I mailed a check for my invoice. Why is it still overdue?

The time between mailing and processing a check at Column can take several weeks due to the volume of check payments that Column receives and manually reconciles daily. 

Most of our customers pay via debit card, credit card, or ACH, and we strongly encourage you to link your bank account or pay with a card for future notices. You can find more information about paying for a notice online here.

Overdue invoice reminders are sent weekly once the payment due date has passed until payment has been reconciled.

If you have mailed a check and received an overdue invoice reminder, please contact Column's support team at help@column.us to verify its receipt by confirming the following information:

1. The check was mailed to Column's lockbox at PO Box 208098, Dallas, TX 75320-8098. If it was mailed to the newspaper, see below.

2. The check has been deposited, and three days have passed. If it hasn't been deposited, it may not have arrived by mail yet or has been lost in the mail. Please give checks a minimum of two weeks to arrive by mail and be deposited. If the check hasn't been deposited after a month of mailing, we recommend issuing a stop payment and sending another payment.

If the above information is true - the check was mailed to Column's PO Box, and it's been deposited, please contact Column's Support team at help@column.us and provide the following information:

1. The check amount and check number. 

2. All the invoice numbers the check payment is intended for.

3. If you have a copy of the front and back of the check image, please attach it.

Our payment processor deposits all checks upon receipt. If you are still receiving overdue invoice notifications after 3 business days since the check has been cashed, please reach out to help@column.us using the details listed above. This likely means our payment processor could not match the check to an invoice and we'll need to take a closer look. If the check was mailed to the newspaper rather than our PO Box, see the next paragraph below.

If your check was sent to the newspaper office directly, it is the responsibility of the publisher to mark the notice as paid. If it shows unpaid, please contact them directly to verify the check's receipt and mark the invoice as "Paid."

If your check was sent to the correct address but more than two weeks have passed without a deposit, your check was likely lost in the mail and will need to be reissued.

Please review this article if you paid for your notice via credit, debit card, or ACH. 

We receive hundreds of checks weekly, which go through our payment processor, Stripe. If Stripe can not determine what invoice(s) the check sent should be applied to, our team manually reviews the information provided to see if we are able to make a match. If we are unable to reconcile the check against an invoice, we refund the check to the address provided. In order to prevent this, it is best to include the full invoice number or a copy of the invoice(s) with your check payment.