How to Write a Check

When I graduated from college in 2013, one of the first "real world" skills I realized I had to learn was how to write a check because apparently not everyone accepts venmo payments. What a bummer. In this post I'll explain how to fill out a check as well as offer some basic answers to common check related questions that people have, such as how to void a check.

Here's how a standard bank check looks like.

Now lets go through and learn how to fill out each field from top to bottom, left to right.

Date

This is the current date. The general format is month/day/year. So if I'm writing a check on new years day in the year 2015, then I can write the date in one of the following ways:

Jan 01, 2015
January 01, 2015
01/01/2015

I always write it using the last format (01/01/2015) because it's the shortest.

Pay to the Order Of

Who are you giving this check to? If it's your best friend Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Aurelius is in fact his legal name (probably worth double checking if that's really his name ...) then write down "Marcus Aurelius". If it's an organization, call the organization or look them up online to see what name they want checks to be addressed to. This is important because the name you think they go by may not necessarily be the name they want checks paid to. For example, you'll find this line on the IRS website:

"Make your check, money order or cashier's check payable to U.S. Treasury."

In other words, if you're writing a check to the IRS you'll write "U.S Treasury" in this field.

$

How much money are you writing the check for? Just write the amount in numbers (e.g 135.32 or 1,353.23). No need to overthink this one. For all the overthinking programmers out there, yes it's base 10.

Dollars

Write the amount of money in words. This is probably the most complicated and time consuming part of check writing. I think the best way to explain this is by examples. I'll show you how to write the amount of money in words for each dollar amount in numeric format.

$1 = one
$100 = one hundred

... so far so good

$105 = one hundred five

Notice that it's not one hundred AND five. Yeah, not exactly how you learned it in kindergarten.

$123.50 = one hundred twenty three and 50/100

On the other hand, you do in fact use the conjunction word "and" when you're specifying cents. Instead of writing out the cents in words, you use fraction notation.

Okay, lets do one more!

$1,356.01 = one thousand three hundred fifty six and 01/100

Hopefully that gives you a good enough idea. If you're still uncertain, you can use this cool online tool for converting a numeric amount into check specific words!

But wait! We're not done. If you notice that there is still room on the line after you've written out your amount, draw a line in that space.

Here's an example:

Uh ... why is this necessary? 

It's not required. It's just smart to make a habit of doing so that it's very unlikely for someone to turn your eight dollars into eight million dollars. It's for your own protection. Just do it.

For / Memo

This is usually optional. You can use this field to add any additional details regarding the check like if you're giving your friend a check for being a good friend, write "for being my friend" in the memo.

There are times when it's not optional.

For example, if you're paying your landlord, there's no goddamn way for him or her to know that this check is for the unit you're living in if you don't specify it in the check. I mean, I guess you can include it in an envelope with your apartment number and name on it ... but what if that gets lost? When I'm paying my apartment maintenance fees I always specify my apartment number in the memo.  That's what my building management looks for. When in doubt, just ask the party you're writing a check for.

Signature

Yo sig.

Additional questions

How do I get a checkbook?

Typically banks will mail you checkbooks when you open a checking account with them. If you have a checking account but no checkbooks, you can just call up your bank and have them send you some. Some banks will charge you for them. Citibank, for instance. Those cheapskates.

What's the minimum or maximum you can write?

The smallest amount would be a cent. The maximum? Well, if you're asking that question then you must be very rich. Send me a check for a thousand dollars with your email in the memo and I'll tell you the answer :)

How long is a check valid for?

According to article 4-404 of the uniform commercial code, a bank is not obligated to pay after six months. In other words, if you hand someone a check and they don't cash it until six months later, they might come looking for you.

How do you void a check?

When I got my first internship I was asked to bring a void check to payroll. I remember calling my bank and requesting a void check. I was met with ten seconds of silence. Knowing what I know now, I believe it was stunned silence.

Please don't do that. Don't call your bank asking for "void checks". A void check is just a disabled check and you can just disable one yourself.

Here's how to do it:

1. Get a check
2. Get a sharpie
3. Write VOID diagonally across the check using the sharpie. Make sure the word covers most of the check.

Congratulations, you have a void check.

What if I misspell the person or organizations name on the check?

It depends how egregious the error is. Banks have different identification procedures for dealing with errors like this. In most cases, if it's just a off by one letter error the check can still be cashed. Otherwise, it depends.

What happens if there are insufficient funds in my account?

You go to jail. Just kidding! It depends how much you're short by as well as your history with the bank. If you write a check to your buddy for $500 but you only have $480 and you're an extremely loyal customer, your bank may still honor the check and pay your buddy. Regardless of whether or not they choose to honor the check, you'll almost always be slapped with an overdraft fee. You don't want that. Always make sure you have enough money in the bank.

A check that cannot be honored is known technically as an NSF (non-sufficient funds) check. You'll typically hear people refer to them as "bounced checks" or just "bad checks".

What does MP under the signature line stand for?

MP stands for Micro-print. Micro-print is a security feature that allows banks to easily verify valid checks and make it difficult for people to fake checks.

How does the security feature work? It's a printing technology that prints extremely small letters (so small that a printer would be unable to copy it) onto the check. You see the line that's right below MP?

That's not really a line. It's a series of extremely small letters.