How to Create a Positive Pay File From Wave
Wave does not produce a positive pay file. There is no export for it in the Reports menu, no setting in your bank connection, and no add-on inside Wave that writes a check issue file in a bank's format. If your bank put positive pay on your account, you have to pull your check data out of Wave and convert it into the layout the bank expects. This guide covers which Wave report to use, where the check number actually lives, and how to turn the export into a file your bank will accept, for free.
If positive pay is new to you, start with what is positive pay. In short: the bank matches every check that clears against a list of checks you issued, comparing the check number, the amount, and often the payee. Anything that does not match gets held for your review before it pays. The list you send is the positive pay file, also called a check issue or issued-items file.
Step 1: Run the Account Transactions (general ledger) report
Wave has no check register report by that name. The report that holds your check activity is the Account Transactions (general ledger) report, filtered to the bank account you write checks from. In Wave, open Reports from the left menu, then open Account Transactions (general ledger). This report is only available on the web version of Wave, not the mobile app.
Set the account filter to your checking account, then set the date range to cover the checks you need to report. Most businesses send a positive pay file for each batch of checks they cut, so match the range to that batch. At the top right of the report, click Export and choose CSV. The CSV gives you a row per ledger line with the date, a description, and debit and credit columns, which is what you need to build the file. PDF is also offered, but do not use it here. You want the CSV so the data stays in columns.
Step 2: Find the check number
This is where Wave trips people up. The Account Transactions report does not have a clean column labeled "Check Number." Wave records the check number inside the transaction's description or memo when you enter it, not in a dedicated reference field that flows neatly into the report. So in your export, you may have to read the check number out of the description text, or you may not have entered it at all.
Two practical paths:
- If you typed the check number into each transaction, it shows up in the description column of the CSV. Add a clean "Check Number" column to your spreadsheet and copy the number across from the description for each check row. Strip out the surrounding words so the cell holds only the digits.
- If you did not record check numbers, you will need to fill them in from your checkbook or your bank's online check images before the file is usable. A positive pay file is worthless to the bank without accurate check numbers, since that is the primary key it matches on. This is a good reason to start writing the check number into every check transaction in Wave going forward.
You only want the rows that are actual checks. The general ledger export for a bank account includes deposits, card payments, transfers, and bank fees. Delete every row that is not a check you issued before you convert. Filtering on the credit or withdrawal column and matching against your check log is the fastest way to isolate them.
Step 3: Clean the amount and date columns
Checks you wrote are money leaving the account, so they sit in the debit or withdrawal column depending on how your report is laid out. Pull those amounts into a single positive number column. Banks expect the check amount as a plain positive value, not a negative or a parenthesized figure. Remove dollar signs and any thousands separators if your bank's spec wants raw digits, and confirm the date format the bank asks for, since some require MM/DD/YYYY and others want MMDDYYYY with no slashes.
After this step you should have a small, clean table: check number, amount, issue date, and payee name if your bank matches on payee. That is the raw material for the positive pay file.
Step 4: Convert to your bank's positive pay format
Every bank defines its own positive pay layout. Field order, fixed-width versus delimited, header and trailer records, the date format, and whether the payee name is required all vary from bank to bank. There is no single universal format, which is the whole reason this last step exists.
Upload your cleaned spreadsheet to PositivePayMaker, map your columns to the fields the bank wants, and generate the file. The tool runs entirely in your browser, so your check data never leaves your computer and nothing is uploaded to a server. It ships with 11 bank layouts, including formats built from published specifications for banks like Chase and Huntington, plus a custom format builder for any bank not on the list. If your bank uses a layout you do not see, the builder lets you set the exact field positions, delimiters, and date format from the spec your bank gives you.
To get your bank's exact spec, look in your business or treasury online banking under the positive pay or fraud control section, or ask your treasury management contact for the check issue file format document. The bank will give you a one or two page sheet listing each field and its position. Many regional banks run positive pay on platforms such as Centrix or Q2, and some on Fiserv or FIS, but the file layout is always defined by your specific bank, so use the document they hand you rather than a generic assumption about the platform.
Always test the first file with your bank
Before you rely on this for a real check run, send one generated file through your bank's positive pay upload and confirm it loads without errors. Banks reject files for small reasons: a date format that is off by a character, an amount with a stray decimal, a header record the layout does not want. Check that the bank's system reports the same check count and total dollar amount you expect. Once a clean file goes through, you have a repeatable process. You can use the file validator to sanity-check your output before each upload, and the positive pay file format reference explains the common field types if you are building a custom layout.
Is a paid tool worth it for Wave users?
Paid desktop converters exist and can make sense at higher volume. Big Red Consulting's PositivePay File Creator runs about $119 the first year and $99 a year after that. It is Windows-only, and its Excel edition needs Excel installed, so a Wave user would export to Excel first and feed it that way. Treasury Software's Bank Positive Pay is an installed Windows product, roughly $29.95 to $89.95 per month depending on tier, and ships with 350+ bank layouts, which matters if you cut checks for many accounts across different banks. MoneyThumb and ProperSoft also sell paid desktop converters aimed at importing and reformatting accounting data.
For a typical Wave user cutting a manageable number of checks, a free browser tool that handles the conversion without installing software or sending your check data anywhere covers the job. If you are running high check volume across multiple banks and want a desktop workflow with hundreds of prebuilt layouts, one of the paid tools above may fit better. Either way, the Wave export steps are the same. The only thing that changes is what you feed your check data into at the end.