This guide covers printing paper paychecks with the Check Printing designer: starting from a template, choosing your stock and paper size, positioning the check, fine-tuning individual elements, aligning the print, and downloading the checks (plus the print-and-mail alternative, CheckFlo). Only employees paid by Paper Check produce a printable check — see Set your payroll check numbers for payment methods and numbering.
Everything below lives in one place: open the client and go to Settings → Check Printing. A live preview on the right updates as you change any setting, so you can get it right before wasting a single check.
Start from a template
What it does: Loads a ready-made check design so you don't start from scratch.
Where: Client → Settings → Check Printing → Templates.
Steps:
- Pick a template card — e.g. Standard Laser — Check on Top (3.5"), Stub on Top / Check on Bottom, Check in the Middle, Three Checks per Page, or Pre-printed — Check on Top (3.5").
- The page fills in with that design (paper size, position, height, stock, and any element adjustments). Nothing is saved yet — tweak anything below, watch the preview, then Save changes.
Templates are firm-wide: once you save your own (see Save your design as a template), it's available on all of your clients.
Choose your check stock (blank vs. pre-printed)
What it does: Tells Payrollix how much to draw on the check face, so it matches the checks you actually feed the printer.
Where: Client → Settings → Check Printing → Check Stock.
- Pre-printed checks — checks you buy in bulk (from your bank or a check vendor) that already have your company name, bank routing/account, the MICR line, and check number printed on them. Payrollix prints only the date, payee, amount, and amount-in-words, plus the pay stub. Nothing is double-printed, and you don't need a MICR font or magnetic toner. This is the simplest option for most businesses.
- Blank stock — plain check paper with nothing pre-printed. Payrollix prints the whole check, including the routing/account MICR line. This requires a MICR font and magnetic (MICR) toner to be bank-scannable — see Blank stock below.
Notes: Pre-printed is the default recommendation. On pre-printed stock a funding bank account isn't even required to print, since the bank details are already on the check.
Set the paper size and check position
What it does: Matches the sheet size and tells Payrollix which part of the page holds the negotiable check.
Where: Client → Settings → Check Printing → Paper Size and Check Position.
- Paper Size — Letter (8.5 × 11", the default), Legal (8.5 × 14"), or A4.
- Check Position:
- Stub on top, check on bottom (default) — earnings statement on top, check on the bottom third.
- Check on top, stub below — check in the top third, statement beneath.
- Check in the middle — check centered, a short stub above and below.
- Three checks per page — three checks on one sheet with no stub (for "all-check" stock).
On the two full-stub positions, Payrollix prints your firm's full pay stub (the same style you've chosen for paystubs) above or below the check.
Match the check height (e.g. 3.5" laser stock)
What it does: Sets how tall the negotiable check band is, so the MICR line and company name land correctly on your stock.
Where: Client → Settings → Check Printing → Check Height (inches).
Standard pre-printed laser checks are exactly 3.5" tall, with a ³⁄₁₆" security bar along the top and a ½" clear MICR band along the bottom. If you leave Check Height blank, Payrollix uses an even third of the page (~3.667"), which can push the MICR line off 3.5" stock.
Steps:
- Enter 3.5 for standard laser check stock (or your stock's actual height).
- Watch the preview — the MICR line settles into the bottom clear band and the company name clears the top security bar, with no manual nudge needed.
Fine-tune each element
What it does: Moves one item on the check — the payee name, amount box, date, company block, or the MICR/bank/signature group — independently.
Where: Client → Settings → Check Printing → Fine-tune Each Element.
Steps:
- Pick the element from the dropdown (Payee name, Amount box + words, Date, Company block, or MICR + bank/signature).
- Use the Up / Down and Left / Right buttons to nudge it (about 1/24" per click). The preview updates live.
- Reset all elements clears every per-element adjustment.
Line it up with your printer
What it does: Shifts the whole print a little in any direction so it lines up with pre-printed stock and corrects for printer feed/margin drift — like adjusting the margins on a document.
Where: Client → Settings → Check Printing → Margin Alignment.
Steps:
- Use the Up / Down and Left / Right steppers to move the entire printout (shown in inches). Watch the preview move with each click.
- Toggle Show ruler on the preview to overlay a 1" grid so you can measure placement right there.
- For a physical check, click Download alignment test page — a 1" ruler grid with the check band outlined — and hold it against (or print it onto) a real check to measure any remaining offset.
- Save changes, then print a live check to confirm.
With a correct Check Height you usually need no margin adjustment at all.
Save your design as a template
What it does: Stores your current design (paper size, position, height, stock, margins, and element adjustments) as a reusable template for any of your clients.
Where: Client → Settings → Check Printing → Save current as template.
Click it, give the template a name, and it appears in the Templates gallery for all your clients. Delete a custom template from its card (built-in templates can't be deleted).
Download and print the checks
What it does: Produces the check PDFs to run through your printer.
Where: Client → Payroll → open the payroll run → Download.
Steps:
- Open the completed payroll run.
- Click Download. Use All Paychecks to get every paper-check employee at once, or the per-employee Download Paycheck button on an employee row.
- Load your check stock and print.
Notes: With the Three checks per page position, "All Paychecks" returns a single combined PDF (three checks per sheet). The other positions return a ZIP of one PDF per check. Check numbers increment automatically from your Starting / Next Check Number (also on the Check Printing tab).
Print at actual size (important for the MICR line)
The MICR line at the bottom of the check (the routing/account digits) is printed in a precise E-13B font at an exact size — 8 characters per inch, right-justified to the standard position. Banks read it either magnetically or optically (OCR), and both depend on the characters coming out at their exact physical size. So when you print:
- Set printing to 100% / "Actual size" — not "Fit to page", "Shrink to fit", or "Scale to fit". Scaling the page shrinks the MICR characters and can cause the bank to misread or reject the check. This is the single most common self-print mistake.
- Use a laser printer for crisp characters (inkjet can bleed).
- The MICR font is embedded in the PDF, so the line prints correctly even on a computer that doesn't have a MICR font installed — including when you email the PDF to the client (or employee) to print themselves.
Do you need magnetic MICR toner?
It depends on how the checks get deposited:
- ATM or mobile-banking deposit reads the MICR line optically (OCR) — no magnetic toner needed. Regular black laser toner on blank check stock, printed at actual size, is fine.
- Teller deposit / high-speed bank clearing reads the MICR line magnetically — this needs magnetic (MICR) toner. Ordinary toner prints the right shapes but carries no magnetic signal, so magnetic readers can't read it.
If you're not sure how a client's employees deposit, ask them — or use pre-printed stock (above) or CheckFlo (below), which sidestep the question entirely.
Blank stock: the MICR line
On blank stock, Payrollix prints the whole check — including the routing/account MICR line — using a built-in E-13B font that is embedded in every check PDF. You don't need to install any font, and the line prints correctly even on a client's computer that has no MICR font. Just remember to print at actual size (above). Whether the printed line also needs to be magnetic depends on how it's deposited — see Do you need magnetic MICR toner? above.
Most businesses skip blank stock entirely by using pre-printed stock (above) or CheckFlo (below).
Let CheckFlo print and mail them
What it does: Instead of self-printing, Payrollix hands each paper check to CheckFlo, which prints it on secure check stock and mails it — no printer, stock, font, or toner on your end.
Notes: CheckFlo is enabled per client during setup. Contact Payrollix support if you'd like checks printed and mailed for you instead of self-printing.
Related: Set your payroll check numbers · Company bank account setup · Employee payment methods