Checks
Column provides customers the ability to issue and deposit checks through our APIs. Column’s APIs are directly integrated with the Federal Reserve, enabling you to access the full suite of the Federal Reserve’s check services.
Checks can be issued or deposited by Column 24/7 and checks are processed periodically by the Federal Reserve on business days beginning at 6:00 pm PST on the preceding calendar day and ending at 6:30am PST, Monday through Friday, excluding designated holidays. For example, the FedForward Service (sending deposited checks to the Fed) opens for Monday at 6:00pm PST on the preceding Sunday.
Similarly, the FedReturn service (the return of issued checks back to the Federal Reserve) are processed periodically by the Federal Reserve on business days beginning at 6:00pm PST on the preceding calendar day and ending at 1:00pm PST, Monday through Friday, excluding designated holidays.
Check Issuing
Column generates unique check numbers to issue checks. We require that each check be generated with a specified payee and amount, also known as positive pay amount. We use positive pay verification to ensure the amount specified at check creation matches the amount actually cashed by the payee. To issue checks at Column, you must first pre-fund the account for the issued check amount.
Column supports stop payments allowing the check issuer to cancel a previously provisioned check that has not yet been deposited. You can also use our stop payment functionality to enforce check expiry after a select number of days.
Check Printing and Mailing
For checks you issue through Column's API, Column also supports check printing and mailing. If you provide a message to the payee and payee's US address when creating a check transfer, Column will automatically print and mail the check. You can get realtime delivery status updates through our webhooks.
Check Deposits
Column's Check Deposit API makes it easy for you to deposit checks remotely without having to visit a physical bank branch. Column currently requires customers use a third-party processor for check image capture. Column will work with all major remote deposit capture service providers. You can send the check image and metadata from your third-party processor to Column in our Check Deposit API to deposit a check at Column. Column will then submit an image cash letter to the Federal Reserve and provide deposit status updates via webhooks so you have insight into the status of your deposit.
Enhancements to check deposits are coming soon. Hang tight for additional information on image quality optimization, optical character recognition (OCR) technology, and metadata extraction, all of which will allow you to work with Column exclusively to process check images.
Fraud Prevention
Column will automatically return checks for a number of reasons including check number not found, positive-pay mismatch, and account number not found. As an additional method of fraud prevention, Column does not support blank check issuance through our APIs.
If we’re missing some information that you’d like to see, feel free to send us an email at support@column.com.