 |
| Do you want to maximize your company’s cash flow and improve profitability?
Stonegate Bank’s Commercial Services will do this and more. We offer the cash management tools and technology to expedite your deposits, manage your disbursements, automate your payroll, protect your account from fraud, earn interest on your checking account and save interest on your line of credit. Our services will make the process of managing your cash position more efficient and less costly. Your access to these and other Commercial Services Services begins with a visit or a call to your Stonegate Banker. Remote Deposit The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21) was passed into law in October 2003 and made effective October 2004. This legislature requires that banks accept a substitute check (a check reprinted from a digital image) instead of the original paper check. The law enabled financial institutions to establish image exchange networks to improve the overall efficiency of the country’s payment systems. From these rules, technology has been developed that allows a business to process check deposits without ever having to take them to the bank! Remote Deposit requires the use of a check scanner and the Internet. The scanner captures the image of the front and back of the deposited checks. These images are collected within the system and sent to the bank for processing. Stonegate Bank’s system allows a consumer check, less than $25,000, to be converted to an ACH debit transaction. This function provides next day credit of available funds. A business check is processed as a Check 21 item, with the check either being recreated as a paper IRD (image replacement document), or cleared as an image by the paying bank. Benefits include:
 Online Banking Stonegate Bank offers an internet based banking system designed for the business user. Our internet product provides easy access to balances, prior and current day transaction activity, electronic origination of wire transfers, internal transfers, stop payments and automated clearing house (ACH) debits and credits. Bank statements are available to view or download, and images of deposits and checks are available within the transaction history. User Security
Wire Transfers
Internal Transfers
Automated Clearing House (ACH)
Positive Pay
Bill Payment
Sweep Services Stonegate Bank offers automatic sweep services tied to either an overnight investment or line of credit. These services are designed to maximize investment income and/or reduce borrowing expenses. The sweep services accurately and reliably manage your daily cash position, allowing your business to make the most productive use of its time and money. Cash Sweep The sweep services use an end-of-day process to precisely calculate your daily cash position. If the investable balance exceeds any predetermined target balance, the funds from the checking account are automatically transferred into an investment account. Likewise, if funds are needed to cover checks or other disbursements, a transfer is automatically made from the investment account into the checking account. All funds are fully available each morning, and interest is paid monthly. The Cash Sweep investment is made in an FDIC-insured money market account. Reserve Management Corporation acts as your agent in maintaining the Stonegate Bank Cash Sweep Account. The Reserve is part of a $40 billion organization that created the World’s First Money Market Fund®, establishing the $2 trillion money fund industry. FDIC insurance on each Stonegate Bank Cash Sweep Account is limited to a combined total of $100,000 for all deposits held in the same legal ownership category for each depositor per bank, which includes the Stonegate Bank Cash Sweep Account and any other balances held directly or through other intermediaries. Investment Sweep This investment is made in repurchase agreements (repos). A repo is an agreement between the bank (buyer) and customer (seller) to sell an investment back and forth to one another at face value. Repos are securitized by securities from the bank’s investment portfolio. The security is a government obligation, either a treasury or a government agency. Receipts with collateral information are mailed daily, showing what security was used to back the investment. These receipts are mandated by banking regulations. Repos are not backed by FDIC insurance, as the funds are not considered on deposit, but are considered an investment. FDIC covers only $100,000, therefore repos offer a safe investment alternative without having to tie up funds that may be needed on a daily basis. Debt Management Sweep As an alternative, excess balances over any predetermined target balance may be swept to a commercial line of credit at Stonegate Bank. Advances and payments are calculated daily based on account activity. Both deposits and disbursements are considered in the daily calculation. Debt Management Sweep benefits you because your daily operating funds are being used to keep the line of credit at a minimal balance, saving potentially large amounts in interest expense. Investment Sweep and Debt Management Sweep can be combined. After all transactions on your account are processed, Stonegate Bank determines the most efficient use of your cash. If your account contains an excess balance, funds are paid on your outstanding line of credit first, then, all other cash is invested. If your account contains a deficit balance, funds are liquidated from the investment first, then, drawn from your line of credit. Automated Clearing House (ACH) Stonegate Bank provides a means to initiate electronic funds transfers between banks for the purposes of direct deposit of payroll, preauthorized credits and preauthorized debits. These electronic transactions, known as “ACH”, can be directed to any financial