What is a MICR Specification Sheet?
This MICR (or Check Printing, or E13B Common Machine Language) Specification Sheet is a layout diagram to allow the bank to “specify” its requirements to any printer. They have already provided this to the printers they contract with for most of the checks for their customers, and update it when changes are made. It is a grid that allows each digit, special character, and space to be represented so that the check can be read by the scanners in the Federal Reserve System. There are a few fast rules on this, and the variables can approach infinity. Banks are required to provide this information to customers who want to use another printer, or print their own checks with a program such as QuickBooks, Quicken or MSMoney.
