On 08/13/2010 04:49 PM, Bret McDanel wrote: > It is weird that there is a higher processing overhead for a paper check > (cheque to people on other continents) yet that incurs no cost whereas a > wire has much lower processing overhead and its often much more > expensive. Almost like people in this country are being steered to use > the ACH system one way or the other.
The overhead and unattractive aspects of paper checks may be a peculiarity of my unique banking situation, due to banking with a local (regional) bank whose nearest branch is quite far from my physical location. I'm willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience because of how much I hate the big banks. It's very time-consuming for me to drive over to deposit checks, and it's very slow if mailed in. At the same, there's not enough volume to warrant something like a remote check scanner. The other problem with checks is time. If you ask a customer to cut you a check, it'll go through their usual accounts payable cycle, and probably get bogged down with a traditionally-minded bookkeeper or AP person who wants to do things on their own time, on their own schedule, at their own pace, with their own little process. If it's a bigger customer, they are used to paying pretty much everything on NET 30/60/90 day terms, so they're not in a big hurry. They also like to forget to pay what are to them relatively small bills from small vendors. So, the check will be in the mail ... probably ... sometime between now and the next financial quarter. If the only acceptable method of payment is electronic funds transfer of some description, and they agree to it, it gives one more leverage to hassle them, because the truth of instant payment is as black-and-white and deterministic as everything else electronic; either you got the money, or you didn't. As a tiny company, we really can't afford to do it any other way, from a cash flow perspective. I'm sure there are many others here in the same boat. -- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 1170 Peachtree Street 12th Floor, Suite 1200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/ -- _____________________________________________________________________ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