institution that is a member of the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA). One to two days prior to the effective date of the transfer, a NACHA file is originated via the Stonegate Bank Online Banking internet system. This NACHA formatted file contains the following information: customer name, identification number, financial institution name and bank transit/routing number, bank account number, and net amount. Stonegate Bank stores any transactions for account holders who maintain accounts with Stonegate, then sends the remaining items to the Federal Reserve Bank where they are directed to their final banking destination. On the effective date, the debits or credits are posted to the recipients’ accounts by the individual financial institutions. On the same day, the originator’s account (your account) is debited or credited, as appropriate. For customers whose accounting and computer systems can generate NACHA-formatted, fixed width, or delimited files, Stonegate Bank offers import and mapping features to reduce key entry. Direct Deposit of Payroll With Direct Deposit of Payroll, an employee’s net pay is automatically deposited into that employee's checking or savings account. Deposits can be directed to any financial institution that is a member of the National Automated Clearing House Association (“NACHA”). Direct Deposit benefits the employee by saving time running to the bank and standing in bank lines, preventing paychecks from being lost or stolen, providing immediately available funds, protecting against overdrafts and promoting savings. Benefits to the employer include having fewer checks to sign, reconcile and store, reduced chance of check fraud, improved employee productivity, and more efficient payroll processing. Preauthorized Credits and Debits Preauthorized Credits are intended to accommodate outgoing transactions that have traditionally been conducted through the Fedwire system or by physical delivery of paper checks. Recurring transactions, involving established accounts and anticipated amounts, may by conducted more cost effectively when initiated one or two banking days prior to the effective date. Examples include: vendor payments, tax payments, distributions of interest or dividends. For companies that collect fixed, recurring payments, the Preauthorized Debit service is the most efficient, cost effective collection method. This service is ideal for collecting insurance premiums, mortgage payments or membership dues from customers. With this system, the payee’s account is automatically debited on a prearranged date for funds due the initiator. For both parties, this cash flow predictability is an additional benefit. Zero Balance Account (ZBA) A Zero Balance Account (“ZBA”) is a commercial account whose balance is brought to zero each day via an automatic transfer between a master account and a sub account. When used as a disbursement account, the exact dollar amount needed to offset any checks and other debit items presented for payment and to bring the account balance to zero is automatically transferred from the master account. When used as a depository account, the day’s deposit total is transferred to the master account, bringing the depository account balance to zero. Debit card (check card) transactions will not receive authorization when presented against a zero balance account; these items should be tied to the master account only. ZBAs may also be used for both deposits and disbursements, concurrently. In this case, the net difference between the credits and debits clearing the ZBA sub-account will be transferred to/from the master account bringing the account balance to zero at the end of the banking day. ZBAs allow transactions to flow through separate accounts for audit purposes while consolidating the balances for funding. Idle balances once maintained in separate accounts are pooled, which may increase investment opportunities or reduce outstanding credit balances. ZBAs eliminate manual transfers between bank accounts, while reducing the possibilities of overdrafts in stand-alone accounts. CD-ROM Service Stonegate Bank’s image storage solution provides long term storage for images of canceled checks, deposit tickets, checks deposited, and bank statements. Eliminate the boxes of old bank statements and canceled checks kept in storage facilities. Multiple account statements and images can be burned on a single CD-ROM monthly. Images can easily be viewed from the CD-ROM or imported onto your hard-drive. Utilizing a single viewing screen, users scroll through a transaction listing and view images of each transaction simultaneously. Deposit tickets appear, and another window on the same viewing screen provides access to the listing of checks within that deposit. Transaction images can be enlarged, rotated, inverted, and copied to different media. The statement detail can be sorted according to your preferences. Search filters are also available to search for a specific item or groups of items. Positive Pay Positive Pay is designed to provide enhanced security over a commercial customer’s check disbursement process. The customer provides a file listing check number, date, amount and payee of each check the company has issued. This file is delivered to the Bank via the customer’s online banking account through the Positive Pay Module. The file can be either in the form of a text file which will be uploaded, or entered manually in the Positive Pay module. The check issued information is delivered to the Bank no later than 6:00pm Eastern Time on the day the checks are written. This check file, and all subsequent files, is processed daily by the Bank against each day’s cleared checks. Checks that do not match are listed on an exception report that is presented to the customer via their online banking account with the Bank each afternoon by 3:00 pm. The customer is responsible for researching each exception item (check) and instructing the Bank by 7:00 pm Eastern Time the same banking day via online banking with a pay or return decision. If notification is not made, the check(s) remain in the bank for decisioning the next banking day, and responses must be made no later than 2:00 pm with a disposition to pay or return. Customer Benefits of Positive Pay:
