- An ACH is an electronic funds transfer made between banks and credit unions across what is called the Automated Clearing House network.
- An ACH transaction basically consists of a data file containing information about desired payments. Processing a transaction consists of sending that file to our bank, which sends it to the clearing house, and finally to the recipient's bank. Both sides of the transactions happen simultaneously at the crediting and debiting institutions. Banks have up to five banking days to return ACH transactions. Because the credits and debits occur simultaneously and independently, the credits in a direct deposit file will still go through but the debit funding the direct deposits will effectively come from PayNW in the event of a return.
- Returns can happen for a number of reasons. The most common are:
- R01 – Insufficient Funds (NSF)
- R29 - Corporate Customer Advises Not Authorized
- R02 – Account Closed
- In the event that a client’s bank returns an ACH Debit funding a processed payroll (direct deposit, tax funding, OBC Checks or any of the other debits funding the services offered), PayNW will require the client to wire the returned amount to their corresponding returns account before noon on the same day
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This timing is important as a lot of wire desks close at 3pm – 4pm and it give us a tiny bit of wiggle room if there is a problem. In addition, if the client doesn’t, for what ever reason re-imburse us, Finance will need to take action and fund our returns account with PayNW funds.
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This is not intended to be punitive, but at this point PayNW would have effectively funded their payroll services and must be reimbursed ASAP with a secure payment method. The employees in a direct deposit file would have all been paid, but the debit to pay for that would have now originated from PayNW vs the client.
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- The standard fees for these returns is $275 for transactions that do not exceed $10k and $550 for transactions that are in excess of $10k
- Process for handling includes:
- Finance will notify the CSR early in the morning of any NSFs/Debit returns. They will send a ticket and notify the CSR through an IM or call to ensure ticket takes priority. The ticket from finance will include the amount, the reason, the notice from the bank, and which institution the client should be wiring the funds to
- CSR will review the information, create a ticket using the templates provided in Team Support (KB 318806), and attach the corresponding wire instructions to the ticket
- Because of the urgency, the CSR should immediately follow up with phone calls to the client to ensure receipt and understanding of the situation
- Finance will monitor the returns account and inform the CSR once the wire has been received
- The CSR should add the NSF fee to the client’s next payroll