Checking a change of vendor bank details before you pay

A vendor writes that their bank account has changed. Before the next payment goes out, someone has to be sure the request really comes from the vendor. These pages give a small business a written procedure for that, and a tool for keeping the records the procedure needs.

Everything here is general information. It is not legal, financial or insurance advice. Nothing here moves money, and nothing here tells you whether a particular request is a scam.

Written procedure (free)

• Payment-change policy: which requests must be checked, and who approves them.
• Call-back script: what to say when you phone the vendor.
• One-page staff notice: for whoever enters payments.
• Change-request log: a table to print and fill in by hand.
• Urgent payment request by phone or video: a fixed response.

Ledger tool (free)

Open the ledger. It keeps, for each vendor, the contact channel you verified before any change request arrived, and a short code for the vendor's bank account. When a change request comes in, it walks you through the call-back steps in a fixed order and records what you did. Before you pay, you can paste the account you are about to use and see whether it is the same as the one on file.

Your records stay in your browser. They are not sent to us. The note at the top of the ledger page lists what is reported; the privacy page lists every stored field.