How to automate your royalty payments

An estimated 12 million people in the United States own mineral rights (the term to describe the legal claim to the oil and gas that exists under their land.) If you’re one of them in an area with consistent exploration and drilling activity, you likely know about royalty payments. These payments give investors, owners, and other business partners a percentage of the well’s profits. 

My husband works in the oil and gas industry and previously worked at a small operator that offered employees investments in wells.  Because of this, he’s been getting royalty checks in the mail for as long as I’ve known him. 

The amount of those oil and gas royalty checks have varied through the boom and bust of oil prices (a few times when oil prices were low, the stamp cost more than the check was worth) One thing has been consistent: It’s a pain to keep track of and deposit those checks. 

For mineral owners, those royalty payments likely come via check. Both small and large companies typically go through an accounting department to process payments to royalty owners. 

A virtual mailbox with automatic check deposit could make managing those payments and your royalty interests easier by allowing you to deposit royalty checks automatically. Here’s how:

Use one address, no matter where you move or where you are

If you’ve moved often - or no longer have the need for an office thanks to remote work - you may not want royalty payments coming to your home address. Virtual mailboxes offer a real, physical address that you can use no matter where you are. 

When mail goes to one of the 80+ virtual addresses at Earth Class Mail, it gets forwarded to our centralized operations center. There, our certified and background checked mail technicians sort, scan, and upload the contents of your mail. When it’s a check, it will automatically get deposited if you have the check deposit feature on your account. 

Get a professional address to register a business or investment fund

Using a virtual address keeps you from disclosing your home mailing address for business purposes. This aids in a professional appearance without the hassle of visiting a PO box to collect mail. 

Once you have the virtual mailbox set up, you can check your mail from anywhere, on any device. You won’t have to go to the post office to check a PO box, or receive business mail at  your home address. 

Automatically deposit checks you get in the mail

With the automatic check deposit feature on a virtual mailbox, you won’t have to spend your time going to the bank to deposit checks or opening  each envelope and deposit checks online using your phone. 

Instead, virtual mailbox services detect checks you receive in the mail, electronically endorse them, and deposit them into your checking account. You can set up your account to split those payments into different bank accounts, with no deposit limits.

The added benefit comes when you’re traveling or away from your mailbox. You can manage your check payments from your laptop or mobile devices, anywhere in the world. 

Get cloud storage of all your payments and statements and sync with cloud storage and accounting software 

If you also get account statements in the mail, you’re in luck. You won’t have to sift through a stack of paperwork to track your interests. All your mail gets digitized with a virtual mailbox, so you’ll have access to a text-searchable PDF of every check or document you receive in the mail.

You can view your past mail on your customer dashboard or set it up to sync with cloud storage systems, such as Google Drive. Our system also integrates with popular accounting software should you need a detailed account management system. 

Protect checks from mail theft 

At Earth Class Mail, we guard the security of our customers’ mail and personal information. We built every step of the process to protect your confidential information. Our security begins with the hiring and training of our technicians, and every staff member is trained to handle sensitive information. Our facilities are access-restricted and monitored 24/7.  

We assign every envelope and item a unique tracking number through its life cycle so your documents are always secure and you can access a thorough record of how and where each piece of mail moves through our facilities at any time.

Compare that to the security you can expect from a traditional mailbox. Mail theft increased by 600% between 2017 and 2020, according to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. 

A virtual mailbox and automatic check deposit removes the risk of mail theft and the possibility of losing your paper checks. 

Interested in learning more about automatic check deposit with a virtual mailbox? Get the details here