Positive Pay with Microsoft Dynamics GP (Safe Pay)
Unlike QuickBooks, which cannot export a positive pay file on its own, Microsoft Dynamics GP ships with a built-in module for the job. It is called Safe Pay, and it lives under Financial > Routines > Safe Pay. If you run payables checks out of GP and your bank offers positive pay, you may not need any extra software at all. This page explains how Safe Pay works, the few places it gets awkward, and when a separate converter still earns its keep.
What Safe Pay does
Positive pay is a fraud-control service. After each check run, you send your bank a list of the checks you issued: check number, amount, issue date, account, and usually the payee name. When a check is presented for payment, the bank matches it against your list. Anything that does not match gets flagged for your review before it clears. Altered amounts, forged check numbers, and counterfeit checks get caught instead of paid.
Safe Pay is GP's tool for producing that issued-check file in the exact format your bank wants. It reads the checks, voids, and EFTs from your Payables Management runs and writes them out as a fixed-width or delimited file you upload through your bank's treasury portal.
The three windows you will use
Safe Pay setup and daily use revolve around three screens, all under Financial > Routines > Safe Pay:
- Configurator defines the file layout. You choose an output file type (fixed length, comma delimited, or tab delimited), build your record lines (file header, batch header, detail, trailers), and map each field to a GP source value. For every field you set the number of characters, justification, and filler type.
- Upload Maintenance ties a layout to a bank. You create a Bank Upload ID, attach the Bank ID and Checkbook ID, point to the output format you built, and set the folder where GP writes the file (a shared network path is the usual choice).
- Transactions Upload is the daily step. After you post a payment batch, you open this window, enter the Bank Upload ID, set the Last Upload Date and Upload Cutoff Date, click Load/Reload Transactions, select the checks, and click Upload. GP writes the file to the folder you configured.
Setting it up the right way
Start by asking your bank for its positive pay file specification. The spec is usually a short PDF that lists the record layout, field positions, delimiter, and any header or trailer rules. Each bank is different, so this document drives everything you do in the Configurator.
Build the layout in a test company first. Generate a sample file with one or two checks and send it to your bank's treasury contact for validation. Banks reject files for small reasons, so confirming the format before you go live saves a lot of back-and-forth. Once the bank signs off, you can export the configuration from the test company and import it into your live company rather than rebuilding it. Configurations can also be copied across multiple GP companies, and you can keep several output formats if you bank with more than one institution.
Where Safe Pay gets awkward
The Configurator covers most US and Canadian bank layouts, but a few requirements need workarounds. These come straight from Microsoft's own support documentation:
- Incrementing file sequence number. Some banks require a file creation number that increases by one with every file submitted, and they reject any sequence number reused within the last several files. GP does not generate this automatically. Microsoft's documented options are to hard-code a constant and edit it by hand before each upload, or to commission an ISV customization. Hand-editing is error-prone because you have to keep the field at its exact width or the whole line length breaks.
- Transaction type codes. Safe Pay only pulls Checks, Voids, and EFTs. If your bank wants codes for Issues, Stop-Pays, or Deletes that GP does not produce, you map the available types through Codes Entry and accept that the rest are out of scope.
- Absolute-value totals. A trailer that needs the absolute total of debits and credits is available natively only in Dynamics GP 2016 and later. Earlier versions need a free add-on (cnk file) to get there.
- Fields the Configurator does not expose. Microsoft's guidance itself notes that "not all fields are available in the Safe Pay configurator." When your bank asks for one of them, you are choosing between a customization, a manual edit, or a different export path.
None of these are show-stoppers, but they are the moments where teams start looking for an alternative.
Where a converter still helps
If your bank's layout fits the Configurator cleanly, use Safe Pay and skip everything else. A separate converter is worth considering in a few situations:
- You are on a GP version that lacks a field the bank needs, and a Configurator customization is not worth commissioning.
- You also cut checks outside GP (a second system, a spreadsheet, or a payroll tool) and want one consistent way to build the issued-check file.
- You are mid-migration off GP. Microsoft has set GP's mainstream support to end December 31, 2029, with security patches continuing through April 30, 2031, so many shops are planning their exit. A tool that works from a plain check register, independent of GP, keeps positive pay running through that transition.
PositivePayMaker is a free, browser-based option for these cases. You export your issued checks from GP (or any system) to CSV or Excel, open the tool, and it builds the bank's positive pay file in your browser. Your check data never leaves your computer because the conversion runs entirely client-side. It includes 11 bank layouts, six of them built from published specifications including Chase and Huntington, plus a custom format builder for matching any layout your bank documents and a file validator to sanity-check the output. If your bank uses a layout GP does not template well, you can recreate it field by field in the builder.
Paid alternatives, fairly
Dedicated desktop converters exist and suit higher-volume or more complex shops. Big Red Consulting's PositivePay File Creator runs on Windows and supports predefined formats for many banks; its QuickBooks editions run roughly $119 the first year and $99 per year after (the QuickBooks Online edition needs Excel installed). Treasury Software's Bank Positive Pay is an installed Windows product, roughly $29.95 to $89.95 per month depending on edition, with 350-plus built-in bank layouts. MoneyThumb and ProperSoft also sell paid desktop converters. If you process large volumes across many accounts, an installed tool with hundreds of pre-built layouts and vendor support may be the better fit. For a single bank and a register you can export, the free route usually does the job.
Always test the first file
Whichever path you take, treat the first file as a draft. Generate it, then upload a small batch to your bank's positive pay portal and confirm the bank accepts it and matches the checks correctly before you rely on it. Field positions, date formats, and header rules vary by bank, and the only authority on your layout is your bank's own specification. Verify once, and the rest of your runs become routine.
Related reading: positive pay with QuickBooks and the positive pay file format reference.