How to Create a Positive Pay File from Sage 300

Sage 300 (formerly Sage Accpac) does not produce a positive pay file. There is no built-in option in Accounts Payable or Bank Services that exports a check issue file in your bank's layout. Sage's own support guidance confirms this: the recommended paths are a custom report built in Report Designer, or exporting a standard register and reformatting it to your bank's spec.

You do not need a consultant or a custom report to get this done. Sage 300 can give you a clean list of the checks you issued, and you can turn that list into a bank-ready file with a free browser tool. Here is the practical approach.

Which report to use in Sage 300

Two reports list the checks you have written. Pick the one that matches where your data lives.

A/P Check Register. Open Accounts Payable > A/P Transaction Reports > Check Register. This report covers checks produced and posted to vendor accounts during a check run. It filters by a range of posting sequences, and it excludes alignment, leading, and voided checks. You can export it to PDF, DOC, or XLS (Excel) from the print preview.
Bank Check/Payment Register. Open Common Services > Bank Services > Bank Transaction Reports > Check/Payment Register. This lists payments made from a bank account and lets you filter by payment type, including Check, EFT, Cash, Credit Card, Transfer, Service Charge, and Other. It also takes a payment date range and sorts by payment number, payment date, or vendor/payee code.

For positive pay, the Bank Check/Payment Register is usually the better starting point because it lets you filter to Check only and pull by date range, which is how most banks want the file scoped.

Export the register so you can edit it

Open your chosen register from the menu path above.
Set the bank or posting sequence range, then set the payment date range to cover only the checks you want to send. Most shops send a file per check run or per day.
On the Bank Check/Payment Register, set the payment type filter to Check so transfers, EFT, and service charges do not end up in your file.
Print to preview, then use the export button to save as Excel (XLS). If your register only offers print, run the Crystal preview and export from there, or print the A/P Check Register, which does support XLS export.
Open the file in Excel and save it as CSV. The free converter reads CSV and fixed-width text.

If your version or report setup does not offer an export button, Sage support suggests printing the Bank Register inquiry, adding the columns you need, and exporting that to Excel as a workaround. Either route gets you a spreadsheet of checks.

Column gotchas to check before you convert

Sage 300 register exports are built for accounting review, not for banks, so clean them up first.

Check number lives in the Payment Number column. On the Bank Check/Payment Register, the check number is the Payment Number, not a field literally labeled "check number." Map that column to the check number in the converter.
Strip non-check rows. If you exported without filtering to Check, remove EFT, transfer, and service charge lines. Banks reject files that contain anything other than issued checks.
Voided checks. The A/P Check Register already excludes voided checks. If your bank wants voids reported with a void status, you will need to pull them separately, since this report leaves them out. See handling void checks in positive pay.
Amount is a single positive figure. The Payment Amount is the check total. There is no debit or credit split to worry about, but confirm the column is the bank payment amount in your home currency if you run multicurrency.
Date format. The Payment Date exports in your regional Windows format. Banks usually want MM/DD/YYYY or YYYYMMDD with no slashes. The converter can reformat this, so you do not have to fix it in Excel.
Payee name. Use the Vendor/Payee Name column if your bank uses Payee Positive Pay. Trim it to the bank's maximum length.

Convert the file to your bank's format

Once you have a CSV of issued checks, open the free positive pay file generator. It runs entirely in your browser, so your check data never leaves your computer. Upload the CSV, map the Sage 300 columns to check number, amount, issue date, account number, and payee, then export the file your bank expects.

Every bank uses a slightly different layout. Some want fixed-width text, others want CSV, and the field order varies. If your bank gave you a spec, build it once with the custom format builder and reuse it for every check run. To understand the common fields, see the positive pay file format reference, and if your first upload bounces, check the reasons a positive pay file gets rejected.

A note on payroll checks

If you cut payroll from a separate system rather than Sage 300, pull the equivalent payroll check register, paystub report, or check report from that platform. The data you need is the same: check number, amount, issue date, and payee. For background on why this matters, read what positive pay is and how it works. Sage 300 itself gives you the AP and bank registers described above for vendor and bank disbursement checks.

Sage's official guidance on positive pay files is published in its knowledge base for reference.

Related guides

Create your positive pay file