Cheque Amount in Words (LKR): Sri Lanka Number to Words

The converter splits the amount you type into two integer parts, rupees and cents, then spells each part using a lookup-table-driven algorithm. Sri Lankan banks running on the Central Bank's Cheque Imaging and Truncation System (CITS) compare the words line on the front of every cheque to the numeric box; under Section 9(2) of the Bills of Exchange Ordinance, when the two disagree, the words are the amount payable.

Step 1, tokenise the integer rupee count using Indian grouping (the convention printed on every Sri Lankan cheque):

crores      = floor(N / 10,000,000)
lakhs       = floor((N % 10,000,000) / 100,000)
thousands   = floor((N % 100,000) / 1,000)
hundreds    = floor((N % 1,000) / 100)
tens_units  = N % 100

Each non-zero group is spelled by a spellBelow1000helper that emits <hundreds-digit> Hundred <tens-units>, and the groups are concatenated in descending magnitude with the unit word, Crore, Lakh, Thousand, Hundred. When the count is exactly 1, English flips Rupees → Rupee and Sinhala uses the singular රුපියලක්.

Step 2, spell the tens-and-units block using a 0–99 lookup table. English numbers from 0 to 20 are direct entries; 21 to 99 use the standard hyphenated form (Forty-Five). Sinhala uses the Department of Official Languages spelling, the bare counting form (දොළහ) when the number stands alone, and the combining form (දොළොස් දහස්) when a unit word follows. Tamil uses the bare forms separated by spaces, which every licensed commercial bank accepts.

Step 3, handle cents. We treat the two-digit cents value as a stand-alone 0–99 number and spell it with the same helper. If you pick the “Rupees only” form, the cents clause drops. Otherwise the tool emits and Cents [words] in English, සහ ශත [words]in Sinhala, and மற்றும் [words] சதம் in Tamil.

Step 4, append the legal suffix. Sri Lankan cheques end with the word Only (Sinhala: පමණි; Tamil: மட்டும்) so no extra figures can be added after the words line. The tool turns this on by default; you can switch it off if you are filling a different document type.

A separate cross-check function rebuilds the same English string using a different code path (explicit token table instead of recursion). The two results must agree before the page renders, a built-in regression guard against off-by-one or magnitude bugs.

The words line is one of six things you fill in. The other five are what cheques are usually returned for, so here is the whole leaf, in the order you write it. Every rule below is from the Bills of Exchange Ordinance as it now stands, the Bills of Exchange (Amendment) Act, No. 13 of 2025 rewrote the crossing and alteration rules, so some of this is newer than the guidance you will find elsewhere, or from the cheque return reason codes LankaPay publishes for the clearing system.

1. Date. Write it before anything else, and never leave it blank, an incomplete cheque is returned under reason 59, “Cheque incomplete.” Dating a cheque forward does not spoil it: under Section 13(2) a bill “is not invalid by reason only that it is antedated or postdated”. It simply cannot be paid yet, so if the payee banks it early it comes back as 13, “Post-dated cheque”, one of the reasons the payee may present again once the date arrives.
2. Payee, the “Pay” line. Write the full name of the person or business. Sri Lankan cheque leaves print the words “or bearer” after that line. Leave them and the cheque is payable to bearer (Section 8(3)): the bank may pay whoever walks in with it. Strike them through and the cheque is payable to order (Section 8(4)), payable to the person you named, or to someone they properly endorse it to. For a supplier payment, strike it.
3. Amount in words. Use the converter at the top of this page and copy the line exactly, ending in Only so no figures can be added after it.
4. Amount in figures. The box. It must agree with the words. Where the two disagree, Section 9(2) makes the words the amount payable, but in practice the bank does not choose between them, it returns the cheque under 55, “Amount in words and figures differ,” which is on the non-representable list. A mismatch means writing a fresh cheque, not re-banking this one.
5. Crossing. Two parallel transverse lines across the face of the cheque are a general crossing (Section 76(1)). A generally crossed cheque has to be paid to a banker, Section 79(2) makes the paying bank liable to the true owner if it pays one over the counter instead. Adding “Account Payee” or “A/C Payee”, with or without “Only”, goes further: since the 2025 amendment replaced Section 81(2), such a cheque is not transferable and is valid only between the parties to it, and that now holds whether or not the cheque is crossed. Once a crossing is on the cheque it is a material part of it, and Section 78 makes it unlawful for anyone to rub out or alter it.
6. Signature. It has to match the specimen your bank holds. A mismatch returns as 57, “Drawer's signature differs from specimen in possession” , non-representable.

