Core Financial Modules

[thepoohguy]

Currently, we do not print checks out of MAS-90.  Instead, the process creates a file that we then send over to a third party check printer who prints and mails our checks.

We have realized that the file itself needs to be password protected so no one can add or change anything to the file prior to the check file being sent for printing.

Is there a way to set this up in Crystal Reports or the MAS-90 output file directly?

We are running version 4.10.1.23 and Crystal Reports version 12.0.0.683

[rmikolainis]

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thepoohguy wrote:

Currently, we do not print checks out of MAS-90.  Instead, the process creates a file that we then send over to a third party check printer who prints and mails our checks.

We have realized that the file itself needs to be password protected so no one can add or change anything to the file prior to the check file being sent for printing.

Is there a way to set this up in Crystal Reports or the MAS-90 output file directly?

We are running version 4.10.1.23 and Crystal Reports version 12.0.0.683

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Why do you pay a 3rd party to print your checks????

[thebottomline]

None that I am aware of but then I don't even come close to knowing a lot.

Why are you on an unsupported version of MAS?  If you would upgrade to v4.4 or v4.5, you would be able to pay your vendors by ACH and save a LOT of time and money.

[thepoohguy]

We pay a 3rd party to avoid the possibility of check fraud by having check stock in house.

Unfortunately, it is not my decision to upgrade or not upgrade.  We use MAS-90 as the financial side of our policy system.  We are currently running two policy systems and two financial systems.  We are expecting to migrate MAS-90 to SAP in the future, and therefore senior management doesn't want to pay to upgrade.

[rmikolainis]

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thepoohguy wrote:

We pay a 3rd party to avoid the possibility of check fraud by having check stock in house.

Unfortunately, it is not my decision to upgrade or not upgrade.  We use MAS-90 as the financial side of our policy system.  We are currently running two policy systems and two financial systems.  We are expecting to migrate MAS-90 to SAP in the future, and therefore senior management doesn't want to pay to upgrade.

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What happens if your 3rd party isn't honest though? There's far cheaper solutions to prevent check fraud, you can generate a positive pay file.

But since you are converting to SAP, it really doesn't matter since you would need to upgrade.

[thepoohguy]

The other reason we outsource it is the volume of checks.  Believe it or not, it is cheaper for us to pay a third party to print and mail then to have staff onsite who would print and stuff checks to mail.

[thebottomline]

What type of file are you sending?  Could you zip it and password protect it when you zip?

[thepoohguy]

It's a .txt file that is sent over a secured server.  Yes we could do that, but the goal is for the system to generate a password protected file.  Apparently the AP group feels that there is a risk that someone in house could make changes to the file prior to the file being sent. 

All in all, I think the solution would be to create a secured drive with limited access and have MAS-90 place the file on that drive if the system is not capable of performing this task.

[zip]

If you're looking to export a password-protected file from Crystal Reports, try Googling "generate password protected file from crystal" as it appears there's some options out there.  By the way, you mentioned you're using Crystal 12.0.0.683.  That's actually not the version you should be using with MAS 90/200 4.10.  You should be using v10 (http://www.s-consult.com/index.php?s=crystal+versions).  Also, if .pdf format is sufficient, you could use the MAS 90/200 Paperless functionality (included in the 4.30 release) to generate password-protected .pdf files.