The Benefits of Business Checks – Practicality, Branding, and Payroll

You’ve decided to open your own business. While you may have yourself and only a couple of employees on your payroll at the moment, one decision you should make early on is which method to pay everyone. Not in cash, mind you, but with which type of check: personal or business. You may already have a personal checking account and decided to manage yourself with that account alone, but bringing other workers into the picture – and into the business – adds several other factors that may reveal themselves by tax time. Nevertheless, creating a separate account and using business checks is often beneficial to your business.

The most significant benefit of using business checks and an account is the separation of finances. While online banking has made balancing a check book easier, keeping two sets of bank statements allows you to take note of every check and transaction made for your business or for yourself. In case your business gets audited, for example, your business finances, including canceled checks, will all be in one location – no going through a large amount of transactions and slips associated with a personal account.

Aside from the practicality of using business checks to keep your finances separate, such checks displaying your company’s name often get noticed more than those with just your name. Think of a set of business checks much like a calling card when interacting with other businesses. Every time they receive a check from you, they’ll see the name of your company and, in some cases, the logo for your business. Printing services that create business checks can often customize a set by adding a logo on the background. Often, this is done by sending an image of your company’s logo with an order of checks.

Additionally, another important aspect of business checks is the ability to print them yourself. With many computerized options available, you can often use a set of computerized checks in conjunction to various accounting programs, such as QuickBooks or Quicken, to do your payroll, instead of outsourcing to a separate company.