Received and paid stamps: the two most pressed marks in any office

3 September 2026 · Estamplab

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Received Stamp template, editable online — Received StampCustomize this stamp

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Paid In Full Stamp template, editable online — Paid In Full StampAdd an editable date

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Open the stamp maker and start from any of these

If you counted the impressions made in an average office in a week, two marks would account for most of them: RECEIVED at the front door and PAID in accounts. Both are about time, and both are usually one line short of being useful.

Open the stamp maker and start from any of these

The received stamp

It answers one question, months later, in a dispute: when did this arrive?

RECEIVED Meridian Joinery Ltd Date: .............. By: ..............

The date is the point. The "by" line is the part most received stamps leave off, and it is what turns "the office received it" into "a named person received it", which is the version that settles an argument. See the received stamp and the received stamp maker, which fills the date in on use.

For a front desk that also logs time, the received date stamp maker carries both.

The paid stamp

It answers a different question: has this been settled, and should anybody touch it again?

PAID Date: .............. Ref: ..............

The reference is the missing line here. PAID with a date says money moved; PAID with a payment or cheque reference says which movement, which is what an auditor and a supplier both ask for. See the paid stamp and the PAID stamp generator with the date.

Why they stop duplicated work

Most duplicated work in a small business is somebody processing the same document twice, because nothing on it says it has already been handled. A dated mark is the cheapest possible fix: it costs a second, and it makes the state of the document visible to whoever picks it up next.

That is also why the marks belong on the document rather than in a spreadsheet somewhere. The person about to duplicate the work is holding the document.

Colour, briefly

Blue or black for RECEIVED, red for PAID. It is a convention rather than a rule, and it works because red reads as a status change and blue reads as a record. Mixing them up is not wrong, but it slows down the person scanning a pile.

The company stamp size and colour page covers the rest.

When the document is a file

Most invoices arrive as PDFs now, which is where the rubber version stops working: printing an invoice to stamp PAID and scanning it back is three steps to record one fact. Applying the mark to the PDF directly does it in one, and the date is the real date rather than whatever the band was set to.

The honest limits

Estamplab is a design tool. This page describes common commercial practice rather than giving legal, tax or accounting advice, and practice differs between businesses and jurisdictions, so check any specific requirement with your own accountant or auditor.

A PAID stamp is a bookkeeping record, not proof of payment. The bank record is the proof. Only produce a mark your own organisation is entitled to use.

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