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Filling out French cheque


Mrh74

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Sorry if this is a daft question and been answered before, I tried using the search function to find the information but had no joy.

Can anyone tell me how to fill out a French cheque, I assume the amount in words has to go somewhere and the name of the payee.

I have four lines on my cheques the first two having no prefix or words around them, the third line being preceeded by 'à', the fourth line being preceeded by 'A'.

Thanks for any help on this, I don't want to upset my bank or the payee by writing cheques in the wrong style.

Thanks

Mark

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The first two lines are for writing out the total of the cheque in words and not figures. The third line is to whom the cheque is payable to and if a person usually their title, Surname and Christian name to follow and this is the line which has an A printed at the beginning of it

Fait à is where you are actually signing the cheque from (town) and le is for the date with your signature usually underneath.

Don't forget to fill in the cheque stubb as well

 

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Dear Mark,

 

thanks to my 12 years bank experience, i could tell you that another thing is REALLY IMPORTANT; please write the amount in FRENCH because if you want to write a cheque for example for 100 € but you write one hundred in words and 1000 € in figures it's always the amount in letters which is available.

I suppose that in main cases if you write one hundred, someone could understand english but to avoid any problem it is better to write in french.

BE CAREFUL the opposite is available too, i mean that if you write "mille"(one thousand) instead of "cent"(one hundred) and write in figures "100", the bank would consider that the right amount is the one in letters, so please pay attention.

Céline

www.makeiteasyconsulting.com

 

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You can find and example of how to fill out a cheque on this website:

http://www.britline.com/g1/using.htm

I had a better link and a better example but can't find it right now and the archive-search problem on this forum still hasn't been sorted out.

The site below is also useful for filling out the numbers on a cheque:

www.london-electronics.com/frenchmoney.htm

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[quote]It's not a stupid question. Sometime back, some kind soul posted a link to a bank web site that had a picture showing what to do. I keep a copy of that picture in my cheque book![/quote]

I,m glad somebody else asked this as I thought that I was a bit of a dummy not really knowing how to fill it out properly.  I did the same as you and filled in a blank piece of paper showing me where to put the bits and pieces in and I always keep it tucked in the cheque book even after 3 years.  I still feel like a gibbering idiot whenever I fill out a cheque and the trouble is its usually the same few people I pay cheques too and they know I am slow at filling them out and I know they know. Doh.

Weedon(53)

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Why don't the French text books or language teachers show how to write a cheque?  It surely could come up when teaching numbers.  I had to ask at the bank - felt really stupid  Also I picked up one of each of their forms, found out what it was for, and got them to show me how to fill them in.   They had quite an entertaining morning!

Coral

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Dear Coral,

Don't feel so ashame cause during the time i was working at the bank, i promise you that every overseas clients were lost with french cheque book and each time i explained how to fill it without waiting them to ask it to me.

I'm sure that if french will have to use an english cheque book, they will be lost as you!!! It's just a problem of changing the habits!!!

Cheers

Céline

www.makeiteasyconsulting.com

 

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A few months ago a cheque arrived from a client as I was literally getting in the car to go to the bank so I just read the total in the box,signed the back and paid it in via the new super duper machine that lets the cashier get on with other work and you do your own banking. When I got home and went to file the printed out copy of this cheque I got in a sweat because all the total amount lines had been written in english and not french which I hadn't bothered to check and I was worried it would be rejected, but no, next day it appeared to have gone through and the money was in the account. I wouldn't advise anyone to do this though if they cannot write french.
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Hi Mark,

It's not a daft question - and for us was extremely timely - we had just filled in a cheque to send off to our notaire - and thanks to this thread - have just retreived the original cheque to replace it with one correctly filled in - as we had put the date in the wrong place..........

 

Liz

 

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  • 1 month later...
Very helpful posting, I have just filled in my first cheque ( I know, the first of many!) but on the reverse of the cheque " Ce cheque vous est adresse en reglement de ................ " can members please advise, my first year french lessons are not that advanced and I don't want my electric cut off!.

Regards

Mike
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[quote]Very helpful posting, I have just filled in my first cheque ( I know, the first of many!) but on the reverse of the cheque " Ce cheque vous est adresse en reglement de ................ " can members p...[/quote]

'This cheque is made out in payment of...' - just tells the payee what the money is for.

Malcolm

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