How to Create a Positive Pay File From Patriot Software Accounting
Patriot Software accounting does not produce a bank positive pay file on its own. It records your check payments and gives you reports you can download, but it has no built-in feature that writes a check issue file in your bank's required layout. To set up positive pay, you export a report of the checks you issued, then convert that data into the file your bank accepts.
This guide shows which Patriot report to use, the column details to watch, how to keep the export to issued checks only, and how to turn the result into a bank-ready file with a free browser tool. If you have used the Xero positive pay process, the steps here follow the same pattern.
Does Patriot Software have a native positive pay export?
No. Some larger systems include a built-in positive pay or electronic payments format. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, for example, has a positive pay feature that generates a file from a configurable format. Patriot accounting does not offer that. Its accounting reports export to CSV (a spreadsheet) and PDF, and neither output matches a specific bank's check issue layout.
Even when a system does include a built-in format, it often does not line up with what your bank wants, because layouts vary by bank and sometimes by account. When the built-in format does not match, or when there is none, a conversion tool that lets you define the exact columns is the practical option. The custom format builder in this free tool covers that gap.
Which Patriot report to export
Patriot gives you two reports that list checks you have paid. Pick the one that best matches the data your bank wants.
- Check Register Report. Go to
Reports > Accounting > Financial Reports > Check Register Report. This report shows bank account activity for the date range, displays check numbers when they were used, and includes a running balance. By default it shows activity from the first day of the prior month through the last day of the current month, and all bank accounts are selected. You can narrow the accounts and adjust the dates before you run it. - Vendor Payment History Report. Go to
Reports > Accounting > Vendor Reports > Vendor Payment History. This report lists payments to vendors and lets you filter by Vendor type, Vendor name, Payment type (the payment method), and Date range. By default it shows the last two months.
The Check Register Report is usually the better starting point because it is organized around bank activity and check numbers, which is what positive pay matches against.
Export the report to a spreadsheet
Run the report you chose, then download it as a spreadsheet. On the Vendor Payment History Report, click Download Spreadsheet to get a .csv file, or Download PDF for a PDF. Use the CSV. A positive pay conversion needs structured columns, and a PDF cannot be parsed cleanly. Open the downloaded CSV in your spreadsheet program to confirm the data before converting.
Column gotchas to check before you convert
A positive pay file needs, at minimum, the bank account number, the check number, the check amount, and the issue date. Many banks also want the payee name for payee positive pay. Review your exported CSV against these points.
- Filter to issued checks only. Positive pay covers checks you wrote. Remove deposits, electronic payments, transfers, and anything that is not a check your bank needs to match. On the Vendor Payment History Report, use the Payment type filter to limit the report to your check payment method before exporting. On the Check Register Report, drop any rows without a check number.
- Check number. Confirm the check number column came through and has no blanks for the rows you are keeping. Rows without a number are not issued checks.
- Amount format. Banks differ on whether they want a decimal point or an implied decimal with no point. Remove dollar signs and thousands separators if your bank's spec requires plain digits.
- Date format. Patriot displays dates in your account's format, which may not match your bank. Most positive pay specs want
MMDDYYYYorMM/DD/YYYY. You will set the exact output format in the converter, so you do not have to reformat dates by hand in the spreadsheet. - Void checks. If you need to report voids, see void checks in positive pay for how to mark them, since Patriot's export does not add a void flag on its own.
Convert the file with the free browser tool
Once your CSV holds only issued checks with clean check numbers, amounts, and dates, convert it.
- Open the free positive pay generator in your browser. Your file is processed on your device and is not uploaded anywhere.
- Load your Patriot CSV.
- Use the custom format builder to map your columns to your bank's layout: account number, check number, amount, issue date, and payee if required. Set the date format, the amount style, and whether the output is fixed width or CSV. See fixed width vs CSV if you are unsure which your bank uses.
- Generate the file and download it.
If you are not sure of your bank's exact column order, byte positions, or amount style, those details are account-specific. Get the written spec from your bank's treasury or cash management group, then enter it once in the builder and reuse it. The positive pay file format reference explains the common fields and how the layouts differ. Before your first live submission, run the output through the file validator to catch obvious problems.