How To Tell The Difference Between A Fake And A Real Pay Stub?

Forgeries have gotten incredibly advanced in recent years. Here's how to tell the difference between a fake and a real pay stub.

Technology has improved and increased a lot over the past few years. While most of these changes have been positive, there are some negative side effects as well. For example, forgeries and fakes have become harder to notice or catch. How can you tell the difference between a fake and real pay stub? Pay stubs are used for all kinds of purposes, such as securing a loan or applying for housing.
If you're looking over a person's paystub, you'll want to be able to know for certain that you're looking at the real thing. But how can you tell? Read on and we'll walk you through the tell-tale signs you should be looking for.

Missing Basic Information

You should start by checking over the pay stub in front of you for all the obvious details. A proper pay stub should have a person's name, their occupation, and some other basic information. Sometimes, fake pay stubs are made from a generic template, and old details might have remained. If you see anything that doesn't match up with the other information you have on an individual, it might be a hint that the pay stub is a forgery.
Other small issues, like spelling mistakes within that information, might be reason enough to be suspicious. A professional accountant would likely catch and fix these issues before sending them out to employees. 'O' and '0's being used interchangeably is another example of a simple mistake that might appear on a fake pay stub but not a real one.

Look Out For Excessive Rounding

Pay stubs are put together by a team of professional accountants, whose whole jobs revolve around counting money to the finest decimal point. These are precise and focused individuals, and they care about accuracy. That means there should be plenty of cents spread across a standard pay stub and very little rounding up or down.
Accountants are not in the practice of rounding to the nearest whole dollar, that's for certain. If you notice too many areas that are rounded to the nearest dollar, it could be a sign of alarm. If the figures on the pay stub don't feel right to you, you should trust your gut: it might be a fake.

Wonky Formatting

How easy is it to read the pay stub in your hand? If you're having trouble discerning the information through weird formatting or printing, you should be on your guard. Accountants work hard to ensure their payroll service provides clean and easy-to-read pay stubs. If you get a glimpse at a pay stub where the numbers don't seem to line up or it's difficult to understand the layout, you might want to ask a few follow-up questions. There's a good chance that you're looking at a fake.

Differences Between A Fake And Real Pay Stub

Forgeries are getting better and better in the modern era. That means it's even more important that you take the time to understand how you can tell a real pay stub from a fake one. Need help crafting 100% genuine pay stubs for your business? Give our paystub maker a try!