Six straightforward steps get you started with Direct Deposit:

1. Sign Up

Your employees, stockholders or retirees complete a standard enrollment form, authorizing your company or organization to make a Direct Deposit payment into one or more of their accounts.

2. Test

A test is performed by sending your employees', stockholders' or retirees' checking or savings account information, but no dollar amount, to their financial institutions via the ACH Network. Their financial institutions notify you if an entry can't be posted or if any changes need to be made to the account information.

3. Post

Your company or organization processes the live ACH transactions by delivering an ACH file, usually by transmission, CD-Rom, or diskette, to your financial institution. Six banking days must pass between sending the test entry and sending the first live entry.

4. Transact

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

5. Pay

On or before the Direct Deposit date, your company's or organization's financial institution debits your account for the total amount of the Direct Deposit transactions that were on the ACH file. The financial institutions that receive the Direct Deposit transactions credit your employees', stockholders' or retirees' accounts and report the transaction on the consumers' monthly account statements.

6. Confirm

You should provide a paper or electronic statement of the Direct Deposit payment. In the case of Direct Deposit of payroll, the statement would include the same information the company provides on a paycheck stub, including deductions and the net pay amount