Administrative documents are written for readers who were not present, and DA Form 5313-1-R is no exception. Titled NONAPPROPRIATED FUND PAYABLE/DISBURSEMENT VOUCHER CONTINUATION SHEET (LRA), it is used to nonappropriated fund payable/disbursement voucher continuation sheet (lra) — a transaction that means little in conversation and a great deal in a file. The published edition here carries the date 02/01/1986 and the status ACTIVE. Its 1 page(s) and roughly 171 fields are sized to what the record must prove years later, which is always more than the moment appears to need.
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.
Retrieval governs the order of entry. The head of the form takes name, identification number, unit and date, and those values become the handles by which the record is found later — the substantive blocks are never searched on. This is why the spelling must match official records exactly rather than approximately.
Tab order is not a convenience feature; it was fixed when the form was built and generally traces the page, so following it produces the sequence the designer intended and leaves fewer gaps than a mouse. Exclusive option groups clear the previous selection because the record is not permitted to hold two contradictory answers. Single-line fields do not wrap for the same reason the layout is fixed: the printed page has to fall in known positions, so text past the field width is cut at the margin even though the screen still shows it whole. Overflow belongs in remarks or on a continuation, where there is room designed for it. And an inapplicable field is marked rather than skipped, since a blank tells a later reader nothing about whether the question was considered.
A signature is what converts entries into a record, which is why it comes last and why an unsigned form remains a draft however complete it looks. Where a reviewing official, an approving authority or a witness also signs, each adds a distinct attestation, and each dates the day of signing rather than the day of preparation — the dates trace the sequence of responsibility. The recurring defects are worth knowing precisely because they defeat that purpose: an empty mandatory field leaves an obligation unmet, transposed identification digits attach the record to nobody, a date with day and month reversed puts events in the wrong order, and entries left in a reused working copy assert facts nobody intended.
Personal information may not be gathered silently, and the Privacy Act statement is how that obligation is met on paper: it names the collection authority, the purpose, the routine uses and whether disclosure is mandatory. Because it exists to inform a decision, it belongs before the fields it covers rather than after them. A filled copy then holds personal data and is stored and transmitted under the corresponding safeguards.
Download the form
Formats exist because completion happens under different conditions, not because anyone wanted variety. The published set is PDF, XFDL. A fillable pdf carries live entry objects, so typed text lands in fixed positions and stays legible whoever reads it later. A printable pdf drops those objects and leaves the page as an image, which is what an office needs where a screen is unavailable and a pen is not. The document itself is unchanged between them; what differs is the circumstance each anticipates.
The choice of application decides whether your work survives. Browsers render pdfs as documents to be read; where a viewer shows fields without a mechanism to store them, typed text disappears when the tab closes, and nothing announces the loss. A full reader treats the file as a form and preserves entries on save. The xfdl format comes from IBM Lotus Forms, used across Army systems because of the routing and signature functions built into it, and it opens in the Lotus Forms Viewer alone.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
What the form asks for
- Amount
- Amount_1
- Amount_10
- Amount_11
- Amount_12
- Amount_13
- Amount_14
- Amount_2
- Amount_3
- Amount_4
- Amount_5
- Amount_6
- Amount_7
- Amount_8
- Amount_9
- CheckNo
- CheckTotal
- CkBal
- CkSigned
- Complete
- ContentArea1
- Date
- DatePaid
- DatePre
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.
Forms cluster by series and number for the same reason files do: shared proponency and a shared prescribing directive usually mean a shared process. So a document in the DA series referenced on the face of another is generally part of the same transaction, and continuation sheets, cover sheets and transmittals belong to the package from the outset rather than arriving after a query.
Revision follows the process, which is why editions appear without a fixed interval, and the printed date rather than any version number identifies them. Nothing on a stored copy signals that it has aged; the check is manual. Work already completed under a superseded edition stands as filed, because the record was made under those terms and is properly interpreted under them.
It is worth being plain about what this page is within all of the above. The files are reproductions of published Department of the Army documents, offered for download by a site with no official standing and no part in issuing anything. That matters because the machinery described here — proponency, prescribing directives, records schedules — runs entirely elsewhere. Nothing written here is legal advice, and no statement can be made about whether an office will accept a given document. ASA (FM&C) and the administrative office servicing your unit answer questions of entry, requirement and eligibility, and they are the ones positioned to.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 5313-1-R?
- NONAPPROPRIATED FUND PAYABLE/DISBURSEMENT VOUCHER CONTINUATION SHEET (LRA)
- Which edition is current?
- 02/01/1986
- Who is responsible for this form?
- ASA (FM&C)
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, XFDL, PDF
Publisher notes
- 41-ITEM ALSO PRODUCED IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA