Overview

Same-Day ACH processing allows merchants to send ACH credits and receive ACH debits faster than standard ACH processing.

Historically, ACH payments have always been batched at the end of each business day and sent to the Federal Reserve for overnight delivery and processing. Debits and credits would show on the Receiver’s bank account the next banking business day.

In conjunction with the Federal Reserve, Same-Day ACH processing was introduced by Nacha to allow debits and credits to post to customer’s bank accounts on the same day they are submitted by a merchant. Early processing cut-off windows were setup and new ACH banking rules were created to make this possible.

ACH debits and credits can now be posted on the same day to customer’s bank accounts if the payments are submitted to the Federal Reserve before the early Same-Day processing cut-off windows close.

Standard ACH

ACH debits and credits are transactions that are created, batched, and transmitted typically by way of a financial institution's connection to the ACH Network via the Federal Reserve

With standard ACH, each ACH transaction is cleared overnight. The sending institution (ACHQ's bank / ODFI ) sends the transaction to the receiving institution (called the Receiving Depository Financial Institution). When the receiving institution receives the transaction, it has until the end of the next working day (48 hours) to send a rejection to the sending institution. If the sending institution does not receive a return from the receiving institution by the morning of the third business day, then the transaction is deemed to be successful.

Same-day ACH

With same-day ACH, settlement can happen the same day. The sending institution can transmit files to the receiving institution the same day, expediting the processing of ACH transactions. The receiving institution still has two business days in which to send a return, so there will still be a delay of two business days in same-day ACH debit transactions. On the other hand, ACH credit transactions can be credited on the same business day as along as the receiving institution receives the ACH transaction within the correct window.

Benefits to Same-Day ACH processing:

• Pre-funded credits can be delivered to your customer, employees, sales agents, vendors, etc on the same day they are submitted to ACHQ.

• Debits are deducted from your customers sooner than standard ACH processing, ensuring you have higher priority and faster access to the promised funds as well as shortening the ACH return window.

• Settlements for Same-Day ACH debit payments hit the merchant's bank account one day sooner than standard ACH debit payments

The earlier a Same-Day ACH payment is delivered to the Federal Reserve, the sooner the payment will post to the receiver's bank account that day.

To send a Same-Day ACH payment through this API, you simply set the DeliveryWindow parameter of the Create a payment (tokenized) or Create a payment (bank account) endposint to the value FirstAvailable and submit the payment to ACHQ prior to the last same-day delivery cut-off window.

Delivery Windows

ACH payments sent through this API with the optional DeliveryWindow parameter left undefined or set to Standard and payments submitted through this API after the last same-day delivery cut-off window (regardless of the value in the DeliveryWindow parameter) will be sent at via standard processing at the next available end-of-day processing cut-off window.

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Please note that ACHQ merchant accounts must first be approved and setup for Same-Day ACH processing to take advantage of this feature.