ACH Payments Page 1 of 8

ACH payments overview

An ACH payment is a method of sending funds electronically through the federal government’s Automated Clearing House (ACH). ACH payments are typically created and sent in batches. At the time of payment, funds are withdrawn from the business checking account, and transferred to the recipient, known as the participant.

Creating an ACH requires information about the participant, including specific details about their financial institution and account number. Because you could have hundreds of participants that may receive regular ACH payments, UltraBranch helps simplify the process. Whenever an ACH is created, the participant can be added to a list of participants for future use. You can also import participant information from your own files. Finally, you can create ACH templates that allow you to quickly create new batches based on previously-defined criteria.

The process for sending an ACH batch includes:

1. Creating and scheduling the ACH batch
2. Approving the ACH batch (if the transaction exceeds pre-set company-wide limits)

Any authorized account User will be able to create, change, hold or delete any ACH batch. The Primary Contact or a Company Administrator can approve batch requests that exceed pre-set company-wide limits for ACH payments.

ACH limits and permissions

The ability to electronically send funds to other people or companies is convenient. At the same time it is subject to risk, even from within your own organization. To help protect your company, UltraBranch employs a number of safeguards.

• Before any ACH batches can be created, the ACH function must be enabled in the "Edit Feature Access and Limits" page on the "Admin" tab. Only the account's Primary Contact or a Company Administrator can enable this function.
• The Primary Contact or a Company Administrator can set limits on the dollar amount of an ACH batch - these limits can be set by transaction, day, week, or month. As an option, you may enable limit overrides by checking an option to "Exceed Limit with Approval".
• If limit overrides have not been enabled, users cannot create ACH batches that exceed any ACH limit. If the limit overrides are enabled users will be able to create ACH batches that exceed limits, which must be approved by the Primary Contact or a Company Administrator before they will be processed.
• ACH batches can be created only by employees who have been granted permission to do so.

ACH Payroll Quick Setup

One common use for ACH payments is company payroll. See ACH Payroll Quick Setup to help get your payroll up and running quickly.