

Plaid is a Nacha preferred partner and Plaid Instant Auth is a user-friendly, fast, and easy solution for this new rule.Īnother complication is that the system works on a “no news is good news” basis, where no transaction is ever explicitly confirmed (meaning that it can later be reversed). The rule requires that before initiating an online ACH debit, originators must verify that the account is open, valid, and can receive ACH transfers. In order to reduce errors, fraud, and delays, Nacha, the organization that oversees the ACH network, recently put a new rule into effect. Historically, errors led to an extra day or two delay while the banks determined if the transaction could be salvaged.

While this is less common for credit transactions, they’re still susceptible to problems like wrong account numbers, wrong amounts, and mismatching names. For debits, returns for insufficient funds are the most common error. For smaller amounts, they may advance the funds earlier as a low-risk customer convenience.Įrrors can also slow things down. While RDFIs may have the transaction data in-hand to process non-same-day credits faster, they may wait if they perceive any risk of the transaction being returned-since they haven’t actually received any money yet from the ODFI. Otherwise ODFIs generally default to 8:30am the following business day for debit requests, and 8:30am the second business day for credits.
ACH TRANSACTION MEANING WINDOWS
Same-day processing is available for about $0.05 in network fees for all transactions received within the three middle settlement windows each business day.
ACH TRANSACTION MEANING CODE
Whether and/or when a given transaction returns an error code Whether the originator paid for same-day service All new files received past this cutoff won’t get processed until the next window.ġ2:00pm ET Tuesday - The ACH network delivers this latest round of files as ACH credit requests to every bank where ABC’s employees have an account (the RDFIs).ġ:00pm ET Tuesday - For any transactions where same-day processing was requested, the RDFI has an hour to process the request and settle with the ODFI (where they’ll make a joint request to the Federal Reserve to credit/debit their accounts based on a tally of all their net transactions that window).ġ:30pm local RDFI time Tuesday - This is the cutoff by which transferred same-day funds have to be made available to the end recipient (i.e., when the employees get their money).Ĩ:30am ET Thursday - This is the maximum cutoff by which all remaining (i.e., non-same-day) transactions must process and settle if no error or reversal message has been received.ĩ:00am local RDFI time Thursday - Final funds need to be made available to recipients by this time.ĪCH transfers typically process and settle in anywhere from hours to a few business days. 4:00pm ET Monday - ABC Company submits their payroll info to a processing partner.ġ0:00am ET Tuesday - The processor works in conjunction with ABC’s bank (the ODFI) to submit a file to the ACH network with all ABC’s individual payroll ACH credit requests.ġ0:30am ET Tuesday - The ACH network begins to break down all files received since the last window, repackaging them by recipients.
