ACH Automated Clearing House

ACH payments are a low-cost and vastly underutilized solution for those who like the convenience of electronic payments, but not the cost. We can help you determine if, when and how ACH transactions make sense for your business.

ACH (Automated Clearing House) transactions are a form of electronic transaction that directly debits (or credits) your client’s bank account utilizing the account and routing number rather than their credit / debit card number.   This means you avoid the “interchange fees” associated with the card networks, which make up the vast majority of what you pay to process transactions. Bottom line fees for ACH typically transaction range from 0.25% to 1% of the total volume of monthly sales processed.

The downside is that you do not have “real time authorization” like with a credit / debit card. It is therefore generally not applicable for retail / restaurant. But for any other business type that invoice, has regular recurring charges, payment plans, offers subscription, rental or membership type services, property management, loan servicing, financing, and many other business types, ACH is an excellent option to slash operating costs but still have the convenience and control of electronic payments.

As well, ACH can be utilized for payment disbursements. So if you need to pay vendors, employees, subcontractors, or pay claims disbursements. If you need to issue funds, ACH can do so for less the cost of a postage stamp, and with minimal delay resulting in fewer calls from payees.

Here are some of the ways ACH can help your business:

Lowest cost to process: Collect or send payments for less than the cost of a postage stamp. Bottom line fees range from under 0.25% to about 1% of the total volume of funds processed for substantially lower total cost than even extremely competitively priced credit / debit card processing.

Automate your collections: Eliminate the entire invoicing process by automatically debiting client accounts each month for fees or services. No printing, postage, follow-up, wait, labor or tracking deposits, your fees are collected automatically.

Get paid on your schedule: Waiting on a check puts your company finances in your client’s hands. Take back control of WHEN you are going to get paid for better cash flow projections and improved operations.

VERY difficult to dispute: One benefit of ACH transactions is that because they do not utilize the bankcard (VI / MC /DISC / AMEX) networks, the payer isn’t afforded all the same buyer protection as with a credit card transaction. ACH transactions are much more difficult to dispute. This could be a key benefit if your business has a high volume of disputed credit card transactions.

Send funds too: Unlike credit cards which can only be used to collect or refund payment, ACH can be used to issue payments. ACH is utilized by payroll providers to pay employees, financial institutions to make loan disbursements, insurers to pay claims, and can be used by businesses of all kinds to pay vendors or employees.

Combined credit and ACH operations: Increase organization and settlement and optimize price by providing both credit and ACH options.   We have the ability to present customers with both options on one payment form, and track the transactions through a single system. This means all electronic payments flow into one stream of reporting, credit, debit or ACH. It also means that you can take advantage of the low cost of ACH when applicable, and the speed and ease of credit when necessary.

We support the following ACH transaction types:

ARC– Accounts Receivable Entry
BOC– Back Office Conversion
CCD– Cash Concentration or Disbursement
CIE– Customer Initiated Entry
CTX– Corporate Trade Exchange
POP– Point of Purchase Entry
PPD– Prearranged Payment and Deposit Entry
RCK– Re-Presented Check Entry
TEL– Telephone-Initiated Entry
WEB– Internet Initiated Entry