Small-business safety
Payment Verification Checklist
Help staff pause and check invoices, payment links, urgent payment requests, and new money destinations before payment.
Purpose
Help staff pause and check invoices, payment links, urgent payment requests, and new money destinations before payment.
Use this checklist before paying an invoice, approving an urgent payment, changing a payment destination, or acting on a payment link. Verify through a known channel when anything is new, rushed, secret, or unusual.
Stop signals
- New payment destination, payment method, payment link, or QR code.
- Urgent language, late-fee pressure, account-suspension pressure, or same-day deadline.
- Request for secrecy or request not to contact the usual person.
- Vendor, customer, or manager message arrives through an unusual channel.
- Invoice, refund, or payment request cannot be matched to normal records.
Verify before acting
- Match the request to known work, a known order, a known vendor, or an approved business need.
- Verify through a known channel already used by the business.
- Ask the owner, bookkeeper, or approved reviewer to check any new money destination.
- Do not share passwords, one-time codes, or private documents.
- Record the review result in simple internal notes.
- Continue only through the normal payment process.
Reminder
A paused payment is not a failure. It is a normal safety step.
This page is educational and should be adapted to the business's own tools, policies, and qualified professional guidance when needed.