Lesson 5 — The amount in words, the payee's language, and what is never printed
The last lesson is two facts and one habit. The facts are what the module writes and what it deliberately does not write; the habit is what to send when you need help.
The amount in words follows the payee, not you. The amount is rendered in words in English, Arabic or Persian, chosen from the payee's language. Not the language of whoever presses Print Checks, and not the company's language — the payee's. Where your supplier list is genuinely multilingual, that is the difference between a cheque a supplier can read at a glance and one they have to work out.
The worked example. One payment run, three suppliers, one template. The cheques come off the printer with the amount in words in three different languages, and nobody chose that cheque by cheque.
| Payee | Payee's language | Amount (AED) | Amount in words rendered in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Barsha Steel Trading | English | 48,750.00 | English |
| Jumeirah Fit-Out Works | Arabic | 12,300.50 | Arabic |
| Deira Cable Supplies | Persian | 7,900.00 | Persian |
The column that does the work is the second one, and it is a field on the contact rather than anything on the print screen. Check it on your regular suppliers before a large run rather than after one: nothing will tell you that a cheque came out in a language its payee does not read.
Nothing that belongs to the bank is generated. You print onto the bank's own pre-printed leaf. The module draws your fields and only your fields — no cheque artwork, no bank branding, no leaf number, no magnetic line. Anyone hoping to produce a cheque on blank paper is in the wrong module, and rightly so: a cheque is the bank's instrument, and the paper it is printed on is part of what makes it one.
When you report a problem, send three things. The journal, the template name and a sample PDF. That is the module's own list, and it is short because those three between them identify the layout, the leaf and what actually came out. A photograph of the misprinted cheque laid against a real leaf is worth adding, because it shows an offset that a PDF on its own cannot.
The failure mode. The complaint that arrives is usually that the amount in words is in the wrong language. It is almost never the template, because the template does not choose the language — the payee does. Open that supplier's contact, correct the language on it and reprint. The second complaint is that the cheque printed almost blank, which on this module usually means it printed correctly onto plain paper: your fields are there, and everything that would have made it look like a cheque was supposed to come from the bank's leaf.