Do not correct a cheque, write a new one. Section 64(2) makes any alteration of the name of the payee, the date, the sum payable, the time of payment or the place of payment a materialalteration, and the payee's name was added to that list by the 2025 amendment. A material alteration made without the assent of everyone liable on the cheque avoids it under Section 64(1). A bank that spots one returns the cheque as 58, “Alteration not confirmed by drawer.” If you do change something, the drawer. You, must sign beside the change; a fresh leaf is cheaper than a returned cheque.

On how long a cheque lasts: the clearing system has return reasons 50, “Stale cheque” and 63, “Validity expired,” so cheques do go off, but the often-quoted “six months” is not a general rule we can point at a current source for. The one Central Bank instruction on the subject extended the validity of cheques under Rs 500,000 only “until 31 May 2020” and has lapsed. The six months that is in force sits in Section 82A(2)(a) of the 2025 amendment and is narrower than the folk version: it is a precondition for the new dishonour offence, and reads “within a period of six months from the date on which it is drawn or within the period of its validity, whichever is earlier”. Confirm the period that applies to your own cheque book with the drawer's bank.

Put together, a Rs 40,000 cheque to a supplier called “Perera Traders”, payable into their account only, reads like this:

What a returned cheque then costs the drawer is a separate question, see the cheque bounce penalty calculator.

Four numbers are printed on a cheque before the book ever reaches you, and they are the ones a bank asks for over the phone. Section 74(4) of the Ordinance, inserted by the 2025 amendment to let banks present a cheque as an image rather than on paper, names the set exactly. The “electronic payment information” of a cheque is:

• the serial number of the cheque, what people mean by “the cheque number”;
• the code which identifies the banker and the branch on whom the cheque is drawn;
• the account number of the drawer; and
• the amount, as entered by the drawer.

The first three are pre-printed by the bank, in the band of stylised digits along the bottom edge of the leaf. LankaPay describes that band as using Magnetic Ink Character Recognition to encode the paying bank, the cheque number and the value, which is how a cheque deposited anywhere in the country finds the right branch and clears on a T+1 basis. Only the amount is yours to enter.

That is also the answer to a question we are asked often: you cannot choose or change the cheque number. It is printed in sequence when the book is issued, and it is how the paying branch identifies this particular leaf. The same is true of the bank and branch code. It belongs to the branch that holds the account, not to you.

To turn a code you can see on a cheque into the branch it names, use the Sri Lanka bank and branch code finder, which holds the LankaPay directory. This page explains the fields; that one looks them up.

• Central Bank of Sri Lanka: Cheque Imaging and Truncation System (CITS)
• Bills of Exchange Ordinance (Sri Lanka), Section 9(2): words prevail over figures
• Bills of Exchange (Amendment) Act, No. 13 of 2025: s.64(2) material alterations, s.74(4) the cheque's printed fields, s.81(2) “Account Payee”
• LankaPay / LankaClear: Cheque Clearing (CITS): return reason codes, the MICR band, T+1 clearing
• Department of Official Languages: Sinhala numeral spellings (සිංහල සංඛ්‍යා නාමය)
• Tamil Virtual Academy: Tamil numeral reference

The lookup tables and legal references on this page were last cross-checked against the sources above on 2026-10-01. The page is reviewed whenever the Department of Official Languages publishes a spelling update, or when the Central Bank revises the CITS rule set.