Software: MoneyWorks v6
Cheque Printing is a features, which most of the user wish to have in their accounting software. This feature is nothing new, as most of the accounting software are capable of printing out voucher cheque (those A4 size pre-printed voucher cheque that user can print the cheque detail over it).
In MoneyWorks, user can print a Voucher Cheque too from the Payment Transaction screen (click the Print icon; follow by OK button to bring up the form setting window). Refer to page 148 of the MoneyWorks manual.
However, majority of the small businesses in Singapore are using the standard hand-written cheque (about 180 mm x 87 mm). This is partly due to the voucher cheque are costly and hand- written cheque book are usually come with when you open a current account with the bank.
To prepare the hand-written cheque sometime can be time consuming, especially if monthly you have fifty or more cheques to prepare. Besides, typo error may occur if you are not careful.
There are cheque printing machine or cheque printing software available; however, it does not link to your accounting software (usually, you need to export payment detail from your accounting software and import it into your cheque printing software).
In MoneyWorks, it allows user to customise cheque layout in hand-written cheque format (around 180mm x 87mm) via the form feature.
To do it, first you have to ensure your printer support custom paper size (most of the mid-range printer can do it). The size I measure from OCBC bank cheque and DBS bank cheque is about 180mm x 87mm; set the orientation to landscape, so you can layout the fields accordingly.
Fields I use for the cheque printing are:
Payment Date
= DateToText (Cheque.TransDate, 0)
This is to set the date format to dd/mm/yy
Payee name
= Name.Name
This is to print the Payee’s Name
Cheque Amount
= Cheque.Gross
This will pick up the gross amount of the payment transaction.
Gross amount in English text
= DollarsToEnglish(Cheque.Gross)
This is to convert the gross payment amount into English text.
You may add label field for “A/C Payee Only” and “xxxxxxx” to cross out the “Or Bearer” text.
If you need help, you can engage Solarsys to customise the Cheque format for you.
From the File menu, select Save Form As, and save your form into your Custom Form Folder (\\MoneyWorks Custom Plug-Ins\Forms\)
To use it, click the print icon (next to OK button) of the payment screen; then, select your template to print.
I tested this format, it fitted nicely into the OCBC bank cheque.