Fastcheque

Welcome to Fastcheque! - Fastcheque makes it easy to produce accurate and professionally styled cheques at the touch of a button, taking the stress out of payday!

With Fastcheque, you can either write professional looking bank cheques, or use specially available Deluxe® Forms.

Template Editor Help

Fastcheque Pay Help

Background Bitmap Help

Fastcheque Options Help

Order Stationary for Fastcheque

Purchase Fastcheque

Fastcheque is Copyright © Atlantic Coast plc 1998, All Rights reserved.

Atlantic Coast plc,

The Shareware Village,

Colyton,

Devon,

England,

EX13 6HA.

Tel: 01297 552222

Fax: 01297 553366

sales@atlantic-coast.com

http://www.soft-shop.com

pbp


Order Stationary
Ordering Stationary

How to Purchase Checks/Cheques

Deluxe Forms are the world leaders in supplying tailor made cheques at very low cost. While Fastcheque can support any cheque layout you may have, purchasing the pre-printed cheque forms from Deluxe will save you lots of time and trouble and look more professional.

If you are in the United Kingdom:

Please call 01455 615616..... quote Code ATL and order cheque form reference ATL

These cheques are printed on A5 sheets and will fit into most standard window envelopes

If you are in the United States:

Please call 1-800-336-4168 quoting Priority Service Code K04793 and order check forms ref. 081004.

These checks are printed in Letter size and Deluxe can provide matching envelopes ref. 091500/091508

If you prefer, simply email to sales@atlantic-coast.com

 and we will arrange for Deluxe Forms to call you to discuss your purchase and take your order. Let us have a work or home phone number and the name of the person to speak to.


Purchasing Fastcheque
Registering Fastcheque

How to Register Fastcheque

Fastcheque costs only £19.99 or US $29.99 per copy.

You may order by credit card from our online website by clicking here http://www.atlantic-coast.com

After paying for the program you will be invited to download the latest licensed version.

The following locations can process your order by credit, debit or charge card and also by UK cheque, US check, Eurocheque, Postcheque.

You may order by email to  sales@atlantic-coast.com

You may write to:

Atlantic Coast plc

The Shareware Village

Colyton

Devon

England EX13 6HA

Tel. +44 (0)1297 552222

Fax. +44 (0)1297 553366

Thank you for evaluating Fastcheque - by paying for the program you assist us in improving it.

Why not now order some pre-printed cheques/checks from Deluxe Forms?


Printer Setup

See Also: Fastcheque Pay

(A=Cheque to be printed, B=A4 Paper guides, C=Manual feeder tray, D=Output tray)

To begin with, you must ascertain the way in which your printer takes small bits of paper, envelopes, etc. With most Laser/LED Page printers, there is usually a standard paper tray, located at or neer the bottom of the printer, and also a manual paper feeder, sometimes to be found at the end of the printer: if this exists, then you should use it; if not, then consult your printer manual / help-file, under the "printing envelopes" section.

You should put your cheque to be printed into the manual feeder tray with the long side parallel to the printer, at the left-hand side of the tray, with the bank name, etc nearest to the printer.

(The cheque is now inserted in the "Portrait" position)

When you have done this, start Fastcheque Pay, by clicking on its icon in the "start menu," (click here for help on Fastcheque Pay)


Fastcheque Pay

See Also: Options, Printer Setup

Fastcheque Pay is the most important part of Fastcheque, but its just as easy to use as all the rest. First of all, you must enter the Payee Name (you can also type "cash"), then, if you have not already selected a default cheque template from Fastcheque Options,  you must select a template (either from those supplied or those which you've created yourself), and then enter the ammount: You don't have to worry about typing in the ammount in words, Fastcheque automatically translates the ammount in figures you type in, to words! Making sure that you've already set the printer up to print the cheque, press "Pay" and watch the cheque print! (NB: Depending on your Fastcheque Settings, you may also have to enter a user defined password, or the Printing dialog box may appear.

To make writing a cheque even easier, if you have recently payed the same person with Fastcheque, simply click on the Question-mark button at the right-hand side of the "Payee" field, and a list of all the people you've recently payed will appear, from which you can select the payee:

The Printed Cheque can then be signed (or signed before-hand) and payed!

Note: If you select to print either a UK or a US Deluxe Cheque, you must enter the address of the payee. If you find you pay one person a lot, you won't have to type the address more than once: fastcheque remembers it.

