I have a small business (I’m the only employee) and a business checking account. My bank only provided me with 6 free checks upon opening my business checking account, so I need to order more. In the past, I’ve only ever ordered personal checks for my, well, personal account.
Is there any difference between ordering “business” checks and “personal” checks? They’re both just a routing number and a check number, right?
I’m not super-interested in any “business” features like 3-to-a-page perforated checks, accounting information printed alongside the checks, etc.
Just as a note, the reason I ask is that “business” checks are way more expensive than “personal” checks - one site I looked at offered me 100 personal checks for ~$21 and 50 business checks for ~$47.
Thanks - I wasn’t going to order from my bank, but WalMart is cheaper than the places I have ordered in the past - I didn’t know they did check printing.
When I was in finance 20 years ago, Business Check blanks were printed with more security features (used for detecting and preventing fraud). Australia used checks a lot less than the USA did, I don’t know what’s special about your business cheques.
8.5" wide and up 1, 2 or 3 on a letter sized page.
It’s that size primarily because of some convention long ago that it looks more professional. It may also be because the physical requirements of manual check writing machines.
For a small, personal business, regular size checks with a plain background or maybe your logo is fine unless you’re trying to pretend to be bigger than you are.
I work in accounting and don’t care about or make any judgement on what business checks look like unless they’re covered in puppies and kittens!
You can get that on personal sized checks too. Just costs more.
A bit of trivia. There’s also copyproof letter or A4 paper. You can print on it with a laser printer or copier, but can’t copy or scan it. The copy comes out with a message in the background or completely black.
Thanks, all. Sounds like I can just order (cheap) personal checks with my business info on it, since the only differences appear to be cosmetic (and security features), none of which I really care about.
Another thing to consider is how many checks you’ll be writing. I have my own small business, and I rarely write a check. I do paperless billing with most vendors and use online banking to pay the majority of my bills.
I don’t think you can. Off the top of my head, the numbers at the bottom (Routing/Account/Check Number) are in a different order on Personal vs Business checks.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that could cause a hiccup here and there.
Take a look at samsclubchecks dot com, that’s where I get my checks from. It’s considerably cheaper than anywhere else. At least for the checks I use, one on a page, two vouchers, ready for an inkjet/laser printer.
Okay, so maybe this thread is still open for some clarification - I thought it was asked and answered, but now not sure. And maybe it depends on the institution - I looked at the small number of checks my bank provided me when I opened both my personal and business checks and I don’t see ANY difference other than the account numbers being different. The order of the numbers (routing #, then account #, then check #) are in the same order on the bottom of both checks.
And isn’t the routing number always enclosed in some other special character that looks like |: and ?
If there’s no set order to the routing and account numbers on the bottom of the check, there’d be no way to tell the two apart (if you had a 9-digit account number).
So I’m still not sure - I still THINK that personal and business checks are essentially interchangeable.
(Thanks for the Sam’s Club tip - I’ll check that out too before ordering. And I write about 4 business checks a year, for what that’s worth.)
Anytime you’re asked for your bank routing info, it’s always “The first XXX numbers on the left”. What can cause confusion is account number. My credit union account is only five digits with zeroes and ones to pad it out to the minimum 10 digit convention. https://www.ofx.com/en-us/faqs/how-to-find-us-account-and-routing-numbers/
There are special characters, which is why I said it might cause some hiccups. Some machines may be thrown off when presented with, what appears to but a personal check, but it’s for a business account.
If you really only right 4 checks a year, I’d suggest the next time you’re at the bank, ask them to print a dozen checks for you. Some banks have a printer right there that can make a few of them.
Also, ask your bank how much a cashier’s check is. At one of my banks they’re free (the other charges 5 or 6 bucks). If they’re free or cheap, that might be the best option.
Thanks so much for your help. I’m pretty convinced based on your posts (and others) that there’s really not much difference for me in terms of personal and business.
I’ll order personal checks for my business, write myself a small one and see what happens, and proceed from there.
"Don’t throw out those puppies yet, Jack. It’s true you can write a “negotiable instrument,” bank talk for a valid check, on just about anything. According to the Uniform Commercial Code, the body of law that governs these things, all you have to include are the name of the payee, the dollar amount, the name of your bank, your signature, the date, and some suitable words of conveyance, such as “pay to the order of.” You don’t need the account number or the bank ID number you find on preprinted checks.
The trick is that you have to find somebody willing to accept such a check. Merchants and the like are free to reject any sort of payment they don’t cotton to, checks included. Needless to say, if you try to write a check on the back of an old grocery list, the average checkout clerk is going to tell you to take a hike. However, if the clerk does accept it, the bank will honor it."
Business checks, besides physically being larger, usually have the info at the bottom in a different order than personal checks. Frequently, account # comes first whereas it’s last on a personal check. The special characters let the system know which set of numbers is which.
Professionally printed checks are printed with a special magnetic ink for the numbers at the bottom. This helps the automated machines read & process them. Depending upon the quality of your printer & the OCR capability of the machine reading it, you may be able to get away with printing your own w/o that special ink. If you do few enough, you probably could as well but they frequently kick out for manual processing. Do enough & the bank will may call you on it as it’s costing them extra for the manual processing.
I’m involved with a not-for-profit using business cheques and like the OP we were given the standard 6 when I opened the account, hand-created at the branch.
I found that I very rarely use cheques these days, all our vendors now accept (and prefer) electronic banking payments. When that first wave ran out, I went to my manager and asked “please” for another round of hand-created cheques to save me the cost of the printing and they obliged.
The couple vendors that were “behind the times” switched over to e-banking within a year and after 3 years I still have a two 2nd round cheques left unused.
Bottom line - before you get a whack of cheques printed, have a hard look to see how many you will really use.
BTW
Some vendors also accept credit card payments. I got a points card for us and happily pay with credit card when possible and use points to buy items for the office.
Even on a personal level - I haven’t written a personal cheque in over 4 years. Certainly here in Canada everyone happily does e-banking, except my 80 year old father-in-law, he doesn’t trust it. :rolleyes:
The only difference between business and personal checks in my experience is size. You can ask them to order the smaller (dollar-bill-sized) checks if it would be cheaper. You can ask them to make you counter checks, which might be free or with a per-item fee. You can order through a third party if it would be cheaper or print them yourself.
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