Account Reconciliation Stonegate Bank offers Full Account Reconciliation as either a stand-alone service, or a complement to Positive Pay. The customer provides a file with the check number, dollar amount, and issue date of each check issued, via an import feature within Online Banking. Stonegate Bank reconciles this issue data to the paid activity and provides reports of both checks issued but not paid, and checks issued but outstanding. Reconciliation reports are mailed at the end of each statement period. CheckCollect CheckCollect is a full service recovery service for collecting returned checks. By completing an authorization, you give Stonegate Bank the authority to route all of your returned checks directly to CheckCollect’s service center for processing. Images of the front and back of each check are taken and important data is entered about the check writers, including full name, address, phone number, driver’s license, etc. Each qualifying check will be converted to an ACH debit transaction and transmitted to the Federal Reserve. Non-qualifying checks are either routed to a secondary collection service, or returned to you as uncollectible. Eligible and ineligible items are listed below. Years of industry experience are used to determine the best date to maximize the opportunity to collect funds. If necessary, the check may be electronically re-submitted an additional time. Each week, you will receive 100% face value of all checks collected and cleared, via an electronic credit into your bank account. You have online access to a variety of check activity reports to track the status of all items at any time. An optional, secondary collection service is available to attempt collection of items that fail both electronic attempts, and for items returned as “closed account.” One letter to the check writer is sent requesting payment via cashier’s check or money order. All letters comply with the fair debt collection act, and licenses to collect these debts in all fifty states exist through our partner, Receivable Management Services (RMS). RMS is a partner of Dun & Bradstreet. The tone of the letter is non-threatening and maintains the respect of the check writer. CheckCollect processes returned checks electronically as RCK (Re-presented Check Entry) transactions via the ACH system. The ACH system is regulated by the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) which was formed to establish a national set of standards, rules and procedures governing all forms of ACH payments. NACHA rules stipulate eligible and ineligible items for RCK origination. Eligible Items
Ineligible Items
CheckCollect gives you a non-intrusive, cost-effective way to automate the recovery of consumer checks that have been returned for insufficient funds. This system recovers approximately 65% of NSF checks without the need to make collection calls or write collection letters. All collection activity and check images are viewable via online reporting. Escrow Account Services (as often used by Real Estate Attorneys, Title Insurance Agents and Real Estate Brokers) Provided by First Banking Services, we work in concert with your closing and accounting systems to provide the reports necessary to manage the volume of transactions flowing through your accounts, as well as to help satisfy the requirements of your auditors, state regulatory agencies and underwriters. Depending on your needs, we will work with your closing/accounting software vendor to retrieve your deposit and payment data or go directly on-line to your system to reconcile your account. With our service, you receive
Monthly Reports
Sub-Accounting Services (as often used by attorneys, property managers, healthcare professionals, and retail) Our Sub-Accounting Services, provided by First Banking Services, work for you to eliminate the necessity of multiple bank accounts and the hassle associated with each. The identification for each “sub-account” transaction is encoded on your deposits and payments, or you can supply us the detail electronically from your existing accounting system. Simply by identifying your deposits and payments to a specific “sub-account” within one “master” bank account, you can enjoy the benefits of one account while maintaining the detail as if you had multiple accounts. By consolidating your multiple bank accounts, you increase the earning power of your balances as well as avoid costly overdraft charges associated with individual bank accounts that are historically short and are funded by loans from your other accounts. Optional Interest Allocation Services allow your “master” account to earn interest with the interest earnings allocated to each “sub-account”. Year-end 1099INT reporting can be provided to each sub-account, if applicable. With our service, you receive
Monthly Reports
Merchant Services Credit Card acceptance is a must for most businesses today. Stonegate Bank’s Merchant Advantage Program provides access to all of the major payment networks including VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Diners Club. We also offer PIN-based debit card acceptance resulting in significant savings from traditional signature based transactions. Most payment processing equipment is compatible with our system, and if you’re just getting started, we can provide state-of-the-art equipment from leading manufacturers. Other services include:
|
