Software Choices for Laser Check Printing

Your business just decided to upgrade to laser check printing and you have to find the software and paper needed.

Software – CHECK!

Whether you are the owner of the business or just one of the accountants, this is an important decision. Read on for choices and features.

If you don’t yet have bookkeeping software or are thinking of upgrading, now is the time. Quicken (for business) and QuickBooks (for home use), both by Intuit, are mainstream, easy to use with a simple user interface and offer check printing along with many other bookkeeping features. Beware, though, the Basic software package does not offer check printing. Expect to pay at least $50 for a check-compatible version of Quicken or QuickBooks.

BookKeeper 2006, by MySoftware, offers check printing, payroll processing and credit card processing (though you’ll still need a gateway and account with a bank.) What you won’t have is the ability to download bank account information online, like you can with Intuit products. Expect to pay about $30 for this product.

Peachtree Basic is another popular accounting system. Peachtree has long been known as the best suited for medium to large businesses but has, in recent years, added simpler software packages to their line. Peachtree Basic, by Sage, does offer check writing and bookkeeping, but for the $99 price tag, it doesn’t offer a lot of additional features.

VersaCheck 2003, by VersaCheck, offers a bare bones check writing software and a price tag to match – you can usually find this product for about $20 at your local electronics store.

CheckMark offers an accounting system but you’ll have to add MICR encoding (funny dots and dashes with numbers at the bottom of your check) software separately.

If you aren’t interested in printing the “Payable To” or “To the Order of” portions of the check and your accounting system is just right, you can print just the MICR encoding of your routing and account numbers on the bottom of your check paper with MICR Encoding Software. These cost a bit more, around $120. But since the other software does that and more, this might not be a great investment.

There are also software programs that can encode your signature, and some higher-end accounting packages offer this feature. Great addition if there are few signers on your account and he or she is always too busy to offer a John Hancock.

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