Valley Bank Positive Pay File: How to Build and Upload One

If you run checks through a Valley Bank (Valley National Bancorp) business account and you have enrolled in positive pay, the bank expects an issued-check file every time you cut a batch. That file tells Valley which check numbers, amounts, and dates are legitimate. When a check is presented for payment, Valley matches it against your list. Anything that does not match becomes an exception you review and decide on. The hard part for most bookkeepers is not the concept. It is producing a file in the exact column order and format Valley's system will accept.

This page explains where to find Valley's authoritative file specification, what the general upload workflow looks like, and how to turn your check register into the right shape without buying desktop software.

Valley offers two flavors of positive pay

Valley markets check fraud protection under two related services: Check Positive Pay and Payee Positive Pay. Both work from an issued-check file you submit. Check Positive Pay matches the check number, amount, and account. Payee Positive Pay adds the payee name to the comparison, so an altered name on a presented check also triggers an exception. Through Valley's business online banking, you submit the issue file, view exceptions, make pay or return decisions, pull reporting, and set up email or text alerts for suspected unauthorized activity.

Which service you are on changes what your file needs to contain. Payee Positive Pay requires a payee name column; a plain Check Positive Pay layout may not. Confirm which one your account uses before you build anything.

Where the real Valley file spec lives

There is no single public PDF that pins down Valley's positive pay layout for every customer, and that is normal for a regional bank. The field order, file type, header requirements, and date format are defined in the documentation your Valley treasury or business banking representative gives you when positive pay is set up, or inside the upload screen in business online banking. Two things to do before your first file:

We will not publish field positions we cannot verify against Valley's own documentation, because a layout that is off by one column will get your file rejected or, worse, accepted with the wrong data. One third-party export integration (a school-finance system) documents a Valley layout using an Excel file with the headers account_no, check_num, check_amount, check_date, type, and vendor_name, with dates as MM/DD/YY and amounts as decimals. That is a useful example of the kind of columns Valley's system consumes, but treat it as one customer's mapping, not the canonical spec for your account. Always match what your own Valley representative or upload screen tells you.

The general upload workflow

Across Valley and most banks, the rhythm is the same:

  1. Cut your checks in QuickBooks, your ERP, or by hand, and export or note the register: check number, amount, issue date, account, and payee.
  2. Format an issued-check file in Valley's expected layout.
  3. Upload it through business online banking, ideally the same day or before checks reach the bank, so the register is current.
  4. Review exceptions each morning. Valley flags presented checks that do not match. You decide pay or return before the daily cutoff.
  5. Decide on time. If you miss the cutoff, the bank applies its default rule for your account, which may be to pay or to return. Know your default and your cutoff time, and confirm both with Valley.

QuickBooks does not export this file

A common snag: QuickBooks (Online or Desktop) does not produce a bank-ready positive pay file natively. You can export a check register or transaction report, but the columns, headers, and date format will not line up with what Valley wants. Something has to translate the register into the bank's layout. That is the gap this tool fills.

Format your file for free, in the browser

PositivePayMaker is a free, 100% in-browser tool. You drop in a CSV or Excel export of your check register, map your columns once, and it writes a positive pay file in the layout you need. Your check data never leaves your computer; nothing is uploaded to a server. Because Valley's exact layout depends on your account and service tier, the right path here is usually the custom format builder: you tell it Valley's column order, file type, header, and date format from the spec your representative gave you, save that template, and reuse it every batch. A generic CSV or fixed-width preset works too if Valley accepts a standard layout.

The tool ships with 11 bank layouts, six built from published specifications including Chase and Huntington, plus a file format reference and a built-in validator so you can sanity-check a file before you upload it.

If you cut a lot of checks

For low and moderate volume, a free browser tool plus the custom builder is usually all you need. If you are reformatting large batches across several accounts daily, a paid desktop product may earn its keep. Treasury Software's Bank Positive Pay runs roughly 29.95 to 89.95 dollars a month, is Windows-only, and ships with 350-plus prebuilt bank layouts. Big Red Consulting's PositivePay File Creator is about 119 dollars the first year then 99 dollars a year, is Windows-only, and its QuickBooks Online edition needs Excel installed. MoneyThumb and ProperSoft also sell paid desktop converters. None of these are required to produce a correct Valley file; they mainly buy convenience at scale.

Verify the first file with Valley

Whatever you use to build the file, treat the first one as a test. Generate it, run it through the validator, then upload a single small batch and confirm with Valley that it imported cleanly and the check numbers, amounts, and dates landed correctly. A two-minute check now prevents a rejected file or an unintended exception during a real payment run. Once Valley confirms the layout is good, save your template and reuse it.

Create your positive pay file