DD 577 — Appointment/Termination Record - Authorized Signature

DD Form 577, Appointment/Termination Record - Authorized Signature, is the Department of Defense's standard record for appointing — and later terminating — a person's authority to sign or certify official documents in a specific position, such as a certifying officer, disbursing official, or contracting officer's representative. Its use is prescribed by the DoD Financial Management Regulation, DoD 7000.14-R, Volume 5, and its legal-authority citations include Executive Order 9397 and 31 U.S.C. §§3325 and 3528.

The appointing official completes Section I to identify the position, the duties being authorized, and the effective date, and the appointee provides a specimen signature (manual, digital, or both) that downstream reviewers use to validate later certifications. When the appointment ends, Section IV records the termination and its effective date, which cannot precede the original appointment date. Because a person's authority to certify pay vouchers, travel claims, or property transactions is only as good as the DD 577 on file for them, finance and disbursing offices treat the form as a control document: an expired or missing DD 577 is grounds to reject a certification signed by that person. The current edition is dated November 2014.