Keep Fraud In Check

Microsoft and Bank One Corp. last week unveiled software designed to help businesses slash administrative overhead and reduce exposure to check fraud.

The software is called Integrated Cash Management Solutions and was developed by integrating Microsoft's Great Plains accounting system with Bank One's cash-management services. It will let companies easily transmit information, such as a payroll file, from Great Plains to Bank One, eliminating tasks such as extracting data files and transferring them via dial-up connections, says Kathleen Nugent, senior VP and head of product management at Bank One, which has $290 billion in assets.

The software is designed to give midsize businesses some of the capabilities larger companies gain when they integrate enterprise-resource-planning systems with banking applications. Middle-market companies are the core of Bank One's customer base.

Bank One will market the software through its commercial banking officers, and Microsoft will support it. Bank One will also use the software to deliver a fraud-prevention service known as positive pay, in which a company provides the bank with a list of checks it has issued. The bank matches incoming checks against this list before releasing the funds.

Maggie Scarborough, senior analyst at Financial Insights, a subsidiary of research firm IDC, says the Bank One arrangement gives Microsoft an opportunity to cement its relationships among lucrative middle-market customers.

Bank One is offering the software upgrade free of charge to Great Plains users. Microsoft has given Bank One a six-month exclusive deal, after which it can market to other banks.