MEANING HAVE REGULARLY SCHEDULED CHECK-SIGNING MEETINGS

If company management insists on signing all checks, in place of the usage of signature stamps, then the accounts payable staff must either track down these people and loom threateningly over them while they sign the checks, otherwise meekly leave piles of checks on their desks and hope to get the completed checks back within very few weeks. Either approach is unacceptable, since the first puts the accounting staff in the uncomfortable position of forcing managers to interrupt their workdays to be able to sign checks, as the latter approach inhibits the timely distribution of checks to suppliers and employees. An effective way to resolve this difficulty is to arrange for regularly scheduled check-signing meetings, preferably just after scheduled check runs. In so doing, managers will have already blocked out time with this work and will feel less compelled to drop other work to perform their signing duties. Also, this means that the accountant delivering the checks can sit and amicably discuss problems with the check signer, such as for example queries about the cause of some payments, while also presenting issues for the accounting department. Due to the increased degree of communication available under this method, it is not unusual for a secretary controller to provide the checks, as opposed to an accounting clerk.