SouthState Bank Positive Pay: Building Your Check Issue File
SouthState Bank offers positive pay to its business and commercial customers as a defense against forged, altered, and counterfeit checks. You submit a list of the checks you have issued, and the bank compares each check presented for payment against that list. Anything that does not match is held and reported to you as an exception so you can decide whether to pay it or return it.
This page explains how positive pay works at SouthState, what a check issue file generally contains, and how to build a file that matches your bank's layout using the free custom format builder. The exact field layout is provided by SouthState at setup and can vary by account, so always confirm your specific format with the bank before you rely on it.
How positive pay works at SouthState Bank
SouthState delivers positive pay through its treasury management platform, Treasury Navigator. According to the bank, you submit your list of issued checks using online templates or an uploaded text file, and SouthState compares the dollar amount and check number of each check presented for payment against your list of issued checks. Items that do not match are reported to you as exceptions that require a pay or return decision before the bank's cutoff.
Two SouthState-specific details are worth knowing. First, the bank offers a payee name matching enhancement that reviews the payee name on the check for alterations in addition to the check number and amount, which is the feature commonly called payee positive pay. Second, if you would rather review presented checks yourself instead of submitting an issued list, ask SouthState whether reverse positive pay is available for your account, since availability of that model can vary. For ACH protection, SouthState's ACH Positive Pay and ACH Filter watch incoming debits, and the Treasury Navigator default is that ACH exception items not decided by the deadline are returned.
What a check issue file contains
A positive pay check issue file is a plain list of the checks you have written. Whatever the exact SouthState layout for your account, the file carries the same core pieces of information for each check:
- Account number the check is drawn on
- Check or serial number
- Amount of the check
- Issue date
- Action code that marks the item as issued or void
- Payee name, included when your account uses payee name matching
Files are usually either fixed-width text, where each field sits in a set column position, or a delimited format such as CSV. If you want a deeper explanation of the columns and codes, see the positive pay file format reference and the glossary. The difference between the two file styles is covered in fixed width versus CSV.
Uploading your file in Treasury Navigator
The general workflow inside Treasury Navigator follows the same pattern as most positive pay portals:
- Sign in to Treasury Navigator. SouthState provides a Secure Browser option that encrypts both keyboard input and the information shown on screen.
- Go to the positive pay or check management area for your account.
- Submit your issued checks, either by keying them into an online template or by uploading your text file using the import map set up for your account.
- Confirm the file was accepted and the check count and total match your records.
- Each business day, review any exceptions and submit a
payorreturndecision before the bank's cutoff time.
Because the import map is configured per account, the file you upload has to match the layout SouthState assigned to you. If a file is rejected, check the column positions, the date format, and how the amount is written. A common pitfall is the amount field, which some banks expect with an implied decimal and no period. See why a positive pay file gets rejected for the usual causes.
Building a matching file from your check register
If your accounting software does not export a SouthState-ready file, you can build one from a check register without manual retyping. Export your register to CSV, then use the free positive pay file generator to map your columns to the fields SouthState needs.
- Open the custom format builder and enter the field order, widths, and date format from the layout SouthState gave you.
- Load your check register and map each column: account, check number, amount, issue date, action code, and payee if you use payee matching.
- Set the action code values SouthState expects for issued and void items.
- Generate the file and run it through the validator to catch formatting problems before upload.
If you are new to this, what is positive pay covers the basics, and there are step-by-step guides for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop.
Verify your first file with the bank
Treat your first upload as a test. The field positions, date format, action codes, and amount style in this guide are general, not a copy of any SouthState specification, because SouthState sets your exact layout at onboarding and it can differ by account. Confirm your specific format against the import map and documentation SouthState provided, send a small test file, and confirm the bank read every record correctly before you depend on it for daily protection. You can review the bank's own description of the service on the SouthState Bank positive pay services page.