Bounced Cheques and Sayad Inquiry — A Money Changer's Guide

Cheques are still one of the most common payment tools in large exchange transactions. The customer hands over a cheque, you deliver the currency or service, and you collect the cheque later. Simple enough — until the day the cheque bounces.

A bounced cheque means: you have handed over the currency, but you haven't received the money, and you may never receive it. That is the difference between a profitable deal and a big loss. This article is about how to weigh the risk of a bounce before you accept a cheque.

What is the Sayad system?

Sayad (the Integrated Electronic Money System) is a system the central bank set up to manage cheques. Its purpose is to turn the cheque from a forgeable, high-risk piece of paper into an identifiable, verifiable instrument.

In the Sayad system:

Every cheque leaf has a unique Sayad ID (a 16-digit number printed on the cheque).
The issuer of the cheque must register it in the system (amount, date, payee).
The payee must confirm/receive the cheque.
And most important of all: you can verify the issuer's creditworthiness and the cheque's status — before you accept it.

For a money changer, that last point changes everything: instead of trusting the paper, you can ask, "Does this person have a history of bounced cheques? Is this cheque leaf valid?"

Cheque colour: the language of risk

The Sayad system assigns each chequebook holder a colour that summarises their history. This colour is the fastest way to gauge risk:

Colour	Meaning	Money changer's response
White	No history of bounced cheques	Low risk
Yellow	One bounced cheque or a slight history	With caution
Orange	Several bounced cheques	High risk — reconsider
Brown	A heavier history of bounced cheques	Serious risk
Red	A severe history of bounced cheques	Usually don't accept

The logic is simple: the darker the colour, the higher the chance of a bounce. Red or brown means this person's cheques have bounced repeatedly — and statistically, the odds that your cheque bounces too are high.

Note: the colour reflects the issuer's history, not a guarantee about this specific cheque. Even someone with a white colour can have their cheque bounce this time. Colour is probability, not certainty — but a probability that costs dearly to ignore.

سامانهٔ صیاد به هر صادرکننده یک رنگ می‌دهد که خلاصهٔ سابقهٔ اوست — سریع‌ترین راه سنجش ریسک چک قبل از قبول.

The Sayad inquiry: what does it tell you?

A Sayad inquiry usually returns these:

The issuer's colour (credit status) — a summary of their history.
The status of the cheque leaf itself — is it registered? Is it blocked? Has it been used before?
Detail matching — do the amount and payee match what the customer says?

Together, these three build a picture of risk that looking at the paper could never give you. A cheque can look entirely real and valid, yet its issuer may be red or the cheque leaf may be blocked.

Checklist before accepting a cheque

Before you hand over the currency against a cheque:

Run the Sayad ID inquiry. What is the issuer's colour?
Do the amount and date on the cheque match the customer's claim?
Are you the payee registered in the system? (Is the cheque registered in your favour?)
Is the cheque date past or not too far off? A post-dated cheque carries a timing risk.
Does the amount fit what you know of the customer? A large cheque from a small customer is a question.

Every "no" or "unsure" is a pause. For large cheques, these few minutes of inquiry are the cheapest insurance you can buy.

Managing a cheque after acceptance

Accepting a cheque is only the start. Until collection, a cheque is a conditional asset that has to be tracked:

The batch of receivable cheques: a list of the cheques you have taken but not yet collected, each with its due date.
Due-date reminders: a cheque that has reached its due date and hasn't been collected must not be forgotten.
Following up on bounces: if a cheque bounces, it must be reflected in the ledger at once — that receivable is no longer cash.

Like receivables and payables, a cheque is an open obligation that gets lost if it isn't tracked — with the difference that a lost cheque is usually more expensive.

The role of software

A Sayad inquiry is most valuable when it is done in the right place and without friction — not with the operator opening another tab and running the inquiry by hand, but at the very moment the cheque is recorded. And the cheque module should keep the chequebooks, due dates, and collection status in one place.

In Nexto, the cheque module tracks incoming and outgoing cheques with their due dates and collection status, and the Sayad inquiry — like the IBAN inquiry — is available from the built-in services so that the cheque's colour and status become clear before acceptance, right there in the same form.

Summary

A bounced cheque turns a profitable deal into a loss — and most of it is preventable. The Sayad system has made the cheque verifiable: the issuer's colour tells you their history, and the inquiry tells you the status of the cheque leaf. Before accepting a large cheque, run the inquiry; after accepting, track it until collection. A few minutes of inquiry is the cheapest insurance against the most expensive mistake.

Want to see how the cheque module and the Sayad inquiry work in practice? Build a dedicated demo and follow a cheque from inquiry to collection.