Custom MICR Fonts

Author: Eric Vasbinder

Overview

Though there are more modern ways to create payments, including through electronic payment services and check printing services such as Viewpoint ePayments, printing checks is often a large part of the daily routine of our ERP customers.  Whether Vista, Spectrum, ProContractor, or JobPac, each one of these ERPs, though different in their approach and market focus allows for the printing of checks.

When printing actual, physical checks from ERPs, customers often require the use of custom MICR fonts within the ERP.  These custom fonts, though expensive and proprietary, allow customers to print checks with routing and account numbers are are acceptable to bank scanners. 

Unfortunately, there are several downsides to dealing with proprietary MICR fonts, especially when customers move to the cloud.  However, if commercial, custom MICR fonts are desired, please see the instructions below in the "Setting Up Custom MICR Fonts" section on how to proceed.

Downsides of Proprietary MICR Fonts

Cost

The most obvious downside of proprietary MICR fonts is the cost.  Often the usage of custom, proprietary MICR Fonts runs up against product licenses that can require the purchase of licenses for the MICR font that range into the thousands of dollars for use on one workstation or server.  For deployment models, such as Vista, where MICR fonts must be installed on the Vista app server, each workstation from where checks are printed, and each Crystal Reporting node (if Crystal load balancing is in use), this can amount to multiple thousands, sometimes exceeding $50K for an implementation.  If the font is licensed on a subscription basis, this can become prohibitive.

Deployment Complexity

Due to the proprietary licenses used by commercial MICR fonts, there is often difficulty in obtaining the font files themselves.  In addition, installation of these fonts on the various systems needed can only be allowed by our cloud engineering and support teams once proof of purchase of these MICR fonts has been provided by the customer to Trimble Viewpoint.  Often customers misplace those receipts and license approvals.  

In addition, licensing restrictions on commercial fonts often prohibit their use in cloud environments, restricting them to on-premise installations only.

Possible Solution

To overcome the twin problems of cost and licensing complexity, customers can adopt open source, GPL replacements for MICR fonts.  These fonts are free of charge to use, with no licensing restrictions on where they may be used.

Please note that while our Viewpoint team does not officially support the use of these fonts, a number of customers have used them successfully in our cloud.

Options

• GnuMICR:  https://sandeen.net/GnuMICR/

  • NOTE:  The "zipped" archives for this font contain the necessary TrueType and Adobe postscript files that are required for printing checks that reference this font.

REQUIRED - If you are using the gnuMICR font above, please submit a $0 or extremely small check through your bank (e.g. $0.01) to test if your bank accepts the new font.  

If so, you are clear to proceed.

Setting up Custom MICR Fonts

The following steps are needed for our team to use custom MICR fonts in our cloud:

1. Customer:  Submit support case with attached MICR font, including the license files showing ownership if this font is a commercial, proprietary font

2. (OPTIONAL) Customer:  Update custom Crystal check reports to point to the new custom MICR font.

   1. If the fonts to be used are NEW and never been used in your Crystal Reports before, you'll need to update the reports that reference the old fonts.  If you are not changing fonts, this step is unnecessary.

   2. See these instructions on how to upload the newly updated report file (RPT) into the cloud:  How do I upload Custom Crystal Reports to Vista in the cloud? 

3. Trimble Viewpoint:  Install the MICR font on Vista D1 or -APP server and Crystal Nodes (if present)

4. Customer:  Install custom MICR fonts on workstations where checks will be printed.