TD Bank Positive Pay: Building and Uploading the Check Issue File
TD Bank's positive pay service matches every check presented for payment against a list of the checks you actually issued. When a serial number or dollar amount does not line up, TD flags the item as a "suspect" and holds it for your decision. You log in, look at the flagged check (TD shows an image of the item), and choose pay or return. The whole point is to catch a forged or altered check before the money leaves your account.
For that matching to work, TD needs your issued-check data. You give it that data by uploading a check issue file, sometimes called a check issuance file or an issue register, into TD's corporate banking platform. This page walks through how the TD process is structured, where the file specification comes from, and how to produce a file that matches it without buying desktop software.
Where TD positive pay lives: TD eTreasury
TD Bank runs check positive pay through TD eTreasury, its corporate online banking platform. That is the same place you review suspect items. TD's own description: you submit a file of issued checks, then make "pay" or "return" decisions on items received through in-clearing that do not match that file. TD eTreasury also has a "Manage Positive Pay" screen that collects suspect checks and ACH exceptions in one decision view, and TD offers payee name verification and teller positive pay as add-ons so a check cashed at a branch is also screened.
If you are on a smaller TD business account rather than a full treasury relationship, positive pay may be packaged differently, and the upload steps can vary. Your TD treasury management or commercial banking contact is the authority on which service tier and which upload method apply to your account.
Get the file spec from TD, not from a blog
This is the part where accuracy matters and where it is easy to go wrong. TD provides the exact layout for its check issue file, and the details are tied to your specific setup. In particular, TD assigns a Bank ID or company code that has to appear in the file, and the correct value depends on your account. Nobody outside the bank can tell you that number. Ask TD which Bank ID to use and request the current file specification before you build anything.
From TD's user guidance, a check issue file is submitted after you create an Upload Profile in TD eTreasury. Uploading is two steps: you load the file into eTreasury, then transmit it and notify the bank so TD knows to process it. The file itself carries the standard issued-check fields:
- Account number the checks are drawn on
- Check (serial) number
- Check amount
- Issue date (some TD layouts expect a Julian date, so confirm the date format)
- Payee name, when you use payee positive pay
- A void or issue indicator, if your layout distinguishes voided checks
We are deliberately not publishing field positions, padding widths, or record codes for TD here. Those values differ by account and by service version, and a file built against a guessed layout will be rejected or, worse, silently mismatch and flag good checks. Use the specification sheet TD gives you. If TD hands you a fixed-width record layout, note the start position, length, and justification (left or right) for every field, plus how amounts are formatted (cents only, implied decimal, or with a decimal point).
Why QuickBooks alone will not get you there
Most TD business customers track checks in QuickBooks, Xero, or a spreadsheet. QuickBooks does not export a positive pay file natively, so the gap is real: you have the check data, but not in TD's format. The common workarounds are to retype each check into eTreasury by hand, pay for a desktop converter, or transform your own register into the file. Hand entry is slow and error prone once you are writing more than a handful of checks. The cleaner path is to export your check register and convert it.
Build a TD-matching file for free in your browser
PositivePayMaker is a free, browser-based tool that turns a check register (CSV or Excel) into a positive pay file. It runs entirely client-side. Your check numbers, payees, and amounts are processed in your browser and never get uploaded to a server, which matters when the data is your full issued-check list.
Because TD's layout is account-specific, the reliable way to match it is the custom format builder. You enter TD's field order, the start position and width of each field, the date format, and how the amount should be written, then save it as a reusable template. Open your TD specification sheet beside the builder and map field by field. If TD gave you a delimited (CSV) layout instead of fixed-width, a generic CSV preset gets you most of the way and the builder handles the rest. The exact mechanics of mapping a published layout are covered in the positive pay file format reference.
Before you trust any file, run it through the built-in file validator to catch obvious structural problems like wrong record lengths or malformed dates. Then do the step that actually protects you: upload a small test batch to TD eTreasury first and confirm with TD that the file imported cleanly. Verify your very first generated file with TD before you rely on it for a full check run. Banks reject files for small reasons (a date format, a Bank ID, a trailing space), and it is far cheaper to find that out on three checks than on three hundred.
When a paid tool might make more sense
PositivePayMaker is free and covers the common cases, but it is fair to point out the alternatives. Treasury Software's Bank Positive Pay is installed Windows software, roughly $29.95 to $89.95 per month depending on edition, and ships with 350-plus prebuilt bank layouts, which can save mapping time at higher volume. Big Red Consulting's Positive Pay File Creator runs about $119 the first year and $99 per year after, is Windows-only, and its QuickBooks Online edition needs Excel installed. Vendors like MoneyThumb and ProperSoft sell paid desktop converters as well. If you cut a high volume of checks across many accounts, want a vendor-maintained TD template, or need formal support, one of those may be worth the cost. For a single account and a register you can export, the free browser tool usually does the job.
Quick checklist
- Confirm with TD that check positive pay is active on your account, and ask for the current file specification and your Bank ID.
- Create your Upload Profile in TD eTreasury.
- Export your check register from QuickBooks or your spreadsheet.
- Map TD's layout in the custom format builder and generate the file.
- Validate it, upload a small test batch, and confirm acceptance with TD before going live.
For more on matching a published layout and for other bank workflows, see the file format reference and the QuickBooks positive pay guide.