Number to words

English writes numbers in groups of three, each group followed by its scale word — thousand, million, billion. Within a group you say the hundreds, then the tens and units, hyphenated when they combine: twenty-one, not twenty one.

Writing a cheque

The banking convention is the whole amount in words followed by the cents as a fraction over 100 — “One thousand two hundred thirty-four and 56/100 dollars”. Cents are never spelled out, and the line is usually ruled off afterwards so nothing can be added.

“And” or no “and”?

British English inserts “and” before the final part of a number: one hundred and five. American English omits it: one hundred five. Cheque-writing guides on both sides use “and” only to separate the whole amount from the fraction, which is the convention used here.

Short scale vs long scale

This tool uses the short scale, where a billion is 10⁹. Several European languages use the long scale, where a billion is 10¹² and 10⁹ is a “milliard” — a genuine source of translation bugs in financial documents.