Hotel finance teams have always guarded the money going out the door. That job is getting harder.
Check fraud has surged in recent years even as check use keeps falling, and hotel portfolios offer plenty of openings.
The usual response is to turn on positive pay and move on. But in most portfolios, payments still start in a patchwork of emailed invoices, spreadsheets and property-by-property habits. Positive pay can only verify what that process sends it.
The gap is not a missing bank service. It is the payment process behind it.
This guide to hotel check fraud prevention shows how to pair positive pay with payment controls that hold up across every property, and how Docyt helps you run them.
Why Check Fraud Is a Hotel Portfolio Problem Again
In June 2025, the OCC, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC jointly issued a request for information on payments fraud with a particular focus on check fraud. The Federal Register notice cites Treasury’s finding that check fraud has risen 385 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hotels still pay many vendors, contractors and tax authorities by check, and portfolios multiply the risk with more accounts, more signers and inconsistent processes across properties.
What Positive Pay Does, and What It Cannot Do
Positive pay is a bank service. You send your bank a file of the checks you issued (check number, amount, date, and with payee positive pay, the payee name). When a check is presented that does not match, the bank flags it as an exception so you can approve or return it. Many banks offer ACH positive pay or debit filters for electronic payments too.
The limitation: positive pay only confirms that a check matches what you issued. If a fake vendor, duplicate invoice or unauthorized payment makes it into your issued list, positive pay sees a perfect match. That is why controls upstream of the bank matter just as much.
How to Build Payment Controls for Hotel Portfolios
Step 1: Enroll every operating account in positive pay
Ask your bank about payee positive pay and ACH debit protection for every property account, not just the main operating account. Confirm the daily exception decision deadline and who on your team owns it.
Step 2: Run every payment through one approval workflow
When each property pays bills its own way, gaps appear. With Docyt Bill Pay, invoices for all properties and entities flow into one queue. Approvals can be routed by invoice amount, vendor, department and budget variance, and approvers can act from the Docyt mobile app.
Step 3: Separate who can add, approve and pay
The person who adds a vendor should not be the person who approves the bill or releases the payment. Docyt uses role-based permissions so you define who can participate in bill pay and at what level, and GMs can see committed spend without releasing payments.
Step 4: Stop duplicates and fake vendors before they become checks
Docyt checks incoming invoices for duplicates before routing them for approval and flags duplicate vendors in vendor management. Also verify any vendor bank detail change by phone, using a number already on file.
Step 5: Shift recurring vendors from paper to ACH
Every paper check in the mail is an opportunity for theft or alteration. Docyt supports both ACH and check payments from the same workflow, so you can move recurring vendors to ACH without managing a separate process. Our article on 10-minute bill pay for hotel portfolios covers how centralizing payables also saves hours each month.
Step 6: Reconcile daily, not at month-end
Positive pay exceptions need fast decisions, yet many portfolios reconcile only at month-end, so a fraudulent item can sit for weeks. Docyt connects to your bank feeds and reconciles transactions continuously, so a cleared payment with no approved bill behind it is easier to spot while there is still time to act.
Protect Margins by Closing the Gaps
Positive pay is the bank’s last line of defense. Strong hotel payment controls are yours. Together, they give owners and finance teams confidence that every dollar leaving a property was approved, recorded and reconciled.
Summary Overview
- Check fraud has surged in recent years, and federal banking regulators made it a focus of a June 2025 request for information.
- Positive pay helps your bank catch checks that do not match your issued list, but it cannot catch fraud that enters your own payment process.
- Enroll every property account in positive pay and ACH protection, and assign an owner for daily exceptions.
- Use Docyt Bill Pay to centralize approvals across properties, apply role-based permissions and catch duplicate invoices and vendors.
- Move recurring vendors to ACH and reconcile bank activity daily so suspicious items surface quickly.
See How Docyt Strengthens Payment Controls Across Your Portfolio
Want to tighten approvals, reduce paper checks and reconcile every property daily? Schedule time with our team to see Docyt in action. Schedule a consultation with Docyt.
