Types of Cheques

Customer Cheques Supplied by Financial Institutions

These cheques are usually supplied in book form and are often of the size 2 3/4" x 6 1/4" (70mm x 159mm). They are normally personalised with the name of the customer printed on them.

Specially Printed Cheques

These cheques are usually used by companies and businesses, can be designed to show the customer's name, customer logo and/or brand. The layout of these cheques is usually designed to suit accounting software packages to aid machine printing or computer infilling and may be printed in either cut-sheet or continuous form.
The positioning of the details is in many cases determined by the requirements of the particular equipment or software package used.
Australia Post’s requirements for the four-State delivery bar-code are not compatible with the design and security requirements for cheques as detailed in this Publication. The four-State delivery bar-code is therefore not to be printed on cheques, nor should the payee’s address.

Financial Institution Cheques

This is a special category of cheques drawn by a Financial Institution on itself. Financial Institutions Cheques include instruments drawn by banks (traditionally called “bank cheques”), building societies, credit unions and other authorised deposit-taking institutions within the meaning of the Banking Act 1959, where the Financial Institution is both the drawer and drawee.

Cheques for Machine Printing

These are documents completed by accounting machine or computer printer and are usually of the business variety. The positioning of the details is in many cases determined by the requirements of the particular equipment or software package used. If a non-impact printer is used, please also refer to the Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) Technical Specifications, Non-impact MICR printing. Customers designing their own documents to suit the requirements of a particular system must still observe the principles of layout detailed in this section and procedures for approval.

Australia Post’s requirements for the four-state delivery bar-code are not compatible with the design and security requirements for cheques as detailed in this Publication. The four State delivery bar-code is therefore not to be printed on cheques, nor should the payee’s address.

Continuous Cheques for Machine Printing

Documents, usually of the business variety, which are printed on continuous stationery must be guillotined or burst before issue to remove the sprocket hole selvedges. Only slit perforations or micro-perforations are permissible on any edge.

Cutting devices, used for the removal of sprocket holes and for document separation, must allow for the correct positioning of any encoding in relation to the reference edges of the document and give clean edges to vouchers.

When the selvedge on continuous documents is not perforated, guide marks must be provided to indicate the correct guillotining position.

Australia Post’s requirements for the four-state delivery bar-code are not compatible with the design and security requirements for cheques as detailed in this Publication. The four State delivery bar-code is therefore not to be printed on cheques, nor should the payee’s address.

Source: Design Specifications for Cheques - APCA (Australian Payments Clearing Association)