The activities of your accounting department often venture into the realm of manual or inefficient. While your staff has technology that improves their productivity and workflows, the problems usually reside in check printing and mailing services.
As with any area of business, you want to accelerate efficiency, accuracy, and quality. However, you have to balance that with costs. The easiest path to do this is to outsource check printing and mailing services. Doing so will deliver many benefits and improve operations.
Outsourcing Will Save You Money
Check printing and mailing aren’t core competencies of your company. For this singular reason, you’re creating a lot of costs with labor, materials, and equipment. Consider what’s on your cost analysis now to produce checks and mail them:
- Labor to operate machinery and do manual tasks.
- Materials needed to print and mail (e.g., paper, ink, etc.).
- Equipment to print and mail.
- Space costs (e.g., power, security, leases).
- Other fees (e.g., postage)
If you choose to outsource, what you’ll pay your vendor is much less than your current expenses. Transactional print and mail companies operate at high volumes, and all their actions are to produce for their customers. They get the best rates for materials and postage, so the per piece cost will decrease.
Additionally, the labor savings allow you to redeploy those people to more meaningful tasks and work. An increase in productivity after removing these burdens also contributes to cost savings.
Security of Check Printing and Mailing Improves with Outsourcing
Could outsourcing a process make it more secure? Yes, it can when you work with a transactional print and mail partner. These companies have robust data and physical security, which protects the data you send to them for printing.
The second aspect of security is the actual printing of the check. Digital printing is now the norm, incorporating the most rigid security attributes at a high volume in full color. The most crucial are:
- Customizable digital void pantograph (DVP) and authentication.
- Digital verification grid (DVG), which validates that the document isn’t a copy.
- Microprint signature line (MGL) to ensure no duplicates.
- HALO feature, which prevents counterfeiting and enables a decoder lens to confirm authenticity.
- Prismatic Print, which is a technique that blends two or more colors in the pantograph and is nearly impossible to recreate.
- Additional printed security that incorporates variable data.
If you outsource to a check printing and mailing provider that enforces the most stringent security measures, you have assurance that the process is safe. These businesses are the experts, and their livelihood depends on this level of security.
Outsourcing Can Boost Accuracy and Meet Compliance Requirements
Errors in check printing and mailing are more common that you may realize. These errors can have ramifications on your compliance record and your company reputation. Your risk of mis-mailings may be greater than you think unless you have standardized processes and checks and balances.
The reason that outsourcing can improve accuracy revolves around people, processes, and technology. By leveraging frameworks like LEAN manufacturing and Six Sigma, print and mail businesses operate consistently, never deviating from the steps.
The second layer of accuracy enhancement is with technology that combines micro-cameras and barcodes. Each document has a unique barcode, and the cameras validate that the right check goes in the correct envelope. That’s a level of precision hard to compete with and offers a 99.999% accuracy rating.
The skilled and trained people, processes, and technology support better compliance adherence. You’ll also have a log of all printing services should you need them for an audit.
Outsourcing Delivers Trackability
Checks are a unique category of mailings that have quantifiable value. Ensuring they arrive to recipients is scalable by outsourcing. Through a secure portal, you’ll be able to track the status of each check from production to postal service pickup to delivery. You’ll have access to information about:
- Where a letter is within the mail stream
- The delivery date and time
Further, you’ll have a historical record of each document. With this visibility, you can quickly determine if a check mailing did not reach the intended party.
Check Printing and Mailing Services with PCI Group
Check printing and mailing services are specialized functions. It involves a lot of components with the added challenge of security and compliance. So, why not take this off your plate? You can have confidence in outsourcing with PCI Group. We have the expertise, experience, and technology to meet your needs.
