How SoCalGas Eliminates 50,000 Checks With Digital Payouts

Finance teams generally know what paper checks cost. They can calculate printing and postage expenses. They can also estimate reconciliation costs and fraud losses. But according to Theresa McEndree, chief growth officer at Choice Digital, one of the highest costs of legacy disbursement programs rarely appears in those calculations at all: the recipient experience.

That observation echoes one of the central themes explored in the latest PYMNTS Intelligence Embedded Finance Tracker®: The true cost of slow disbursements extends well beyond paper, postage or payment delays. It also includes customer trust, operational complexity and opportunities that organizations may never realize because they’re measuring only the visible costs. To make those hidden costs tangible, the Tracker pairs industry research with CFO-style modeling that translates delays, exceptions and recipient behavior into measurable business impact.

Choice Digital has seen those hidden costs firsthand. Its platform supports more than 300 regulated disbursement programs, including Southern California Gas Company, which eliminated roughly 50,000 paper rebate checks annually by modernizing its payout program.

The immediate savings from reducing paper were significant, McEndree said. The larger operational benefit came afterward. Reconciliation became simpler, and long-running unclaimed-property (escheatment) obligations largely disappeared. As she put it, “When we model a move away from checks, the float savings the Tracker describes are real, but the bigger swing is usually the downstream cleanup going away.”

Yet even those operational gains aren’t what McEndree said she believes organizations overlook most.

“What almost no one has put a number on is the recipient experience,” she said. Younger recipients often view mailed checks as evidence that an organization has failed to modernize, while underbanked consumers may be forced into payment methods that simply don’t work well for them. According to Choice Digital’s research, 94% of recipients say they want a choice in how they receive payments, and 57% would be unhappy receiving a paper check instead of a digital option.

For McEndree, the issue isn’t simply digital versus paper.

“The recipient experience was never treated as a decision in the first place,” she said. Organizations often devote considerable attention to how they collect payments from customers. They spend far less time deciding how to return money to those same customers. Once recipients are offered meaningful choice, however, behavior changes quickly. In some Choice Digital programs, more than 90% choose a digital payout option.

The same principle also underpins one of the Tracker’s key recommendations. Rather than relying on industry benchmarks to make the case, McEndree encouraged finance teams to begin with data they already generate. This includes payment preferences, time to funds, exception rates, reissues and unclaimed-property volume. She also recommends calculating the true cost of a paper check by including labor, support calls and administrative effort alongside printing and postage.

Looking beyond the familiar “check versus digital” conversation, McEndree argued that the more important question is which payment options organizations actually offer. Choice Digital’s own program data showed that simply expanding the available methods can dramatically change recipient behavior. For example, adding a digital wallet option significantly altered how recipients chose to receive smaller payouts. This example illustrates that modernization isn’t only about moving away from checks but also about giving recipients greater flexibility.

McEndree believes successful modernization conversations combine two complementary perspectives. The first is a finance story grounded in measurable dollars and operational savings. The second is a customer story grounded in recipient behavior and experience. The numbers may start the conversation, she said, but real-world recipient outcomes are what ultimately persuade organizations to act.

“The math opens the door,” McEndree said. “The recipient story gives finance a reason to care, and the real-world benchmark closes it.”

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