I just wrote a check for $62.25 … when I wrote out the amount on the long line, I had my usual over-efficient desire to put “sixty-two and 1/4 dollars…” but I didn’t.
I always write the cents as a fraction in the line for writing out the amount.
For example:
Sixty two and 25/100 Dollars
Oh, you mean reduce the fraction to lowest terms.
No.
Financial instutions have limited tolerance for departures from the norm. After all, it’s money we’re talking about, you know.
That’s why I don’t do it.
I always want to, though.
One hundred percent wrong.
Financial institutions have a huge tolerance.
I deal with deposits of hundreds of checks from the pubic every month.
Very many are wrong, with missing digits or long-hand descriptions, or they do not match.
And a whole lot of illegible amounts, signatures that don’t match the printed account name, and To: fields that don’t match the name on my account.
They are all accepted without question.
When in conflict, they will accept the depositor’s interpretation. It is a myth that either the digits or written amount overrule.
So I can start doing this? 
I don’t have the urge to do that but if I’m writing out two or more checks for whole amounts, such as $62.00, I’ll automatically write one ending in 00/100 dollars and the next as no/100 dollars. Or vice versa. I have no idea why, at my ripe old age, I haven’t settled on one or the other.
I never express cents as fractions. I write: “Sixty-two dollars-----------------.25”
My cheques already have a fraction denominator at the end of the printed line, so I just write “Sixty two dollars________________25**/100**” (the bold part being already printed on the cheque.)
Correct. I was being facetious.
I once gave my son a check and forgot to sign it. I told him to sign it and I would tell the bank to cash it. When I told the bank the answer was not to worry, that chances are the check would clear even if unsigned. Pretty much all checks will clear as long as they have the magnetic ink numbers on them. The bank mostly relies on the customer to police the legitimacy of charges unless the discrepency is gross, maybe like an obvious erasure.
I’ve always written out the amount in full and crossed out the pre-printed ‘dollars’ like this
sixty-two dollars and twenty-five cents
after all, if the purpose of having both the numeric form and the written form is to provide a cross-check it never made any sense to me to repeat the digits for the fractional part. After many years of doing it I’ve never had it questioned nor seen anybody else do the same thing.
I used to do that, but stopped after noticing that some poor bank employee was going over the checks and correcting them by hand. I didn’t want to make the waiting in line last any longer than necessary.
I spell out everything.
So a check for $254.26 is
Only-Two-Hundred-Fifty-Four-Dollars-And-Twenty-Six-Cents-----------------------
So, could I write a check for, say, Thirty-three and 1/3 dollars?
Or Zero and 15/17 dollars?
Could I write a check for 10 dollars, but write it as Nine and 100/100 dollars?
Yup, and they will tell you to keep the change.
Are you sure? When I trained as a teller, it was drilled into us that the written amount was the legal amount. Not to be snarky or anything, but… Cite?
Likewise, I’ve never reduced fractions from the x/100 cents. Honestly, until this thread, the thought never entered my mind. 
Stick with me, kid – I’ll show you all kinds of stuff that never entered your mind. 
I knew there was a reason I liked you! :eek:
My store got a check this summer where the written-out amount and the figures didn’t match (in the hundredths digit). I used the figures for my deposit slip and the bank changed it to the written-out amount, telling me that it always overrides.