The reason DA Form 4140-R looks the way it does is that a file has to speak for itself. Officially LOAN CONTRACT (CIVILIAN WELFARE FUND) (LRA), it serves to loan contract (civilian welfare fund) (lra), and the record it produces outlasts the people and the circumstances behind it. Edition 01/01/1974, status ACTIVE, is the version published here: 1 page(s), close to 131 fields, each one present because some later reader will need that fact without being able to ask for it.
The form has an author and an occasion, held by different authorities. ASA (FM&C) owns the content and reshapes it when what is being recorded changes. AR 215-5 governs the event that calls for the form and the route the finished document takes afterwards. Keeping those two apart is what allows a procedure to be amended without the page being rebuilt each time.
Identification precedes substance for a structural reason. Name, identification number, organisation and date of preparation are how the finished document is located in a file or a database; the body of the form is what someone reads after the search has succeeded. Spell the name as official records spell it, since the search runs against those records and not against habit.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
The signature is the point at which entries become an assertion someone stands behind, so it follows everything else and its absence leaves a draft. Countersignatures by reviewing, approving or witnessing officials each carry their own weight and are dated at signing, which is how the file preserves the order of responsibility. Seen that way, the familiar errors are not clerical trivia: an unanswered mandatory field, digits transposed in an identification number, day and month reversed, and residue from a reused file each put something false or unresolved into a document that will be relied upon.
The Privacy Act statement is on the page because collecting personal information requires the collector to disclose the terms first — the authority relied on, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether an answer is required or may be withheld. That order is the point: the statement is read before the entries it governs, since consent given afterwards is not consent. Once completed, the copy is a personal record and carries the handling obligations that attach to one.
Download the form
The published formats — PDF — reflect the range of places a form gets filled in. Where there is a computer, the fillable pdf supplies live fields that keep entries positioned and readable. Where there is not, the printable pdf gives the identical page as flat artwork for pen entry. The distinction is one of setting rather than of authority; the page is the same document in both.
Where a file opens matters more than it appears to. A browser will display a pdf, but browser viewers were built to read documents, and some accept keystrokes into fields they never intended to store — the entries are gone at tab close, without warning, because saving was never part of what that viewer does. A dedicated reader is built around the file's own structure and keeps what you enter.
There is no charge and no sign-up. Published documents are distributed as published, without modification.
What the form asks for
- AMOUNT
- BALANCE
- BALANCE_1
- BALANCE_10
- BALANCE_11
- BALANCE_12
- BALANCE_13
- BALANCE_14
- BALANCE_15
- BALANCE_2
- BALANCE_3
- BALANCE_4
- BALANCE_5
- BALANCE_6
- BALANCE_7
- BALANCE_8
- BALANCE_9
- CONTNUMB
- ContentArea1
- DATE
- DATECONT
- DATE_1
- DATE_10
- DATE_11
Where the signed form goes is settled by AR 215-5 rather than by the office holding it — a named recipient, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's own file, depending on why it was raised. Retention likewise belongs to the records schedule for the series, which exists so documents are kept for as long as anyone might need them and no longer. Keep a copy before release; the original serves the file from then on, not you.
Series and number are how the DA series signals which documents belong together, and the grouping follows real process boundaries: a shared proponent or directive usually means a shared purpose. A form cited on the face of another is part of that same transaction, and continuation sheets, covers and transmittals complete it.
An edition marks the form at a point in a process that keeps moving, and the date printed on the page is what distinguishes one from another. Since a saved file never announces its own obsolescence, compare its date against the current edition before using it again. Prior executions remain valid: the change applies forward, and a record is read against the edition it was written under.
A word on where this page sits. These are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, made available by an independent site with no official role and no authority to issue forms. The structure described above — proponent, prescribing directive, records schedule — exists apart from this site entirely, which is why nothing written here is legal advice and why acceptance by any office is not something that can be promised. Put questions of entry, requirement or eligibility to ASA (FM&C) or to the administrative office servicing your unit.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4140-R?
- LOAN CONTRACT (CIVILIAN WELFARE FUND) (LRA)
- Which edition is current?
- 01/01/1974
- Who is responsible for this form?
- ASA (FM&C)
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF
Publisher notes
- 41-ITEM ALSO PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA