Do I need to write the date on the back of a received check when depositing it?
"You do not need to write anything on the second line.  There are a variety of helpful things that you can add, e.g.: For Deposit Only.  This tells the bank to deposit the check into your account and ignore other signatures.   Your account number.  Especially useful when added to ""For Deposit Only"".   A countersignature.  This tells the bank to pay the check to someone other than you.   Countersigned checks used to be much more common than they are now.  Someone who didn't have a bank account might ask someone who did to cash a check for them.   See also:  Four ways to endorse a check which gives the correct format for endorsing a check in these ways." "Changed to answer match the edited version of the question No, you do not need to write the date of your endorsement, but you can choose to do so if you want to. The bank stamp on the back will likely have the date and perhaps even the exact time when the check was  deposited. The two lines are there in case you want to write something like ""For deposit only to Acct# uvwxyz"" above your signature (always a good idea if you are making the deposit by sending the paper check (with or without a deposit slip) by US mail or any other method that doesn't involve you handing the check to a bank teller). If you are wanting to get encash the check, that is, get cash in return for handing the check over to the bank instead of depositing the check in your account, then the rules are quite a bit different." "Let me just add that while you don't need to write the date received on the back of the check, you could. Why? Let's say someone was late in paying you and you wanted to document the fact that they were late. I've had late-paying customers send me a check dated on the due date but really they just pre-dated the check and sent it 60 days past-due. So let's say I want to establish and document the pattern in case it becomes a future legal issue. When you deposit or cash a check, an image of the front and back is made and the person or company who issued the check will have those images stored as part of their transaction history. (It used to be that the original, physical, cancelled check was returned to the payer, but that was another era.) So write the date received on the back next to the endorsement, endorse the check, and take a photo of the front and back (along with the postmark on the envelope) to document that they are a late payer. This way, if it ever becomes a ""he said she said"" issue you can easily show they have a history of paying late. If the payer looks at their check images they'll see your received date note next to the endorsement. Granted, this is a lot of trouble for a unique situation. In 20+ years of running a business I've actually had the foresight to do this a handful of times with habitual offenders, and in (only) one case did it come in handy later on. But boy was I glad to have those photos when I needed them."
So does a post-dated check have any valid use in a business or   personal transaction? Does it provide any financial or legal   protections at all? Yes, most definitely. You're writing a future date on the check, not past, to ensure that the check will not be deposited before that day. Keep in mind that this may change from place to place, since not every country has the same rules. In the US, for example, such trick would not work since the check may be presented any time and is not a limited obligation. However, in some other countries banks will not pay a check presented before the date written on it. While in the US the date on the check is the date on which it was (supposedly) written and as such is meaningless for obligation purposes, in many other countries the date on the check is the date on which the payment to be made, thus constitutes the start of the commitment and payment will not be made before that date. For example, in Canada: If you write a post-dated cheque, under the clearing rules of the   Canadian Payments Association (CPA), your cheque should not be cashed   before the date that is written on it. If the post-dated cheque is cashed early, you can ask your financial   institution to put the money back into your account up to the day   before the cheque should have been cashed. "Anytime you do work without any payment until the work is complete, you are effectively extending credit to the party receiving your service. How much credit you are willing to extend will vary greatly, depending on the amount and the trustworthiness of the party. For example, if you are charging $50 for something, you probably won't bother to collect money upfront, whereas if you are charging $5,000 you probably would collect some upfront. But if the party you are working for is a large financially sound company, the number may be even much higher than $5K as you can trust you will be paid. Obviously there are many factors that go into how much credit you are willing to extend to your customer. (This is why credit reports exist for banks to determine how much credit to extend to you.) As for the specific case you are asking about, which may be classified as a decent amount of work for a small business, I would default to having a written scope of work, a place in the document for both parties to sign, and specify 50% upfront payment and 50% payment at completion. When you receive the signed document and the upfront payment (and possibly even after the check clears), you begin work. I would call this my ""default contract"" and adjust according to your needs depending on the size of the job and the trustworthiness of the customer. As for your question about how to deposit the check, that depends on what type of entity you are. If you are a sole proprietor you should ask for the checks to be made out to you. If you are a business then the checks should be made out to your business name. You don't need ""in trust"" or anything similar because your customer, after paying the upfront fee, must trust that you will do the work you promise to do, just like you have to trust that after completing the work you will receive the final payment. This is the reason the default is 50% before and after. Both parties are risking (roughly) the same amount. Tip: having done the ""default"" contract many times in my career, both as a sole proprietor and a business owner, I can assure you there is a big difference between a potential customer agreeing to something in advance, and actually writing a check. The upfront payment definitely helps weed out those that were never going to end up paying you, even if their intentions were good. Tip 2: be as specific as possible as to what the scope of work will include. If you don't, particularly with software, they'll be adding feature after feature and expecting it to be ""included""." "This seems almost overkill, but if you want to... I suppose one thing you could do is create a separate money in transit account, similar to Account Payable and Account Receivable. In your bookkeeping, transfer the money from the source account to the holding account on the date that the source bank withdraws it, and then transfer the money to the destination account on the date that the target bank deposits it. This both makes it clear that there is money going between places, and ensures that the daily balance on each ""physical"" account is accurate. For cash withdrawals and deposits, I'd just use the date when you make the withdrawal, since that is the day from which the money is available in the new location rather than the old one. Note: I don't know if this is the ""proper"" way to do it in a random jurisdiction, but I doubt being this explicit can get you into trouble." "You should have separate files for each of the two businesses.  