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To use Positive Pay, send your bank accurate records of the checks your business issues, keep those records current, and review the bank’s exception queue each business day. When a presented check does not match, inspect the item and your own records, then submit a pay-or-return decision before your account’s cutoff. Positive Pay is a review control—not a guarantee against check fraud—and its fields, deadlines, and unattended-item defaults vary by bank.

What Positive Pay does

Positive Pay is a bank-provided control that compares checks presented for payment with check information your business has sent the bank. A discrepancy appears as an exception for review. For example, QNB says its check workflow compares account number, check number, payee name, and dollar amount, and that all of those components must match. Other banks may compare different fields, so ask what applies to your account. QNB’s Positive Pay service page describes its particular matching rule.

An exception is a prompt to investigate, not proof that a check is fraudulent. It can reflect a suspicious alteration, but it can also result from a missing issue record, an entry error, a void, a duplicate, or a date-related condition. Bank of Hawaii lists reasons including amount mismatch, payee mismatch for accounts with that feature, stale- or future-dated items, a check paid against a void, and forced review. Huntington also identifies missing issues, duplicate paid items, and cancellations on file. Bank of Hawaii’s Positive Pay FAQ and Huntington’s exception guide show examples, not a universal list.

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Set up the service for the right accounts and users

Before relying on Positive Pay, confirm with your bank which business accounts are enrolled and how the control is configured. Establish who can enter issues, who can review exceptions, and who is authorized to submit decisions. If your bank supports dual authorization, decide whether one user should make a decision and another approve it; Huntington documents this as an optional separation of duties.

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  • Which check fields are compared, and is payee-name matching enabled?
  • How can your business submit new issues, voids, and corrections? Which file formats or transfer methods are supported?
  • When are exceptions available, what is the decision cutoff and time zone, and how do holidays affect the schedule?
  • What happens if nobody submits a decision by the cutoff?
  • Are check images, alerts, correction tools, decision history, and dual approval available?

Some banks also offer separate ACH Positive Pay or ACH filters. A check issue file should not be assumed to cover ACH payments; verify that the relevant ACH control is separately enabled for your account. QNB describes ACH screening separately from its check workflow.

Enter checks and keep the issue record current

Record a check with the bank as part of your issuing process, using the fields and method the bank requires. Depending on the service, you may enter checks individually or submit an issue file. Include required details such as check number, date, amount, and payee information. Submit voids and authorized corrections through the bank’s process as well; otherwise, the bank may not have the record needed to compare with a presented item.

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Submission methods are bank-specific. Bank of Hawaii says its customers can enter issues manually, upload them online, or use SFTP, and that uploaded issues are processed in near real time. Those options and that timing apply to its service, not necessarily to another bank. See Bank of Hawaii’s service FAQ. First Citizens describes an issue-management workflow in which approved issues and voids are sent for comparison. First Citizens explains its issue and exception workflow.

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Review exceptions each business day

Check the exception queue and related alerts every business day, including days when no one expects a problem. Do not rely on a generic Positive Pay deadline: availability and cutoff times differ by bank and account, and schedules can change. The following published schedules illustrate the variation; verify your own current account instructions and time zone.

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Bank and source Exception availability Decision deadline
Bank of Hawaii; publication date not stated on its page By 6:00 a.m. HST By 9:30 a.m. HST
Huntington; February 2026 quick-step guide By 8:30 a.m. ET / 7:30 a.m. CT By 3:00 p.m. ET / 2:00 p.m. CT

These are the banks’ stated schedules, not shared industry hours. Bank of Hawaii’s times appear in its Positive Pay FAQ; Huntington’s appear in its February 2026 quick-step guide.

Investigate each mismatch before deciding

  1. Open the exception. Review the presented check details and image if the portal provides one.
  2. Compare the item with your records. Check the issue file or check register, relevant invoice, payee records, and any void or correction entry.
  3. Identify the likely cause. Determine whether the item may be unauthorized or altered, or whether a legitimate check is missing from the issue record or contains an internal data-entry error.
  4. Use the bank’s permitted correction path. Do not change issue information simply to make a mismatch disappear; confirm the check is legitimate and follow the bank’s procedure. Huntington’s guide describes viewing images and, in some cases, entering a corrected number or amount.

The exception category helps focus the review, but it does not replace checking the item against the business’s own records.

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Submit and verify a pay-or-return decision

After investigating, submit the appropriate pay-or-return decision in the bank’s portal before the cutoff. Follow any second-user approval step your account requires. If the service lets you save an item for later, saving may not count as submitting: Huntington says an item left in its “Save for Later” queue still needs to be submitted or its default applies. First Citizens documents individual or grouped decisions and a decision-history view, which can help confirm what was submitted. Huntington’s guide and First Citizens’ workflow overview describe those bank-specific features.

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Once submitted, check the portal’s status or decision history if available. If you discover an error after submission, contact the bank promptly and use its correction or escalation process; do not assume a saved or edited entry changed the decision already sent.

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Know what happens if nobody decides

The unattended-item default depends on the bank and account setup. Huntington’s guide says its default is Return after the cutoff. Regions says customers may elect an automatic pay or return default. Confirm the setting and its consequences with your bank; an exception is not necessarily stopped automatically. Huntington’s guide and Regions’ Positive Pay page describe different approaches.

When payee matching is available

Payee Positive Pay adds a comparison between the payee name in the issue record and the name on the presented check, if the bank offers and enables that feature. Bank of Hawaii identifies payee mismatch as an exception reason for accounts using its Payee Positive Pay service; Huntington describes comparing the payee in the issue file with the presented check. Ask how your bank handles name variations and what constitutes a mismatch: the cited bank materials do not establish one shared name-normalization rule.

What Positive Pay can—and cannot—do

The control depends on accurate, timely issue data and active exception handling. It can surface mismatches for review, but the cited bank materials do not establish that it guarantees fraud prevention or detects every altered check. First National Bank Alaska’s services agreement describes the service as a procedure designed to prevent loss by letting the customer transmit information about issued checks and review exceptions before the cutoff; that is a contractual description of the service, not a guarantee of outcome. Read First National Bank Alaska’s agreement and disclosures.

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For a comparison between bank offerings, focus on the matched fields, issue and void submission methods, exception timing and cutoff, unattended-item default, image and history access, correction options, alerts, and any dual-approval feature. The details that matter most are the ones that determine whether your team can keep records current and act before the bank’s deadline.

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