Cheque Production System

Liverpool City Council, similar to most large organisations, has a requirement to produce cheque payments to customers and suppliers. The combined annual volume of cheques produced by Liverpool City Council across various service areas is approximately 6000.

These services areas use systems such as Northgate, Oracle and SAP and include Council Tax, Business Rates, Housing Benefit, Payroll & Account Payable. While annual volumes of cheque payments is diminishing there remains a requirement for the city council to retain the ability to produce cheques which meet the accepted industry standard.

The production of cheques is a daily task which is automated and prompted by the receipt of a data file in the cheque production system from one of the city council's core systems. The cheques produced must comply with the industry standards as outlined by the Cheque & Credit Clearing Company Limited, which is the organisation responsible for manages the cheque clearing system in Great Britain. In addition to the production of cheques the city council closely manages and reconciles the volume of cheque payments issued and provides information back to the core systems on the status of those cheques (i.e. presented or out of time).