Cost benefit analysis - Printing cheques/BACs

hixie

Hi all,

I have been doing my Unit 10 report and I have got to the cost benfit analysis part and I cannot find prices anywhere for pre-printed cheques and BACs payments.

If anyone could give me some info on the price of pre-printed cheques and the price of sending payments by BACs I would be really gratefull!

Thanks you!

Cullen

I actually did this exercise at work about a year ago.

The cost of one of our pre printed cheques last year was 18p each. This however was if we had a print run which would have lasted about 5 years, shorter print runs meant much higher cheque costs. These cheques were mid range, they had our company name on and had some sort of security feature to prevent counterfeit copies.

We then factored in the cost of postage: 36p for a 1st class franking, and about 2p for stationery, envelope and remittance advice. I think the bank charges around 12p for processing the cheque through their system.

This all came to about 68p. I didn't factor in any labour costs.

We then sent out BACS details requests with all our payments over a couple of months, we have had a really good response recently because of the mail disruption. We also ask for an email address to which we can send the remittance advice. The bank charges 12p I think for processing a 3 day BACS payment. So each payment works out about 56p cheaper. You may wish to check and compare these costs as I am only going on memory.

We now have a free cheque book from the bank and keep details of each cheque raised on excel. This is brilliant as we now have a good history to look up old payments, (our accounts system is rubbish). Where possible we try to pay our suppliers by bacs. We find this quicker, as processing 10 cheque payments takes three times longer than processing 10 BACS payments.

We keep a log of all payments made by BACS on excel and again find it easy using the search option to look up old payments.

I still have to work on the security aspect. At the moment it is only me that processes BACS payments and I am very honest, but I need to consider what risks are there and what controls are required should a dishonest person come along. I have always claimed that a tight secure system keeps honest people safe from theives as a thief will always try to point the finger of blame on someone else.

Good luck with this. I would be very interested in hearing how you get along with your project as I could benefit from your findings.

Cullen

Oh heck, I may have misled you a bit, the internet bacs cost is 28p per payment. A cheque now appears to cost 43p.

These prices have really gone up recently. It may depend on your bank what the precise charges are. I would ring them up and ask to speak to your relationship manager and ask, I would make it clear that you are doing a project as they may not wish to discuss actual price structures with you.

How about your Company's accounts manager or book keeper? They should know what their bank charges are....(er having said that I should know too....hmmm)

AK002

The RBS charge:

£0.45 per standing order
£0.59 for cheques and other debits (payments)
£0.61 for manual credits
£0.28 for cheques paid in @ branches
£0.55 per £100 for Fast Cash
and £1.50 per £100 for cash exchanged at branches.

From your other thread!