1. Sign Up

Individual customers complete a standard enrollment form with the company that will be making regular payments to them, providing authentication to make a Direct Deposit payment into one or more of their accounts.

2. Test

Your business customers may send your institution a test through the ACH Network to verify the accuracy of individuals' account information. If any specific individual account information represented by your financial institution cannot be posted, or any changes need to be made to the account information, you alert your business customers.

3. Post

Your business customers transmit an ACH file to your institution for processing, providing that six banking days have passed between the test entry and the first live entry.

4. Process

Your financial institution processes the ACH file, extracting any transactions for individual accounts at your institution, and delivering the remaining transactions for distribution through the ACH Network one or two days prior to the Direct Deposit date.

5. Transact

On or before the Direct Deposit date, you debit your business customers' accounts for the total amount of the Direct Deposit transactions that were on the ACH file. If your financial institution is receiving Direct Deposit transactions, you credit specific individual accounts and report the transaction on the customer's monthly account statement.

6. Confirm

Your business customers should provide a paper or electronic statement of the Direct Deposit payment. In addition, the account statements you provide your customers will list details of the ACH transactions, including date and amount of debit or credit.