Stop a check payment

Overview

A stop payment tells the bank not to honor a check if someone presents it for deposit. Use a stop payment when a check was sent in error, issued for the wrong amount, or is no longer needed.

You issue stop payments through Payment Actions, which link to the original check payment order.

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Timing

You can only stop a Payment Order while it is in sent status — the check has been sent but not yet deposited. Once the recipient cashes or deposits the check, you cannot stop it.

Cancel check payment orders that have not yet been sent.

When to stop a check

Common scenarios include:

• Duplicate payment: You accidentally sent two checks for the same invoice.
• Incorrect amount: The check amount is wrong and you need to reissue it.
• Lost or stolen check: The check never reached the recipient or was compromised.
• Changed circumstances: The underlying obligation was cancelled or renegotiated.

How to stop a check payment

Using the Dashboard

1. Navigate to the Payments Overview page.
2. Find and select a Check Payment Order with sent status.
3. From the Actions dropdown, select Stop Check Payment. A confirmation modal appears.
4. Select Yes, stop this check to submit.

Modern Treasury creates the Payment Action and sends the stop request. On success, the Payment Action moves to acknowledged and the Payment Order moves to stopped.

Using the API

Create a Payment Action with type set to stop and actionable_id set to the Payment Order ID of the check you want to stop.

curl --request POST \
  -u ORGANIZATION_ID:API_KEY \
  --url https://app.moderntreasury.com/api/payment_actions \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "type": "stop",
    "actionable_id": "c5f4009c-bdd6-4cc1-84b2-17974ac9e77a",
    "actionable_type": "payment_order"
  }'

{
  "id": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "object": "payment_action",
  "live_mode": false,
  "type": "stop",
  "status": "pending",
  "actionable_id": "c5f4009c-bdd6-4cc1-84b2-17974ac9e77a",
  "actionable_type": "payment_order",
  "internal_account_id": "0f8e3719-3dfd-4613-9bbf-c0333781b59f",
  "details": {
    "amount": 10000,
    "currency": "USD",
    "check_number": "100001",
    "issue_date": "2019-11-19",
    "payee_name": "Kenner, Bach and Ledeen",
    "originating_account_number": "2971"
  },
  "created_at": "2019-11-20T00:11:07Z",
  "updated_at": "2019-11-20T00:11:07Z"
}

Payment Action lifecycle

Once created, the Payment Action progresses through these statuses:

Reissuing a check

To reissue a stopped check, create a new Payment Order with the same details. See Originate a check payment for instructions.