data fields and sent on a schedule.
Documentation
Trust Center, and a HECVAT (the standard higher education security questionnaire) on request.
Frequently asked questions
Questions we get asked first
Who owns this, the business office or IT?
The business office owns the process and the controls. IT usually owns the platform and gets pulled in for the ERP environment and the security review. The case is easiest to make when both are in the room, because the cost is in the business office and the integration question belongs to IT.
How do we build the case?
Count the steps in one full run, end to end, across every office it touches. Stock, postage, staff hours in accounts payable and payroll, the time a reprint takes to evidence. One institution put the annual figure above $100,000 once paper, toner, and staff time were counted together.
Which payment type should we start with?
Whichever run causes the most escalation at month end. For most institutions that is accounts payable, though payroll is the better starting point where advices are still being printed and stuffed.
What changes for accounts payable, payroll, and the bursar?
Less than people expect. The approvals stay, the system of record stays, and the people who ran the process still run it. What comes out are the handoffs between the offices and the steps that only existed because the output had to move between systems.
Do we have to change our banking relationship?
No. Positive Pay works with the program your bank already runs, and institutions commonly keep bank printing for one account while running this for another.
Our bank handles check printing.
Then you may not want to change it. What institutions usually want back is control: their own check design, signature rules with dollar thresholds, reprints and voids they can execute and evidence the same day, and a Positive Pay file produced from their own data. Running both arrangements side by side is normal.
We do not process many checks. Is this worth it?
Volume on its own is the wrong measure. The questions that matter are how much staff time goes into preparing and reconciling a run, what pre-printed stock costs to buy and control, how long a reprint or a void takes to evidence, and what happens if the person who owns the process leaves.
How does this sit with our auditors?
The audit trail captures who logged in, when, and every payment they processed. Institutions generally find the value is less in having the record than in not having to assemble it from three places when it is requested.
What about the separation of duties we already operate?
It stays. Role-based permissions are configured to the structure you already have. Conditional signatures remove the dependency on one person being at their desk without removing the approval requirement itself.
Which ERPs does IntelleCheck support?
Banner, on-premises and in Banner SaaS. Support for other ERPs varies by environment, so tell us what you run.
Should we wait until after our SaaS migration?
Payment processing is one of the areas institutions scope during a migration instead of after it, because the output and the delivery both have to be accounted for. Professional Services will tell you what your target environment supports before anyone commits to a date.
How much of this do we have to do ourselves?
As much or as little as you want to own. Professional Services can configure the first payment types with you and hand them over, or your team can hold it from the start.
Who will we be working with?
People who have done your job. Our consultants and support staff came from campus IT and institutional reporting before they worked here, because higher education is the only sector we build for. Support is in-house, with no outsourced agents, and it is the thing customers raise unprompted more than anything else about us.
What does it cost, and can we talk to a business office like ours?
Licensing is per institution rather than per user, and price is driven by institution size instead of by payment volume. Positive Pay is included rather than priced separately, and there is no per-payment or per-seat charge. Tell us your FTE and which payment types you run and we will give you a real figure on the first call.
Next step
The whole payment run, drawn once
See every manual touchpoint removed from one run, from the ERP to the bank file. Get a demo.
Ellucian Partner Award
2025: Customer First
Ethos Connected
since 2020
Ellucian partner
22 years