Whether you run a big company where employees sometimes need to pay out of their own pockets when traveling for business – or a small non-profit, having a standard check request form for your employees is key to a smooth financial workflow.
But What is an Employee Check Request Form?
It is a document used by companies to formally initiate & process a check payment to an employee, reimbursing them for any expenses incurred on behalf of the company. A Check Request Form is essential to any organization for two reasons: it streamlines a company’s financial workflow, and provides a clear financial record for tax & auditing purposes.
At WordLayout, we specialize in creating versatile templates that can help you run a thriving business. With our Employee Check Request form template, we offer a customizable document to help you track payment requests from employees. Specific sections are added to collect all the employee & account information you need to process checks, as well as expense details to make sure a request is justified as per company policies.
Now, let’s go over each section of our Form in more detail:
Employee Information
Needless to say, it’s important to first identify the individual employee requesting funds.
This information includes their name as well as their contact details (including E-mail ID, phone numbers and a postal address). In most cases, your company might already be in possession of this information (especially in case of regular staff on company payroll).
However, re-submitting these contact details will make sure that any changes are reflected in the Form. Without all the necessary information about the identity of the person payable, a check request form is deemed invalid.
Employment Details
Here, you will require your employees to add an Employee ID – a unique identification number assigned to employees by an organization. This detail ensures that the payment is correctly tied to the company’s internal system, helping the organization process payments efficiently without using Social Security Numbers (SSNs).
This section requires the payable employee to place themselves within the organizational hierarchy by confirming:
- their designation (say, Operations Manager or Sales Assistant),
- the specific department or division of the company they are a part of (e.g. Sales, Management, IT)
- the Head of Department (HOD) they report to (say, Head of Marketing or General Manager).
Naturally, the organizational make-up of every individual company is different. For instance, if you are a small start-up, you might not have separate Departments, and the Head of Department might often be the Chief Executive Office (CEO) themself. Employees should be advised to confirm these details with the company’s senior management before filling out a Check Request Form.
Reason for Request
In the last part of this section, employees are required to mention the exact reason why they are generating this request. This is the heart of your Form as it will help the company identify and justify any cost of expenditure incurred during the course of an employee’s professional work or any expenses paid for on the company’s behalf.
Here are some examples of why employees generate check request forms:
- Travel or transport costs
- Hotel or lodging costs
- Registration fees for conferences or seminars attended in official capacity
- Office supplies (e.g. paper, ink, toner, binders, or other stationary items)
- Food purchases (e.g. meals with clients)
- Communication expenses (e.g. calling cards)
- Petty cash reimbursements
Remember, the Form must always be supported with the necessary documents of proof such as the original invoice, tickets, bills, receipts or e-records of online transactions. Failure to attach these can result in a form being deemed invalid, and not being approved for further processing.
Charge Account Details
In this section of the form, employees need to provide details of the costs they have incurred and need to be reimbursed for. This includes both, the exact amount in Dollars, and a short description of the expense (See list above for examples).
The use of multiple rows allows you to create a list of expense items in one place instead of filling multiple check request forms for each expense. This makes the process of requesting refunds a lot less tedious and time-consuming. Thanks to our editable format, the number of rows may be increased or decreased depending on your company’s requirement.
At the end, our template also offers an option regarding the employee’s preferred mode of check delivery. In most cases, this is either by collecting the check in person from the relevant person’s on-site location (such as the Finance or HR manager’s office) or via the country’s official post service (in this case, the United States Postal Service).
Right next to this check box, we include another option where the requesting party can specify if they would prefer the check to be returned to them personally or another individual (for example, a spouse or partner).
Giving your employees this flexibility in terms of mode of check delivery and who the check be returned to allows them to accommodate situations where they might be working remotely or otherwise be unable to visit the office on account of traveling or illness.
Approval
In this section of the form, your company gives the final approval to the request. This is usually given by a concerned person from either the Finance Department, the HR Department or any member of the senior management.
As mentioned above, approval ultimately depends on whether you provide original supporting documentation, as well as whether your Check Form Request aligns with your organization’s cost centers and general company policies.
For this reason, it is important that the person approving the request be given a chance to make sure that the funds being requested only cover those expense categories that are part of the company’s policies.
In addition to their name and signature, the approving person (usually the Manager) must also provide their contact details and the date they approved the request in case of any clarification needed on the part of the employee or relevant departments in the future.
For Treasures Use Only
Unlike the first two sections, the last section of the Form is NOT to be filled out by the party requesting for a payment but by a senior member of the organization responsible for handling the company’s finances; in most cases, this is either the Head of the Finance Department or the company owner(s) themselves.
By recording the Check Number and the exact amount allocated, this section provides a record of the transaction to help in the company’s general accounting and auditing processes.
We have also added a separate section in our template where you can add the official company stamp of approval. While this is not a legal requirement from an auditing point of view, doing this can greatly simplify your office’s financial workflow.
Why Do You Need This Form?
- Helps organizations maintain budget control by making sure all expenses are properly documented and approved
- Streamlines the process of reimbursing employees for justified business expenses
- Provides a clear record of expenditures for accounting and auditing purposes
Use this form template to process and approve check requests as you easily streamline your company’s workflow.
Lucky for you, our editable Check Request Form can be instantly downloaded in Microsoft Word as well as on Google Docs!
Feel free to check out our other Check Forms customized for use by students or educational institutes and vendors!
