Xerox 6180N Generic MICR Fundamentals Guide  - Page 145

Security • Select a good check design. Review the design features that are effective against counterfeiting. Consult with the security officer at your bank and with your check supplier when considering specific protections. • Install reconciliation procedures. Make sure that accounts are posted promptly, and that bank statements are balanced immediately upon receipt. Inspect all checks in the statement to ensure that counterfeits are included. Cost considerations Some methods of preventing alteration and duplication are costly. Intaglio surfaces are probably the most effective and the most expensive. Overprinting is somewhat less expensive, but there are hidden costs in terms of speed of operation, damaged documents, and operational problems. The most popular protection method is safety paper. If the applications design permits its use, a safety paper is one reasonable way to protect a document against modification. The most inexpensive and effective method for protecting documents is by printing controlled information in a way that makes it difficult to alter. If information can be printed more than once, a tamperer would have difficulty making the changes look the same. An effective combination of methods uses the following: • A printing process that provides a good bonding between the ink and the paper • A font that is difficult to alter for the areas of the document that need protection but are not intended for machine readability • A redundant statement of the check amount • Use of at least two security features on the check, one to address alteration and another to address duplication Generic MICR Fundamentals Guide 8-17