Creating USPS Positive Pay Extract

Owned by Sara Glore
Oct 21, 2021
2 min read

This document will walk you through how to generate a positive pay extract from USPS. Positive Pay extract is a file of the checks processed that the district sends to the bank. Banks use the positive pay file to match the checks the school issues with those presented for payment to help with fraud detection. 


Please contact NWOCA Fiscal Support and they will assist in setting up the format. 

The following options can be configured to control the formatting of the extract file. The required formatting for the file is determined by the bank requirements. 

  1. Select Format Type

    1. CSV: Comma Separated Values

      The Length is preset for each field.  Comma separated files place quotes around text fields and separate fields with commas. These files are simpler to work with compared to fixed length files, as only the field order needs to be known.

    2. Fixed: Fixed width file that will download as a TXT. This can also be changed to (saved as) a SEQ file once downloaded.

      All information is formatted with either valid data or spaces. Fixed Length fields are filled with spaces to a specified width. Each field has an offset from the start of the line, and a length in number of characters.

  2. Select bank format extract fields.
    1. Click the  at the bottom of the grid to add fields
    2. Once added, use the drop down under the Name column to select the data that should appear in that field.
    3. The Length column determines how many characters make up that field.
    4. The Format specifier default for each field added. These correspond to standard format specifiers. 


Once the format is configured, follow the below steps to generate the extract file.

  1. Go to Utilities/Automatic Payment Reconciliation/Pay Rec Extract tab
  2. Select which checks to include by entering a Starting Date. The date needs to be before the Issue Date of the check in order for it to be included in the Extract File

  3. Select a Bank Account number to be used for the 'Bank Account Number' field on the extract file.

    These options correspond to the records entered on the Core > Bank Accounts page.
  4. Payment Transaction Type:  
    1. Payroll Check
    2. Deduction Check
    3. Group Deduction Check
    4. Refund of Payroll Item
    5. All
  5. Click on Generate Extract to create the extract file. If a PDF is desired click on Generate Report.