Jared Stancil, chief operating officer of Nashville-based Anchor Tours, knew there had to be a more efficient way of processing his company’s deposits. With three offices -- one in Tennessee, one in Kentucky and one in Alabama -- the company was spending at least $20 per office per week to FedEx checks to its main office.
“We prefer to use a local bank because we like that people know us when we pick up the phone, but this meant our out of-state offices couldn’t physically go to the bank,” said Stancil. “We didn’t want to have accounts at multiple banks. At any time, we might have $30,000 or more worth of checks waiting for our weekly deposit. If one of the out-of-state offices had only one check, they would postpone sending it until they had more. Waiting put us at risk for depositing bad checks.”
Several years ago Anchor Tours accidentally threw away a very large tax refund check from the state. Knowing the chances of the state re-cutting a check were slim to none, Stancil went digging through a dumpster to find it. The check was ripped in four pieces.
“The check looked like it was on life support after we taped it together,” said Stancil. “It was a miracle the bank was able to scan it and get it deposited.”
Consequently, Stancil started taking the checks home, but he knew that wasn’t a good idea either. There had to be a better way.
Karen Foster, staff accountant for Capitol Homes, had similar needs. The home building company usually had several closings a day, which meant there were usually $10,000 to $15,000 in checks laying around until someone could drive to the bank to deposit them. Because of the time involved with making deposits, the company usually only went to the bank twice a week.