Cash Management FAQ

• Q: What is Cash Management?

  A: Cash Management is the effective management of a company's cash collections, disbursements, and information. Achieving maximum profit is the goal of every company. A sound Cash Management program can help meet that goal. Cash is what every company needs to ensure profitability and survivability over the long term.

• Q: What are some ALTA's Cash Management services that will help me expedite the collection of my funds?

  A: Cash Vault is designed for the client that has a combination of deposits of both cash and checks and has a requirement to support the business at a single location or multiple locations. Branch Depository Services allow ALTA Alliance Bank to handle deposits in a convenient and safe environment. Customers can take advantage of an extensive Correspondent Banking network to make deposits, including many out-of-state locations, while funds are automatically transferred to their ALTA Alliance Bank accounts. ALTA Alliance Bank Courier is another Cash Management tool. Checks and other non-cash bank transactions can be picked up by a bank courier right from your office, thereby eliminating the need for you to make a daily run to the bank. Lockbox is a time-tested service designed to expedite the receipt, processing and depositing of your company's receivables and can be a valuable extension of the company's accounts receivable processing. ALTA Alliance Bank has an array of electronic products, such as ACH, that are designed to take full advantage of a cost-effective way to collect funds and help process the payments received. With Merchant Credit Card Services, you can enhance your revenue stream by accepting major credit cards and managing competitive discount rates and equipment costs. Multiple ATMs are available to accept business deposits. In addition, ALTA Alliance Bank offers an extensive nationwide network of correspondent bank ATMs for business customers. Night Depository features convenient, safe deposit facilities for customers whose businesses require that they make deposit after the normal banking or courier pick-up hours.

• Q: What is Positive Pay?

  A: Positive Pay is an excellent fraud detection and management service. You simply provide complete check issuance information, detailing all disbursements before the items clear. Once the information is in ALTA Alliance Bank's system, it is compared to checks as they are presented for payment. If the serial numbers and dollar amounts of presented items match exactly, the checks will be paid. Checks that fail to match issue data are reported directly to you via a secure Internet site, and ALTA Alliance Bank can return unauthorized or altered items presented against your account through the banking system based upon your instructions. Images of the checks are also available online. This service simplifies reconcilement; it ensures that only those items you have issued will be paid by ALTA Alliance Bank, and it eliminates any items on the statement that do not match the actual issued checks.

• Q: How do I decide if I should send a wire transfer or send the funds as an ACH?

  A: Are the funds required to be in the recipient's account on a same-day basis? If the answer is yes, then a wire transfer is the only way to move funds from bank to bank the same day. However, if the funds do not need to be there the same day, then electronic payment via ACH can be a cost-effective way to make a payment. ALTA Alliance Bank can handle either alternative.

• Q: Is a lockbox really a brass door PO Box in a main postal facility?

  A: No. Lockbox processors typically maintain a unique zip code or block of Post Office Box numbers which, by design, help ensure faster mail sorting and availability at the postal facility, therefore making those remittances accessible to the lockbox processing quicker than postal delivery to a company street address. Lockbox can be viewed as a true extension of a client's accounts receivable processing. Processing requirements are uniquely set for each client and follow the dictate of the client and can include data capture to allow data transmission and automation of posting to accounts receivable systems.

• Q: How can I better manage transferring funds to my payroll and payables accounts while eliminating the possibility of costly overdrafts or tying up large amounts of cash?

  A: A Zero Balance Account is an excellent alternative to paying large overdraft fees or risking the possibility of bounced checks. With zero or target balance accounts, disbursement accounts are linked to a designated funding account, and transfers are made based on the exact amount of the checks clearing your bank account. This is also referred to as "just in time funding". Only the exact amount needed to pay checks presented is transferred. At the end of the day, the account returns to zero or the established target balance, therefore eliminating excess funds or possible overdrafts.

• Q: What are the deadlines for sending both domestic and international wire transfers?

  A: The domestic wire transfer deadline is 2 p.m. P.S.T. Monday through Friday. The international wire transfer deadline is 1 p.m. P.S.T. Monday through Friday.

• Q: What is Account Analysis and what advantages does it offer me?

  A: ALTA Alliance Bank's Account Analysis service provides you with an automated detailed statement of your corporate demand deposit accounts. This comprehensive monthly report summarizes all the activity on your accounts, provides detailed balance information, and lists the unit price of each ALTA Alliance Bank service provided along with a total of all service fees incurred during the cycle. Account Analysis features a competitive earnings credit rate. Account analysis offers you a competitive earnings credit rate for the most efficient use of your collected balances to compensate for the services used by your company. Account Analysis provides an effective cash management tool. Whether you have one or several demand deposit accounts, you can tell immediately if your balances are covering the cost of your company's services. This allows you to more effectively manage company funds and avoid unnecessary service charges. Detailed monthly account statements and a consolidated statement of activity are provided on a monthly basis. Account Analysis simplifies payment of banking services. Settlement of banking services is simplified by providing one total monthly fee for service charges on all of your accounts. Account Analysis offsets earnings credit. Earnings credit from one account may be used to offset service charges incurred by a related account.