Start the Fastcheque Pay


Options

See Also: Fastcheque Pay, Template Editor

The Fastcheque Options window consists of three main pages. Click on the relavant icon:

Cheque Options   [image] Printer Options  [image] Preferences


Cheque Options

See Also: Printer Options, Preferences, Fastcheque Pay

This lets you customise certain things about the cheques that you print. In the uppermost box, you can select the default currency to pay cheques in: you can also select a currency from the Fastcheque pay window. The second box lets you select a default template: this with the first option simply makes the action of writing a cheque with Fastcheque Pay a faster and easier thing to do.

You can also select the font with which cheques are printed: we recommend however that you use either the "Arial" or "Times Roman" fonts, which are unmistakable and universally recognised.

The "Cheque Date" check-box is checked by default: This simply makes the date you can select in Fastcheque Pay default to the current date.

Start the Options Now


Printer Options

See Also: Cheque Options, Printer Setup

This screen lets you select the default cheque-printing printer, and whether cheques are fed in landscape or portrait. (nb: Portrait is recommended). From this dialog box, you can also make X and Y adjustments of the position of the writing on the cheque. Say, for example, you have this set at 0, and when you print a cheque, all the writing has been shifted to the right by half an inch or so, you would keep the Y adjustment as 0, but have the X adjustment as -0.5: this will drag the printed words back across the cheque.

Start the Options Now


Cheque Templates

See Also: Template Editor, Fastcheque Pay, Background Bitmaps

Cheque Templates are used by Fastcheque to position exactly the Date, Ammount in words, Ammount in Figures and Payee fields on the cheque. A Template consists of a background bitmap and a set of numbers which determine where each field is relative to the size of the background. The Template editor is provided to make the process of creating a template easy and intuitive.

{button Start the Template Editor,ExecProgram("template.exe",1)}


Preferences

See Also: Cheque Options, Printer Options

This options page lets you set certain features of Fastcheque Pay. The first option, "Open Print Dialog before Printing" lets you choose whether or not to open the printer dialog box, which lets you choose the printer and use the printer-setup: This is on by default, but if your printer can take cheques in A4 mode, then you probably don't need it on.

"Require Password to Pay" gives added security to Fastcheque: it does not allow the user to print a cheque without first entering the password. By default, this feature is turned off.

The "don't keep 'recently payed' records" check-box enables the user to turn off automatic payee retention: if this option is off, then each time you pay someone, the name of the payee is added to a list which can be called up and selected from by clicking on the question-mark button to the right of the "payee" field in Fastcheque pay.

Start the Options Now


Template Editor

See Also: Templates, Background Bitmaps

The Template Editor is used to create and change Cheque Templates, which Fastcheque uses to position the Payee, Ammount and Date fields.

Creating a new Template

•	Click on "File | New," and the Payee, Ammount and Date fields appear.

•	Click on "Edit | Cheque Background." The "Template Background" window should appear.

•	You can either select a background from the combo-box, or click on "Import own background."

•	If you select "Import own Background," then the "Open File" dialog-box appears: you must now select the bitmap you have scanned in (for details of creating background bitmaps, click here), and then a window will appear asking you to enter the LENGTH and WIDTH of the actual cheque you scanned in (using a ruler, for example.), and a Name for the background. be sure not to enter the same name as a template background that already exists.

•	You must now position the the Fields (date, payee, ammount in words, ammount in figures). They should be situated in a roughly correct position by default. You can position them by clicking and holding the left mouse-button down, dragging the field to position, and then releasing the mouse-button.

•	Now your template is ready to be saved: simply click "File|Save," being sure to give the template a memorable name.

Start the Template Editor


Background Bitmaps

See Also: Cheque Templates, Template Editor

A Number of background Bitmaps are supplied with Autocheque, but it is very probable that you'll want to make your own. The Easiest way is with a scanner, and a simple image editor.

In most image editors (e.g., Paint Shop Pro) you should click "File|Select Source," then select your scanner: now click "File|Aquire," and your scanner window appears. You should scan a blank cheque with a resolution of no more than 200 dpi; a larger image is not needed. Hint: you should scan the cheque on a contrasting background, so that it becomes instantly clear where the cheque's edges are.)

The most important stage of making a background bitmap, however, is cutting the cheque and no more, out. This should be done with a "Box" tool, such as with Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 4:

the entire cheque should then be copied, using "Edit|Copy," and then "Edit|Paste as new Image" should be selected, to create an image of only the cheque. This should now be saved with a descriptive name as a bitmap file; it is now ready for use as a background bitmap. However, you should be sure to measure the dimensions of the cheque with a ruler, etc, carefully, as without the dimensions in centimetres, the background bitmap is useless.