Information for staff on receiving and processing cheques, cash and banking in light of Covid-19 regulations. Like the majority of us, the Cash Office team are still working from home as the physical Cash Office is still shut until further notice. As much of their work is handling cash and cheques, the team have noticed an increase in queries regarding Cash Office services include, for example, the situation with receiving and processing cheques, cash and banking in general. Below is a brief outline of the current situation with these Cash Office services and our general advice on them. Cheques At present and for the foreseeable future, we are unable to receive and process cheques. If departments have received cheques but are unsure what to do with them, our advice for now is to contact the payer and request that they cancel the cheque and instead make the payment via bank transfer (see instructions below for how to do this). If this is not possible and it is not urgent, you can hold on to the cheque until further notice. Stirling cheques have an expiry date of 6 months after they are written, though foreign cheques can be much less than this. If it is urgent, or you have cheques nearing an expiry date, please email at Finance.helpline@ed.ac.uk, indicating Cash Office in the subject line and the team will do their best to find a solution. It is also possible for people to take cheques to the bank themselves, but this must be arranged with us first. Cash We are also unable to receive or dispense cash at present, so please avoid using it as a payment method as much as possible for the time being. If taking cash is unavoidable, please continue to hold it in department safes and contact us if they are nearing their limits. The below online banking instructions can also be used in place of taking cash as a payment method. In terms of making department purchases, please use alternatives such as eExpenses where possible to avoid the need to have cash on hand. Online banking instructions Online banking Instructions on how funds can be transferred to us can be found here. If departments are expecting funds to be transferred to us in this way, you must contact us to advise us of the transaction details (e.g. reference used, payment amount, date sent, etc.) and the coding it needs to be allocated to (including Cost centre, Account and Job code). If you have arranged for payments to be received in this way in the past (e.g. deposit refund, expenses payment etc.) but it hasn’t been credited to you yet, please contact us immediately so that we can allocate it to you as it may be sitting in our suspense account. Updated Forms As a side note, the Cash Office has recently updated our forms. These can be found here. More information If you have any further queries or a situation you wish to discuss, please feel free to contact us at Finance.helpline@ed.ac.uk, indicating Cash Office in the subject line. This article was published on 2024-07-01
