How do payments by cheques work?

Cheques

👉   How it works

👉   What to do in the event of an anomaly

👉   Main statuses of a cheque

👉   My customer says they have been debited but the transaction is not showing as completed

👉   Refund a payment by cheque

How it works

The payer issues their cheque to Lemonway (or to you) and sends it to you or directly to Lemonway with your company name on the back of the cheque. The payer must also enter the external ID of their payment account on the back of the cheque or the ID of the operation if the cheque is pre-registered in the dashboard.

We then control each of the cheques:

• Cheque validity (signature, date of less than 12 months, city, amount, and beneficiary)
• Consistency of the amount in figures and words. If there is a difference, the amount entered in full will be retained by the bank, and it is, therefore, this amount that we will enter into the relevant payment account
• Presence of the external ID of the payment account on the back of the cheque
• Presence of the transaction ID on the back of the cheque (for pre-entered cheques in your environment)
• Correspondence between the name of the issuer of the cheque and the holder of the payment account to be credited

In the case of a joint account

From 1st September 2023, Lemonway no longer permits the creation of joint accounts to open payment accounts. Please consult this article to learn more.

What to do in the event of an irregularity

In the event of an irregularity, the cheque is set aside and then either destroyed or debited if the anomaly can be corrected. The cases of blocking anomalies are:

• Partially torn cheque (example: truncated cheque number)
• No order or amount
• No signature
• Incorrect date
• Cross out on the cheque
• No mention of Lemonway (and the impossibility of adding the mention)

Please check the pending list. If the check is not on the pending list, we advise you to file a support ticket with this information:

1. Cheque number
2. Amount and issuer
3. Ext ID
4. Postal tracking number

Main statuses of a cheque

Cheques can have multiple statuses:

• ✅ Completed: the transaction was successful and the transaction amount is credited to the target payment account, increasing the account balance
• 💬 Pending: the transaction has not been credited to the target payment account, but it could still potentially change to a Completed or Error status. In this case, the cheque has been processed by Lemonway and is being processed by our banking partner. The transaction status will change to Completed once the cheque is actually credited to Lemonway's bank account.
• Chargeback: a client decides to oppose a payment and disputes the transaction. Read more about unpaid cheques

What to do in the event of a cheque opposition

If an end-user informs you of a cheque opposition, you need to give us:

1. Cheque number
2. Amount and issuer
3. Ext ID
4. Postal tracking number

My customer says they have been debited but the transaction is not showing as completed

In very rare cases (a bug in the bank information forwarded to Lemonway), a cheque that has actually been debited from your customer's account may appear in your Dashboard as pending or error.

If this happens, 👉 contact us with the information listed below:

• The amount of the cheque
• The cheque number
• Proof of debit from the client's bank account

Refund a payment by cheque