For businesses today, business checks are considered one of life’s conveniences, as are paper clips or staplers. No one stops to think about the ingenuity of the concept of business checks. However, business checks were not always in existence, and before they made their way into offices, life for small business owners and bookkeepers was a lot more complicated.
Historians say that as far back as the ancient Greeks, business transactions were sometimes transcribed by a scribe, but the scroll was an impractical possession, and paying a scribe was very costly. With the passage of time, the method slowly evolved, but business transactions were recorded in ledgers in some form. In England in the early 1700’s, more advanced business checks began to appear. These ‘checks’ were also written by scribes on heavy paper and adorned with decorative seals and crests. They were anything but practical. Checks were costly to write, and it was even harder to keep a ledger of the checks distributed and received.
Over the years, business owners began to write checks on cheaper and more practical paper, and eventually carbon paper came into being. By placing a piece of carbon paper between two blank checks, accountants could more easily keep accounts. Paperless carbon paper was another big advancement in the development of business checks. Computers represented the ultimate in convenience for business checks and accounts payable departments for most companies. Business owners could now print checks directly from their computer with commonly used software like Quickbooks and Peachtree, which also made an end of year tax season accounting work much easier since any invoice paid by check was readily in the accounting software, but they still had to sign them by hand. Eventually, banks began to accept digitally printed signatures, and the business checks that are used today came into being.
Business checks are constantly being made more inexpensive and convenient to obtain, with many third-party online sites selling business checks for a lot less then the banks charge. These sites must adhere to the standards set forth by the FAC, to ensure that no company’s security and financial info is compromised. Customers today can order business bank checks right from their computers, see sites like Tech Checks for many different options and. All that has to be done is to enter the business’s information, and the bank’s information, such as the account number and bank’s routing number. Businesses can also personalize their checks to reflect the company’s interests, and the company logo can even be uploaded and printed on the check for marketing and branding purposes.
Business checks such as Quickbooks and accounting software checks and the like make life even easier by automatically recording facts and details that are associated with the payment. Bookkeepers today need to just learn how to work the specific accounting program, whether it is Quickbooks, Intuit, or some other variety, and they’re set to go.
Life for accountants and small business owners is a lot easier today than it used to be. Business checks have helped modernize today’s economic system for small businesses.
