Processing Electronic Payments                                                                                               

ACH Payment Module (Optional Add On Module)

How it Works

The Automated Clearing House** module allows the WBAR utility billing system to generate a coded ascii text file containing account and banking information that can be used with the ACH clearing process. The file must be delivered to a banking facility that has ACH processing capability. Once the file is generated by the vendor utility, it can be sent via electronic file transfer or by diskette. The ACH processing bank forwards the file to a corresponding ACH processing bank which then collects the payments through the federal reserve banking system. Customers may bank at any financial institution served by the U.S. federal reserve system. The payment credits are accumulated and a single deposit is credited to the bank account specified by the utility.

**Read more about the Automated Clearing House process at http://www.nacha.org/

Each customer must elect in writing to have their utility account paid in this manner. The following information is required from the customer to set up ACH processing for their account.

1.                                                Name of the bank where their account is located
2.                                                Their social security number
3.                                                The bank’s routing number (usually printed on their checks)
4.                                                The account number of the checking or savings                                                account to be debited (usually printed on their checks)

Each ACH payment customer continues to receive a bill in the usual manner. According to ACH rules, customers must have 10 days to object to a bill before the payment may be withdrawn by the vendor utility. Accounts with insufficient funds, closed accounts, or accounts with missing or inaccurate information will be returned to the vendor on an exception list produced by the ACH bank. Once accounts have been verified and collected by the ACH bank, the WBAR system will post the individual payment transactions into the payment collection file in the same manner as hand printed checks, except that the electronic “checks” will be marked with the current transaction date and carry “PPD” in the check number field.

Your bank may require you to send test information to the ACH on accounts that have not been previously processed using ACH. This is known as sending a pre-notification payment request which is actually a dummy record that does not produce an actual payment to you. You can indicate a pre-notification request by entering Y into the Pre-Note field in the Options page of the Customer record. After your bank confirms that the account information is correct, you can remove the Pre-Note indicator and the account will process normally.

The ACH process is a highly secure and efficient way to collect recurring payments with variable amounts. It requires a close working relationship (and usually a contract) with the ACH processing bank before account and banking information can be submitted for collection. The vendor utility will also need to provide specific information to the banking facility regarding the bank account they wish to have the payments credited into and the manner in which the ACH payment request file will be delivered to the bank.

In order to process ACH payment requests, you must complete both the ACH portion of the customer's data record and the district's ACH information into the System Registry record. The ACH customer data is located on the Options tab of the customer View/Edit screen. The district's ACH information is located on the ACH Processing tab of the System Registry form.

Options Tab of Customer Record

ACH Processing Tab of System Registry Record

Some Limitations

At this time, the ACH payment process can only be used for full payment requests. Partial payments are not allowed. Also, depending on the speed of your bank, you may have to wait up to 24 hours for the ACH payments to be processed through the federal reserve system. You may want to postpone updating a payment collection file that contains ACH payments until you have received confirmation from your bank that all of the electronic "checks" have cleared.

Summary

The ACH module of the WBAR system generates all of the information needed to generate and process ACH payment requests. The program will produce the file which can be delivered to the bank either on removable media, CD-ROM, diskette, Zip disk, Jazz disk, etc. or by electronic transmission of the file. WBAR does not include any software for the delivery of the file over the internet or by direct modem to modem connection. However, this can usually be accomplished through an email attachment or other communications software specified by the bank processing the ACH file for your district. The actual delivery method of the ACH payment request file is an issue to be worked out between the vendor utility and the ACH processing bank. Banks usually have a separate software program for transmitting the file in a secure manner to their receiving center. Tri C does not offer technical support with regard to the setup or transfer processes used to send the ACH payment request file to the bank.