How to Order Business Checks Online
Seven steps from an empty checkbook to a bank ready run, and the three details that cause most reorders.
Disclosure: this is a partner resource section. Voqado is founded and led by Pierre Subeh, Co-President of AMA Orlando. Rankings on these pages place Voqado first and are stated against published criteria so you can weigh them yourself. Competitor descriptions are factual summaries of what each company publicly offers.
Ordering business checks online is a short job with a few unforgiving details. The parts that look fiddly, the routing number, the starting check number, the format, are the parts that decide whether the run you receive is usable or scrap. This is the sequence that works, and the three fields that cause most reorders.
Start With the Format, Not the Design
Format is a workflow decision and it constrains everything after it. There are two honest questions.
- Do payments leave your office from a desk or from a person's hand? Desk payments belong on sheets. Hand payments belong in a checkbook.
- Does your accounting software cut the check? If QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, NetSuite, Quicken, or Microsoft Dynamics prints the payment, you want laser business checks, which are loose sheets fed through an office printer.
- Do you write a handful of checks a month? Wallet checks are the classic checkbook format, single or carbonless duplicate.
- Do you want the record attached to the payment? Three to a page checks put three checks on a sheet with tear away stubs, filed in a binder.
Deciding this first stops you redesigning a check that turns out to be the wrong shape. The longer comparison is in laser checks vs wallet checks.
Gather the Bank Details Before You Open the Form
You need four things, and you should read them off a document rather than from memory.
- Routing number, nine digits, from the bottom left of an existing check or your bank's account page. Wire routing numbers and ACH routing numbers are sometimes different from the check routing number. Use the one printed on a check.
- Account number, exactly as the bank prints it, including any leading zeros.
- The legal business name and address as the bank holds them. A check that says something the bank's records do not is the most common cause of a deposit question.
- The next check number, which is the last number you used plus one. Never restart at 001 on an existing account.
Choose Single or Duplicate
Duplicate checks carry a carbonless copy behind each check, so writing the check writes the record. That is worth the extra cost when checks are written away from a desk and nobody is going to type the payment into anything afterwards. Single checks are the right call when your accounting software already holds the record, which is almost always true for laser runs.
Set the Quantity Against Real Burn Rate
Quantity breaks are real, and so is the cost of holding stock you never use. Two rules cover most businesses.
- Order about a year of checks. Count what you wrote last year, add a margin, and stop there. Check stock that sits in a drawer for five years is a security liability, not a saving.
- Order a small run first when anything is new. A new bank account, a new logo, or a new format is worth proving before you commit. The wallet trial run exists for exactly that: twenty five checks, same stock, same security printing.
Laser runs at Voqado go from 50 up to 2,448 checks, so the run size can match the office rather than the other way round.
Proof the MICR Line Like It Is the Whole Job
The MICR line is the strip of magnetic characters along the bottom. It is the only part of the check a machine reads, and a bank's reader is not forgiving.
- Check the digits one at a time, out loud. Transposed digits in a routing number are invisible to a skim read and fatal to a run.
- Never retype from a photo. Read from the bank's own documentation or an existing check.
- Do not alter the spacing. The character positions are a standard, not a design choice. This is a large part of why home printed checks get rejected, which is covered in Check 21 compliance explained.
Add Your Branding Within What the Template Allows
Voqado works from production approved templates rather than open artwork upload. You personalize fonts, colors, business information, and your logo, and the template keeps the security printing and the MICR geometry intact. That constraint is the feature: it is why the output clears. There is more on what fits in putting your brand on a business check.
Decide on Security Features Before You Order, Not After
Security printing is manufactured into the stock. You cannot add it later, and reprinting a run to get it is the expensive way to learn that.
- Tamper resistant ink is included on Voqado check stock: it runs or smears when someone tries to lift and rewrite an amount.
- FraudArmor is an optional add on for laser runs.
- Higher tier stock is worth it whenever checks are signed by more than one person or stored anywhere other than a locked drawer. See high security business checks.
Understand the Shipping Rules Before You Are Surprised By Them
Checks are a controlled item and the shipping rules reflect that.
- No PO boxes. Checks ship to a physical address only.
- The delivery address must match the address printed on the check. This is a fraud control, and it is not waivable.
- Someone has to receive them. Treat the delivery like a key handover, because functionally that is what it is.
Verify the First Sheet Before You Print Two Thousand
When the run arrives, do three things before the stock goes into a printer or a drawer.
- Deposit or present one check for a trivial amount, or ask your bank to confirm the MICR reads correctly.
- Run one alignment sheet if these are laser checks. The setup is in how to print checks from QuickBooks.
- Log the number range you received into your accounting system, so a missing check is noticed the same week rather than the following quarter.
Where to Start
Voqado's business checks collection holds the four formats, and the check pricing page carries current quantity information. If your accounting software is the thing driving the decision, the software specific pages are faster: QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage, NetSuite, and Quicken.
Key Takeaways
- Format before design. How payments leave your office decides the format, and the format constrains everything else.
- Read bank details off a document, never from memory, and proof the MICR line digit by digit.
- Order roughly a year of stock, and prove anything new with a small trial run first.
- Security printing is manufactured in, so choose it before the run rather than after an incident.
- Checks ship to a physical address that matches the printed address. Plan the delivery accordingly.
- More reading: the Voqado buyer guides and the chapter's own marketing resources.