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Check Processing & Payments Information

Merchants: Microsoft Office - Sweet Check Finance Tips and Tricks

Posted by Heather Brautman | Wed, Feb 12, 2014 @ 11:00 AM

The Microsoft Office Suite programs have developed over the years to be massive time savers. Are you putting your Suite to work in your own sweet spot? Merchants can save tons of time on finance transaction, but you’ve got to know some of the ins and outs. You may not have all of these programs, but many are available as standalone add-ons to what you do have. Disclaimer: These instructions are valid for Office 2007 and are not suggested for use with any earlier versions. You’ll see differences in later releases as well, but not as significant.

CheckVerification

Get in the Picture with Word

You may be an old hat at using Microsoft Word for typing documents, but do you get stuck when you need to add an image? When preparing an invoice, sales sheet, or other file, you may need to add a product picture or even your company logo. But when you insert it, it looks weird. Never fear, the Word Picture Tools tab is here. Click any inserted image to get this pink tab. On it, you’ll be able to resize pictures, create a transparent background, change colors to anything from a sepia tone to a grayscale to a faded washout, as well as add borders and more. Word isn’t meant to replace your graphics program but can surely stand in for one in a pinch.

Excel at Invoicing

Excel spreadsheets are probably the standard around your business for anything from payroll to inventory reconciling, but if you’re not letting Publisher do some of the work for you, you’re doing too much work! Open Excel’s template collection and just start raiding. Every kind of form you’d need, from payroll to ledgers to AR to stock options is there. You simply download the form and then get cracking. All Excel forms are completely customizable, which means you can add a logo, change colors, sort by column and row appearance, and of course, generate charts.

Make Your Point with Power

PowerPoint presentations may have had their heyday in days past, but we encourage you to let them make their “point” again. They’re still an ideal way to broadcast information, such as at your annual stockholder’s meeting or quarterly earnings powwow. PowerPoint themes and templates help you set up fast, and a master slide feature lets you make changes one time and push them out to the entire slide deck at once. You can even convert your slides to a PDF, making them viewable by anyone with the free Adobe Reader software – PowerPoint isn’t even required.

Merchant Payments

Don’t Stop the Presses, with Publisher

Publisher was separated out from the main Office Suite, so it may be under your “have not” column, but don’t overlook it. Since you’re already familiar with the Suite programs, working in Publisher’s desktop publishing layout program is a snap. You’re able to quickly make items such as news bulletins, labels, brochures, business cards, statements, and more, and everything looks the same as it does in Word and Excel; i.e., no learning curve. The best part? Publisher’s included templates have done all the hard setup work for you. You’ll never have to worry that your text runs off a label or into a brochure “gutter” again.

Envision It with Visio

Changes in your department may mean things get lost in the shuffle and confusion over who reports where. Microsoft Visio – a non-Suite program sometimes sold stand alone and sometimes bundled – is a flow- and organizational-chart-building program. While you may build these types of charts in programs such as Word or Publisher using the Shapes collection, it’s much easier with Visio’s automation. Finally nail down your AP process, let new associates know exactly how the food chain works, and have your standard operating procedures documented.

Something Else Sweet

Another way to help your finance department is to ease their responsibility with check processing. Check verification and check guarantee, which you won’t find in the Office Suite, are two ways to reduce risk on lost revenue, eliminate trips to the bank and delays on funds, and help you accept more payments. Start here by learning a little more about check guarantee with our free eBook:

Check Guarantee Insider's Guide

Written by Heather Brautman