Banknotes

Every business needs to be mindful of operational risks associated with threats of external and internal fraud. Criminals have taken full advantage of the process disruptions caused by COVID by exploiting the vulnerabilities of remote-work environments, targeting payment-approval mechanisms, email schemes, and government loan programs.

As if Covid-19 hasn’t presented enough challenges to businesses, the precipitous decline in interest rates in 2020 has many struggling to find a way to get a decent return on their cash reserves.

For many years, we have been told by business analysts that paper checks would go the way of the typewriter, replaced by electronic payments and other more efficient ways to settle transactions. Clearly, this has yet to happen. In fact, checks are still the most popular payment method for transactions among U.S. businesses, according to a 2019 study by the Association or Financial Professionals.

Most people have heard of Pareto’s 80-20 principle on cause and effect, which theorizes that 20% of individual actions are often responsible for 80% of total results. This rule is useful in explaining outcomes in business relationships, economic events, and even social situations.

Many individuals and businesses in southern Wisconsin have seen delayed U.S. Postal Service mail deliveries since the closure of Madison's USPS processing and distribution center in 2014. This resulted in mail being routed to Milwaukee for sorting, even when the sender and recipient were local. While mail has never been fast – it's called "snail mail for a reason" – the gap in speed between postal mail and electronic communications widened more.

While a disruption in cash flow can happen for many reasons in the best of times, the economic consequences of this coronavirus pandemic have certainly proven that life is not “business as usual” for almost everyone all at the same time.

The dawn of a new decade is upon us – what better time than now to review your business banking relationship? Examining your accounts annually is a critically important exercise to undertake. Here are some key questions to ask yourself, to ensure that all of your business banking accounts are as current as possible and that all efficiencies are being met.

For business owners, keeping company finances separate from personal ones is a smart decision. However, for small business owners in particular, that can be easier said than done. If you find yourself using your personal credit card to cover business purchases, you’re certainly not alone – in reality, more than 65% of all SMB owners use credit cards on a regular basis, and less than 50% of those cards are in the company’s name. Here are some of the key advantages that enterprise cards hold over their personal counterparts.

When it comes to running a business, there's no shortage of complexities that revolve around managing working capital, which is the money used for day-to-day operations. Fortunately, business owners have a multitude of helpful tools at their disposal – chief among them, their bank's treasury management team.

Although the number of checks presented for payment is decreasing every year, the losses from check fraud, unfortunately, are rising nationwide. In some cases, checks are stolen from unsecured mailboxes and the payee line is altered, to allow the check to be negotiated by another party. In others, the routing number and account number information is used to order new check stock.