• Q: Are balances and transaction activity reflected on Internet Banking the same as those on my bank statement?

  A: Yes. In fact, you can access and print current and historical information from Internet Banking with just a few keystrokes. That way, you can get a jump on closing your books for the month, and you don't have to wait for the paper statement to arrive in the mail. Information is available early on the business day at month-end.

• Q: Can I get images of my cleared checks via Internet Banking or on CD ROM?

  A: Yes. Images of the front and the back of checks cleared are available via Internet Banking and remain accessible for a period of 24 months. In addition, if you have a significant number of checks on various accounts, the Bank can provide you with a CD ROM containing images of cleared checks for that period.

• Q: Can I assign unique access rights on each of my accounts that I have with the Bank?

  A: Access rights or authorization for specific transaction types can be set by account. In addition, split capabilities can also be set up to handle input and approvals for transactions such as wire transfers and ACH or electronic payments.

• Q: What alternatives are there to paying dividends via checks and incurring the costs of mailing and bank reconciliation?

  A: You can make those payments via the ACH Direct Deposit service. Simply secure authorization from your employee or other party and allow one day in advance of the due date to send the information to the Bank. For a fraction of the cost, you remit payment and eliminate a challenging bank reconciliation requirement.

• Q: I have operations outside of the State of California. Can ALTA Alliance Bank help me deposit the funds from those states without requiring me to set up a local banking relationship in those states?

  A: Yes. ALTA Alliance Bank maintains a major correspondent banking network which gives our clients the ability to make deposits at any of those bank locations in multiple states through the U.S. ALTA Alliance will conduct a match-up of each banking location to your company locations, set up a link to move funds electronically, and provide 100% customer service.

• Q: My accounting software has a comprehensive bank reconcilement feature. How can I retrieve detailed transaction information from the Bank?

  A: Through ALTA Alliance Internet Banking, transaction detail can be exported each day or at the end of the month using a date range selection, and the data can be assembled in a number of formats including comma delimited, Fix Text, Quicken, QuickBooks, and more.

• Q: What is Check 21, and how does it affect me and my business?

  A: Check 21 is a new provision that allows banks to exchange images of checks as opposed to presenting original items from the bank on which those items are drawn. This new banking regulation is in direct response to the events of September 11th, 2001, which basically put a halt to the processing of paper checks when the airlines were grounded. Check 21 eliminates the need to transport physical checks to secure payment.

• Q: What is Remote Deposit/Accounts Receivable Conversion/Check 21 Processing?

  A: Remote Deposit/Accounts Receivable Conversion/Check 21 Processing are all basically interchangeable descriptions of a new service. It involves the deployment of a check scanning device directly to a client's office. The device can accomplish multiple tasks in a one-step process. It scans the checks, captures an image of both the front and the back of each check, makes the deposit to your account at ALTA Alliance Bank and provides detailed information to upload to your accounts receivable system. The service is managed via a secure Internet site which can accommodate multiple users and bank accounts, retrieval of images up to 24 months and file extract formats that are compatible and allow a direct interface to a number of different accounting systems, including QuickBooks and Quicken.

• Q: Does ALTA Alliance Bank have a service that will allow me to access and review my bank balances at other banks?

  A: Yes. With Multi Bank Balance Reporting, you can access information from your cooperating banks throughout the U.S. Information included will be balance information as well as detailed transactions. Contact your relationship manager for more information.

• Q: I occasionally have excess funds that I would like to invest. What are some of the investment alternatives available to me?

  A: A number of investment alternatives are available to your company, including the traditional Money Market Checking account that pays interest on tiered balances at varying rates. By Federal regulation, this type of account has restrictions on the number of checks/debits that can be made during a statement period. Alternatively, an Investment Sweep can be established for customers with higher balance levels. The Bank also has a number of CDs with terms as short as one (1) month and as long as five (5) years, including a Flexible CD that allows multiple deposits and limited withdrawals without penalty.

• Q: I operate multiple retail outlets that are responsible for making daily deposits into a centralized account. How can I track, on a daily basis, how much each location has deposited?

  A: By establishing the use of uniquely coded deposit slips that contain location numbers, using Internet Banking you can track and report on deposits made by each of your retail outlets. In addition to daily reporting, the Bank can assist you with setting up both current and monthly recaps of activity by location. Using uniquely encoded deposit slips with location numbers allows all types of transactions to maintain that number for your immediate identification, such as deposited items returned or multiple types of adjustments originated by the Bank. Contact your relationship manager for more information.