The business that transfers money out should ""write check"" in its QB file.  The business that receives money should ""make deposit"" in its QB file. (In QB you ""write check"" even when you make the payment by some other means like ACH.)  Neither business should have the bank accounts of the other explicitly represented.   On each side, you will also need to classify the payment as having originated from / gone to some other account - To know what's correct there, we'd need to know why your transferring the money in the first place and how you otherwise have your books established.  I think that's probably beyond the scope of what's on-topic / feasible here. Money into your business from your personal account is probably owner's equity, unless you have something else going on.  For example, on the S Corp you should be paying yourself a salary.  If you overpay by accident, then you might write a check back to the company from your personal account to correct the mistake.  That's not equity - It's probably a ""negative expense"" in some other account that tracks the salary payments." "I believe the banks are protecting themselves when they ""require"" your endorsement. Years ago. they used to ask for your endorsement, and not require it. If you endorse the check, it legally authorizes them to debit your account, if the check is later returned for non-sufficient funds (NSF). It mostly protects the bank, and not the customer." From my reading of the wikipedia page (CRT), this only happens if you deposit or withdraw currency, not checks.  The idea behind this is that checks, ACH, etc. leave paper trails that can be tracked.  Cash doesn't, so it gets this extra level of scrutiny.  If yu get a cashiers check or a money order to pay a bill, I don't think a CRT is created.  If you withdraw $15,000 to buy a car in cash (1 stack of $100 bills), then a CRT would be generated.  It still isn't a problem, as long as you can show a bill of sale showing where the money went (or came from, if you are the seller). The IRS has a FAQ about this.  It says (taken from several spots at that page): Cash is money. It is currency and coins of the United States and any other country.  A cashier’s check, bank draft, traveler’s check, or money order with a face amount of more than $10,000 is not treated as cash and a business does not have to file Form 8300 when it receives them. These items are not defined as cash because, if they were bought with currency, the bank or other financial institution that issued them must file a Currency Transaction Report. The exception to this is if you are buying something with a resale value of more than $10k with a check, money order, etc of less than $10k. The two banks involved may have different policies about honoring the check. It might not be written on the check.  Your bank may decide that the stale check has to be treated differently and will withhold funds for a longer period of time before giving you access to the money. They will give time for the first bank to refuse to honor the check. They may be concerned about insufficient funds, the age of the check, and the fact that the original account could have been closed. If you are concerned about the age of the check. You could go to your bank in person, instead of using deposit by ATM, scanner, or smart phone. This allows you to talk to a knowledgeable person. And if they are going to treat the check differently or reject the check, they can let you know right away. The audit may not have been concerned about the fact that the check hadn't been cashed because when they did the audit the check was still considered fresh. Some companies will contact you eventually to reissue the check so you they can get the liability off their books.  If the bank does refuse the check contact the company to see how you can get a replacement check issued. They may want proof the check can't be cashed so they don't have to worry about paying you twice. "The  earnest money deposit generally is not delivered with the offer. This generally isn't done because you may find out that your offer is going to be rejected immediately. You may have decided to make an offer under their stated selling price, you may have added a condition they are unwilling to meet. There is also the situation where other parties have already made an offer and their offering price has exceed yours; so your offer is rejected or at least slowed down while the continue negotiations with the other potential buyer. In these cases getting a cashiers check before making the offer delays the offer, complicates the movement of money within your accounts, and delays your ability to make an offer on a another house. If the offer on the first house is rejected on Friday, and the bank is closed on Saturday, and you have to wait until Monday to redeposit the check; then you have to delay an offer on the perfect house you see on Sunday. Of the three options you present the second one, ""I can put a rider on the P&S which warrants that the check will be delivered in a set amount of time like three days."" You may also find similar language in the local version of the standard real estate contract. This delay in writing the check makes sense for another reason, the manner of the deposit and how it is to be made, how it is to be held, and under what terms it can be released  should also be a part of the negotiation. You want to make sure it is being kept by a third party, you both have to trust that 3rd party, you need to know what are the exact conditions regarding that money. The purpose of the deposit is to convince the seller that you are serious, and that the knowledge that you will lose the deposit makes you likely to go through your required parts of the transaction.  Also more and more of these deposits are being done electronically, there is no check involved."