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Forms for BusinessVision, BVEssentials and Spire

What blank cheque stock should I order?

People often ask us what cheque stock they should buy to print their Sage BusinessVision cheques on, and where they can get it.

The short answer is that, in most cases, the cheque stock should be a plain, 3-section laser cheque with only minimal information pre-printed, as BusinessVision, BVEssentials or Spire will print the rest of the information (some exceptions in Spire). Following are some detailed suggestions for use with most clients with typical requirements (which are, by the way, compliant with requirements from the Canadian Payments Association, the CPA).

What to ask for when ordering cheque stock

We recommend the following when ordering blank cheque stock for your business:

  • Laser cheque stock
  • Three sections - top, middle and bottom (this is standard for laser cheque stock)
  • We generally prefer the cheque portion to be at the bottom, with the two stub ('advice') sections above; while this is not necessarily the norm, we find it leads to less tearing or damage to the cheque portion. However, if you prefer the cheque at the top for other reasons, then order that


Be very clear when ordering that you want ONLY the following minimum required information pre-printed:

  • Cheque numbers on both stubs as well as the top right corner of the cheque portion
  • The MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) data encoded at the bottom of the cheque portion. This is the part that's machine-read both optically and magnetically in Canada. It needs to contain the cheque number ('serial number') as well as the bank, branch and account numbers. Your cheque provider will certainly be able to handle this. Note: be sure to request a cheque number sequence that is higher than you have used before

We don't recommend pre-printing anything else - BusinessVision, BVEssentials or Spire can print all the other required information, and if it's not pre-printed, you don't have to throw out cheque forms if you ever move, change your phone number or anything else. The other big benefit of having BusinessVision generate the remaining information is that everything else on the cheque will always align properly if you print it yourself

A Few Additional Hints

You may well find that your cheque stock vendor expresses reluctance to not print everything on the cheque. Don't be surprised by this, but you should insist on only pre-printing the indicated sections, for the reasons noted above. They will do it this way if you ask.

If you have multiple bank accounts (for example, a regular account and a payroll account), you'll need different cheques for each. The simplest way to differentiate between them is by choosing very different colours.


Where to buy blank cheque stock

While we can't endorse any particular supplier at any given time for any given need, several we've seen clients use to provide stock include the following (you can Google them to get more info about their nearest locations):

  • NEBS
  • Davis & Henderson
  • Safeguard
  • If you have another forms supplier that you use for other things, you could consider asking them as well

Basically, anyone in Canada selling cheque stock will likely be able to do the job, but it will be up to you to review choices, pricing, timing and so on to decide which vendor works best for your business. Be sure to review the pricing options depending on how many cheques you want to purchase at any one time (we recommend buying approximately a one-year supply at a time)


Call if you need more help

If you need specific recommendations for specific needs, please contact us today to see what we can do to assist you to buy the right cheque forms for your business.


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