Three Ways to Reduce Rush Check Requests
The best way to handle a rush check is to prevent the need for one. Emergencies still happen, but repeated rush requests can disrupt payment controls, create unnecessary work, and increase the risk of errors or fraud.
When rush checks become common, Accounts Payable should examine why the requests are happening and introduce controls that discourage avoidable exceptions. Here are three practical approaches.
1. Assign a cost to rush processing
A rush payment requires additional time and attention from Accounts Payable, Treasury, approvers, and sometimes the bank. Assigning the cost of that extra work to the requesting department can help communicate that rush processing is not a routine service.
This could take the form of an internal departmental chargeback, budget allocation, or management reporting metric. The objective is not to personally penalize an employee. The objective is to make the operational cost of repeated exceptions visible.
Control consideration: Any internal fee or chargeback process should be approved by Finance leadership and documented in the organization’s payment policy.
2. Create a rush payment request and approval process
Accounts Payable should only process a rush payment after a formal request has been completed and approved by an authorized manager.
The request should document:
- The vendor and payment amount
- The business reason for the rush request
- The requested payment date
- The reason the normal payment cycle was missed
- The responsible department and cost center
- The approving manager
A documented approval process creates accountability and brings repeated exceptions to management’s attention. It also gives Accounts Payable an audit trail showing why the normal payment process was bypassed.
Management reporting can then identify departments, suppliers, or employees that regularly generate rush requests. This information can be used to address planning problems, late invoice submissions, purchase order delays, or approval bottlenecks.
3. Use an approved company card when appropriate
For certain legitimate emergency purchases, an approved company credit card or purchasing card may be a better alternative than producing a rush check.
The employee can complete the purchase using the company card and submit the transaction through the normal expense reporting process. This option may be more efficient while still preserving approval, receipt, coding, and reconciliation requirements.
Important: A company card should only be used when the purchase is permitted under the organization’s card policy. Card use should not be used to avoid vendor onboarding, purchasing controls, or required contract approvals.
Track the reason behind every rush request
Adding hurdles can discourage unnecessary requests, but the long-term goal should be to correct the underlying problem. Accounts Payable should categorize rush requests by cause, such as:
- Invoice submitted late by the department
- Approval delay
- Purchase order problem
- Vendor setup delay
- Payment processing error
- True business emergency
Reviewing these reasons monthly can help management determine whether the organization has a training issue, a workflow problem, or a department that is repeatedly bypassing established procedures.
APPG takeaway: A rush payment should remain an exception. Require documentation, approval, and a clear business reason, then use the data to prevent the same problem from happening again.
What works in your organization?
Which of these approaches has worked for your Accounts Payable team? What other controls have you used to reduce unnecessary rush payment requests?
Editorial Note: The article formatting was updated on July 10, 2026.
Accounts Payable Professionals Group
Robert Ruhno provides practical Accounts Payable reporting, internal controls guidance, automation coverage, and career support for the APPG community.
In my A/P department, we enforced all three methods. However, the most effective one was charging the fee to the requesting department. Most times the "rush" wasn't exactly urgent, which meant the check could wait to be processed during the normal check run schedule.
ReplyDeleteThat is true! Sometimes "Rush" is really not a rush.
DeleteWhat is a reasonable fee to charge?
ReplyDelete$15 to $25 is reasonable, compared to the trouble that rushed checks cause.
DeleteI would definitely rule out the third option for a few reasons.
ReplyDelete1 the risk of duplication - the credit card payment could be processed as well as the normal AP invoice / purchase order / payment and for the vast majority of systems it will not appear as duplicate payment to supplier, especially if the cost is coded to GL in a different manner
2 laziness of the card holder - rather than going through proper approval channels for payments, the purchase goes through and then becomes a liability to the company or card holder, for an item that may not be within policy or from a preferred supplier.
3 long term review of costs by supplier - if items are purchased on a card, then the refund ids to the card or claimant and not to the supplier, as such it is significantly harder to trace purchase trends, for negotiation of better contracts or to simply find " who did we use last year for this"