socially responsible office supplies - checksIt's time for me to buy more checks (perhaps some day online bill paying will be more reliable and prevalent and I can quit with the checks).
In the meantime, do you know of any places where I can buy business checks that might be "socially responsible"--recycled paper? non-toxic inks? some money goes to a charitable organization? That kind of thing.
So far all I can find is a regular check seller who prints images and logos related to charitable orgs, but there's no evidence that any money goes anywhere besides the check seller.
I dunno. Perhaps I just can't conceive of the right Google search terms to find these ...
What sort of companies are you not able to pay via online bill paying? I find that for personal banking I can pay all my bills online except for my landlord. For irregular purchases a bank card or credit card is almost always acceptable. The same applies to business expenses, though there I write checks to the occasional individual for working a gig or renting their equipment.
So I don't know of socially responsible check printers, but my checks are lasting a very long time.
Yesterday we wrote checks for about $40K towards payables. With online banking, payments come out of the account the day the check is "written". Now I'm not trying to work the float, but I just don't feel good about the bank using my money for all those days between when I "write" the check and when my vendor cashes it (five to ten days or more).
And, I've had too much familiarity with electronic transactions--especially auto-deductions--going foul, and the bank putting the onus on their client.
Call me a doubter :-) I'd like the systems to be a little more "user friendly."
But with your suggestion, Richard, I ought to give a better look to see if any of our vendors will let us make payments with a debit card each month and save a little paper that way maybe.
Online bill pay doesn't work for foreign suppliers - two of my suppliers are canadian and my bank doesn't do bill pay out of the US!
Good points - you're working with a bigger cash flow than I am (by far). And why give the bank any more of your money than they already take? But I'm guessing the reason your vendors take 5 to 10 days to cash your check is because they actually have to take it to the bank and deposit it. With automatic payments maybe you could pay them a bit later? Maybe not - with a check they've psychologically received the money well before they actually get it from you.
Ahhh. I wish there was a little more flow to it. Lots of money goes to pay for raw materials! Crazy price of steel, and freight on top of that these days, oh my.
That's awesome that you're taking your check writing to a "green" level. I agree, online bill pay isn't quite there yet. Setting up vendors and having to wait 5 + days for them to issue is bit of a pain. I haven't used this website to order checks but they are claiming to use recycled paper (20% post consumer fiber) and vegtable based inks: checkgallery.com. They might be able to provide you what you're looking for.
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