Check It Out

>>Seafood Dynamics Inc. of Naples, which supplies fresh seafood to Southwest Florida's resorts and restaurants, has recently taken on another fresh concept. The company, commonly known as Incredible Fresh Seafood, is handling a major banking function in-house-saving time and money on different fronts.

Instead of going to the bank every day, employees are depositing customer checks several times a day without going anywhere. The checks are simply scanned into a device that electronically transmits the digital images to the bank for deposit.

The Internet-based system known as "remote capture" is an increasingly popular tool that's making Seafood Dynamics and other companies more efficient. It has the potential to change business banking as we know it.

Rachel Gamble, a bookkeeper for the seafood company, says employees used to travel to the bank two or three times a day, and the trips gobbled up 15 minutes to an hour of time, depending upon traffic and lines at the bank.

Not only does the new system eliminate that lost time, but deposits seem to be hitting the business account more quickly than when they were made at the bank.

"Before, we had a lot of issues with deposits being lost, and taking a couple of days [to show up in the account]," she says. "Even though we had an account with millions of dollars in it, they'd still hold up checks on us."

Gamble adds that the system is easy to learn. "You don't have to have any computer knowledge whatsoever," she says.

In a survey recently released at the American Bankers Association's National Conference for Community Bankers, 58 percent of the respondents said they have adopted or plan to adopt the three-year-old technology by the end of next year. Fifty-eight percent also said that remote capture would be their top technology-spending priority this year.

Incredible Fresh Seafood decided to purchase its system through Hillcrest Bank, an independent community bank headquartered in Naples, which opened in August 2006. The device is composed of a small box with a scanner on it that scans both sides of a check. The corresponding software allows the device to communicate with the bank.

Hillcrest Bank's basic remote-capture system costs $750. Additional costs are a $25 monthly service fee and a 10-cent charge for each check deposited. The system deposits eight to 10 checks per minute.

Butch Manley, vice president of business development for Hillcrest, says the checks that are deposited through the new system usually clear the next day.

More advanced remote-capture machines can scan 30, 60 or 90 checks a minute, and work with fewer key strokes, but the devices cost twice as much. "It's a little bit more expensive for larger companies that have higher-volume activity," Manley says.

Among the larger companies is Sam Galloway Ford, which has several car dealerships in Southwest Florida. Gary Guenther, the manager of the Coconut Point Auto Spa, a car wash and detailing business tied to the Galloway dealership in Estero, says he is pleased with several facets of the remote-capture system there. Not only does it allow the business to deposit customers' checks from that site, which reduces bank trips, "it [also] verifies that the check is good," he says. "If a check is not good or the account is closed, the readout will say: 'not valid.'"

The benefits of remote capture? "Time and money," says Manley. "It is going to save you time [previously spent] away from your business depositing the money in the bank. You are also going to get your money quicker in the account."

The technology doesn't help just businesses. It also helps community banks, which don't have a branch on every corner, compete with the conglomerates. Hillcrest is one such example; it has only one full-service banking office in town, but that doesn't matter much to a business like Incredible Fresh Seafood, because its employees seldom make trips to the bank now.

Commerce Bank of Southwest Florida, headquartered in Fort Myers, is another independent community bank offering remote-capture service. The bank opened in September 2005 and currently has one full-service banking office.

Angela Corcoran, senior vice president and treasury management officer for the bank, says this technology will allow businesses to enjoy the benefits of working with a community bank.

"Instead of being forced to choose one bank, primarily because of the location, the customers can focus on more important factors such as personal service and local management decision-making," she says. "Overall, it gives us the opportunity to expand the geographic market, gives us an opportunity from a client-retention standpoint and helps us with increasing deposits."