There are four main part of a modern day bank check:

• The Drawer – This is the person who writes the check.
• The Payee – This is who the check is made out ot.
• The Drawee – This is the bank where the check can be cashed
• The Amount – This is how much the check can be cashed for.

As checks became more popular additional parts were added as security devices and to make it easier for banks to process checks as volumes increased.

One item, the signature of the person drawing the check helped to authenticate the check because checking account owners were required to sign a card so their signature could be compared to any checks presented to the bank for payment.

Writing the amount in words along with numbers helped to reduce cashing mistakes and made it harder to alter the check’s amount for more than what it was intended to be.

While not being a legal requirement many banks will refuse a check that has not had the amount written out in words and it is customary for the words to carry more weight than the numbers when there is a discrepancy in the amounts.

An issued date was added normally a check is considered “stale” if it has not been cashed within six months of the issue date and often computer generated checks will print a time frame for the checks validity making it impossible to cash the check after the validity period has expired.

A check dated in the future is called a post-dated check and while illegal in some countries is often a method of paying someone early knowing that the Payee cannot cash the check until the issue date even though bank clerks have been known to let a post-dated check slip through.

Check numbers were added so people could track specific checks and to also help cut down on fraud.

Some countries allow an additional line on the check called a memo line where the Drawer can make a note of what the check is for and in countries without a memo line people often make notes on the back of the check.

In the 1960s MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) numbers were added to the bottoms of checks so machines could literally read the bank routing and account numbers which helped to deal with the burgeoning number of checks having to be processed each day.

Early checks were printed in solid colors and were called safety checks. These checks would show any attempts to alter the checks but limited the options one had to blue, green or yellow colored checks.

Today however, there are many different check designs to pick from and many people order personalized checks like Batman checks or Corvette checks right off the Internet.