The Positive Pay file format differs from bank to bank. In order to meet each bank’s requirements, the Positive Pay Configuration page is used to allow your site to configure the Positive Pay file to the format used by your bank. The Positive Pay Configuration page is a single page that provides access to both the Positive Pay Template (upper section of the page) and Positive Pay Field (lower section of the page) tables. The records on these two tables are used as input to the Generate Positive Pay job to instruct the job on how to create the output file(s).
You can create your sites Positive Pay file structure on the Positive Pay Configuration page. You do this in multiple steps.
First, you insert a new, parent, Positive Pay Template record to establish a Template ID and Template Description for the Positive Pay file. There must be one Positive Pay Template record for each template. This is the parent record for all of the associated Positive Pay Field records. This information is entered in the upper section of the page.
Once a Positive Pay Template record is created, you may insert Positive Pay Field records (entered in the lower section of the page) to specify the details for constructing each Record Type. The combination of Template ID, Record Type, and Sequence uniquely identifies a Positive Pay Field record. No two records are allowed to have the same Record Type and Sequence for a given Template ID. These Positive Pay Field records (one or more records per template) define how the batch job constructs the records and indicates the fields that are included in the Positive Pay files. Positive Pay files may contain one or more tabs. The different tabs in the file are defined as Record Types and those include:
Header Record: This tab usually identifies where the file is coming from, such as the company name that is sending the file and the date when the file was sent. It may also include detail record totals. This tab is optional in the file.
Detail Record: This tab includes the individual check details such as check amount and check date. This tab is mandatory in the file.
Summary Record: This tab usually summarizes what was included in the file and contains control totals for number of checks or total check amounts. This tab helps the administrators verify if the file is created correctly and the checks data is accurate. This tab is also optional in the file.
Your site can choose to set up your file specifications as needed and not all tabs of the file are required. For each Record Type, a number of different fields or attributes can be defined or configured. The configured attributes are included in the Positive Pay file generated by the Generate Positive Pay batch job. The attributes help to build the structure of the file. The data source for the attributes varies depending on the configuration. Some data is extracted from Advantage Financial tables or transactions, and some data may be defaulted based on the Positive Pay Field record setup. In some instances, static text values are inserted in the file as requested by the bank. For example, ‘*03’ may be written to the file to identify the beginning of a header file. Another example might be to write out the sender’s name in the header or including filler space between two attributes.