City National Bank Positive Pay: Building and Uploading Your Check-Issue File
City National Bank offers positive pay to its business and commercial customers as a check fraud control. You give the bank a list of the checks you have written, and when a check is presented the bank compares it against your list. Items that do not match become exceptions that you review and decide to pay or return. This page explains how positive pay works at City National Bank, what a check-issue file contains, and how to build a file that matches the format your bank assigns to your account.
City National Bank describes the process plainly: when a company issues checks, it "provides a list of disbursement details to its bank. The details could include items such as the check number, date, payee name and amount." When a check is presented, "the bank verifies the check against the company-provided details." Anything that does not match is handled through a process the bank sets up with you in advance.
What positive pay City National Bank offers
City National delivers check fraud tools through its online treasury platform, City National Business Suite. Larger and more complex businesses may instead use City National Treasury Net. Within these platforms the bank lists several related services:
- Positive Pay, which matches presented checks against your issued-check list by check number and amount.
- Payee Verify, which adds payee name matching for additional protection. This is City National's name for payee match positive pay.
- Reverse Positive Pay, where the bank sends you a list of presented checks each day and you flag any to return, instead of sending an issued-check file in advance.
- ACH Positive Pay along with "Blocks and Filter Authorizations" to control electronic debits, which is separate from check positive pay.
City National also notes that positive pay works alongside its Account Reconcilement Processing service. For the difference between standard and reverse positive pay, see positive pay vs reverse positive pay.
The general shape of a check-issue file
City National Business Suite supports both standard and custom import options for check positive pay issues, so the exact layout your account uses is provided by the bank at setup and can vary. We do not publish field positions for City National Bank because they are account-specific, and inventing them would only get your file rejected. Nearly every check-issue file carries the same core fields:
- Account number for the account the checks are drawn on.
- Check or serial number.
- Amount, sometimes with an implied decimal and no decimal point.
- Issue date, in a date format the bank specifies.
- An issued or void action code that tells the bank whether the row adds a check or voids one.
- An optional payee name, required only if you use Payee Verify.
For a fuller explanation of each field, read the positive pay file format reference and the positive pay glossary.
Uploading your file in City National Business Suite
The general upload workflow in Business Suite looks like this:
- Sign in to City National Business Suite and open the check positive pay area.
- Choose the import option that matches your assigned format, either a standard layout or your custom format.
- Select and upload your check-issue file. Business Suite lets you upload a production issue file in test mode first, which is worth doing on your first file.
- Confirm the file was accepted. If a file lands in a "Needs Repair" status, that usually means a validation error, so correct it and re-import.
- Review exceptions and decision actions for each account, paying or returning each item before the daily deadline.
City National notes that customers "typically" have a daily deadline for approving checks, and if you do not respond you can set a default decision for the bank to use. Confirm your own cutoff time, since missing it can let an item pay or return by default. See positive pay cutoff times and how to handle exceptions.
Building a matching file from your check register
If your accounting software does not export the exact layout City National assigned you, our free positive pay file generator can build it. Start from a check register or any spreadsheet export, then use the custom format builder to set field order, delimiter or fixed-width columns, date format, amount style, and the issued or void action codes to match your bank's specification. The tool runs entirely in your browser, so your check data never leaves your computer.
Two details to get right for City National: map your void rows to the action code the bank expects so voids are not read as new issues, and include a payee name column only if your account uses Payee Verify. For more on voids, see handling void checks in positive pay.
Verify your first file with the bank
Before you rely on any file, confirm it with City National Bank. The format you were assigned is the source of truth, and small differences in date format, amount style, or action codes are the most common reason a file is rejected. Use Business Suite's test mode for your first production file, and have your Treasury Management contact confirm it imported correctly. City National's Treasury Management Client Services line is published on its site if you need the exact specification. Once one real file processes cleanly, you can reuse the same custom format every time. If a file does get turned away, the checklist in why your positive pay file was rejected covers the usual fixes.
City National Bank publishes its fraud prevention and positive pay details on its business banking site. You can review the bank's own description at City National Bank's fraud prevention page.