Blog › Company stamps and seals
HR and payroll stamps: the marks on a personnel file
3 September 2026 ยท Estamplab
Make your stamp free · Browse 225 templates
Open the stamp maker and start from any of these
A personnel file is a stack of dated records, and its whole value is that the dates are believable. That is what the marks in it are for, and there are fewer of them than most HR departments end up with.
Open the stamp maker and start from any of these
The employment verification mark
The one that leaves the building. A bank, a landlord or an embassy asks whether somebody works here, and the letter that answers carries the company identity mark, a signatory block and a date.
MERIDIAN JOINERY LTD Human Resources Authorised by: .............. Date: ..............
The signatory line matters more here than anywhere else in HR, because the recipient is deciding whether to lend money or grant a visa on the strength of it. See the employment verification stamp and the HR stamp.
The payroll mark
The one that does not want a date. A payroll document belongs to a period, not to a day: the date it was printed is nearly irrelevant and putting it on the mark invites somebody to read it as the pay date.
PAYROLL Period: .............. Processed by: ..............
See the payroll stamp.
The file marks
- Received, with the date, on everything a candidate or an employee submits. It is the mark that answers "when did you get my sick note". See the received stamp.
- Copy, on copies of identity and qualification documents held on file, so nobody mistakes the file copy for an original. See the copy stamp.
- Certified true copy, where you are attesting that you saw the original. Only if you are entitled to certify. See certified true copy stamps.
- Confidential, on anything medical, disciplinary or investigatory. See confidential and draft stamps.
The one to be careful with
A CERTIFIED TRUE COPY mark on a copy of a passport or a degree certificate is a statement that you compared it to the original. It is routine, and it is also the mark most casually applied in HR: pressed on a scan somebody emailed in, which is a certification of something nobody saw.
If the original was not in front of you, the honest mark is COPY.
Where the file lives now
Personnel files are folders on a drive, and the documents in them are PDFs. Stamping means applying the mark to the file rather than printing, marking and scanning, which also avoids leaving a printed copy of somebody's private documents in a tray.
Read more: Marking a document that must not be forwarded
The honest limits
Estamplab is a design tool. This page describes common commercial practice rather than giving legal, employment or tax advice, and employment record requirements differ by jurisdiction, so check the requirement with your own advisers.
Only produce a mark your own organisation is entitled to use, and only certify a copy if you hold the capacity to do so.
The rest of the range is on the stamp and seal directory.
Every kind of stamp and seal
- Notary stamps and seals
- Rubber stamps
- Rubber stamp maker
- Self-inking stamps
- Office stamps
- Official stamps
- Company seals
- Corporate stamps and seals
- Company chops
- Seals for civil servants
- Justice and court stamps
- Legal and advocate stamps
- Certified true copy stamps
- Medical stamps
- Pharmacy stamps
- Veterinary stamps
- Engineer and architect seals
- Land surveyor seals
- Bank stamps
- School and principal stamps
- Teacher and marking stamps
- University and college seals
- Library stamps
- Inspection stamps
- Courier and logistics stamps
- Construction and site stamps
- Real estate stamps
- Hotel and restaurant stamps
- Church and charity seals
- Tender and bid stamps
- Received and paid stamps
- Confidential and draft stamps
- Signature stamps
- Date stamps
- Custom band stamps
- Numbering stamps
- Address stamps
- Monogram stamps
- Wedding stamps
- Gift and craft stamps
- Art and logo stamps
- Wax and foil seals
- Stamp or seal, by profession