How to write money in words
On a cheque, an invoice or a contract, an amount is written twice so that the two versions check each other. Here is what the written version usually looks like.
Why write it out at all
Because digits can be altered and words cannot, easily. A 1 becomes a 4 with one stroke of a pen; “one thousand” does not become “four thousand” without an obvious rewrite. The words are the control on the figures, which is why a document carries both and why they have to agree.
Where they disagree on a cheque or another bill of exchange, the words win under both laws that the words-and-figures checker quotes: section 9(2) of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 in the United Kingdom, and section 3-114 of the Uniform Commercial Code in the United States. That is a good reason to be careful with them.
The usual form
- The amount, then the currency name. One thousand five hundred rand.
- The minor units after “and”. One thousand five hundred rand and fifty cents.
- Nothing at all when there are no cents, or “and no cents” where a form asks for it. A line or a dash after the words serves the same purpose.
- “Only” at the end, on a cheque, so that nothing can be added to the line afterwards. Common in Indian and British practice.
- Capitalised at the start, as the line is a sentence of its own.
| Amount | In words | Formal style |
|---|---|---|
| R1,500.50 | one thousand five hundred rand and fifty cents | One thousand five hundred rand and fifty cents only |
| R1,500.00 | one thousand five hundred rand | One thousand five hundred rand only |
| $1.01 | one dollar and one cent | One dollar and one cent only |
| £2.50 | two pounds and fifty pence | Two pounds and fifty pence only |
| €1,000.00 | one thousand euros | One thousand euros only |
| R0.75 | seventy-five cents | Seventy-five cents only |
The cents
Write them as a plain count: fifty cents. The banking convention of writing 50/100 exists and is understood, but it is a banking shorthand, and the two are not interchangeable in prose. Where a cheque does call for it, the money tool writes it as an option.
An amount below one unit is written as its minor units alone: seventy-five cents.
The units differ by currency
The generic rule of adding an s gets several of these wrong.
- South African rand. Rand does not take a plural: fifteen hundred rand, never rands. South African banks stopped offering cheques at the end of 2020, so an amount in rand here is for a contract, an offer to purchase, an invoice or schoolwork, not a cheque.
- British pound. One penny, but fifty pence. The plural changes shape rather than taking an s.
- Euro. European Union style keeps euro and cent invariant in legislation. Everyday English pluralises both, which is what is used here.
- Ghana cedi. A Ghana cedi is a hundred pesewas: one thousand cedis and fifty pesewas.
- Nigerian naira. Naira and kobo take no plural: ten naira and fifty kobo. A naira is a hundred kobo.
- Philippine peso. The peso is a hundred centavos, in the words of the Philippines' central bank law. The Bangko Sentral's New Generation coins carry the names piso and sentimo, as in the 1-Piso and the 25-Sentimo.
- UAE dirham. Fils does not change in the plural: fifty fils. A dirham is a hundred fils.
Indian and Pakistani usage adds a different problem: amounts there are counted in lakh and crore rather than in thousands and millions, so fifteen hundred thousand is fifteen lakh. That is a whole different number system, so the money tool does not offer the rupee.
Rounding
Money has two decimal places. An amount with three has been typed wrongly, and rounding it silently would put a different figure on a document from the one that was meant. The money tool refuses it and says so.