Teachworks' Stripe Integration supports ACH Payments for companies based in the US. ACH payments, or Automated Clearing House, are payments where you charge a bank account directly.
NOTE: You can only accept funds in USD and only from U.S. bank accounts. In addition, your account must have a U.S./USD bank account to accept ACH payments.
ACH payments differ from credit card payments, as accepting bank accounts requires a slightly different initial workflow than accepting credit cards. In order to accept ACH Payments, the following criteria must be met:
Bank accounts must first be verified.
Bank accounts must be authorized for your use by the customer.
After taking both steps for a bank account, the administrator or staff account can begin to process payments to the customer's bank account on their behalf.
Enabling ACH
In order to enable the ACH payment feature, you must first ensure that you have enabled the Stripe Integration (if you have not, you can find the steps to do so in the following article: Stripe Integration
When you have the Stripe Integration set up, you can enable the ACH feature in the Stripe Integration settings by enabling the "Process ACH Payments on Behalf of Clients" option.
Verifying Client Bank accounts
After you have enabled ACH Payments, the next step is to have your clients add their bank account by following the steps below:
Have the client login to Teachworks.
Click on Billing and then click on ACH Payments.
Click on the "Add Bank Account" link.
Enter your email address, first name and last name.
Select your bank institute from the list or use the "Search" field to find it.
Click on it and follow the prompt to verify your bank account.
NOTE: This form should only be completed by the account holder. The account holder must agree to the authorization terms displayed at the bottom of the form.
Processing ACH Payments
If a client has a bank account added to their profile, you will be able to view an ACH option on the payment form at the bottom of their invoices in your administrator or staff account.
The Bulk Invoice Payments will automatically use ACH for processing invoice payments if it has been added to a client’s profile.
NOTE: You can choose the payment order for customers that have both credit cards and a bank account associated with their profile, if using the Bulk Invoice Payments feature.
ACH Payment Status
Unlike credit card payments, which return a result in real time, ACH payments may take up to 5 days for a client's bank to process a payment and mark it as verified or declined.
Payments that are awaiting verification will appear in your Payments table with the status of "Pending".
If a payment is declined, you will receive an email notification that includes the transaction ID, which you can use to view it in your Stripe account. When this occurs, the "Pending" payment in your Teachworks account will be removed. If you would like to view the original attempt, you can navigate to the "Payment Attempts" page in your account, which stores the original attempt and the response received from Stripe for the declined payment.
Limitations
All new Stripe accounts will be limited to $6,000 USD a day and $10,000 USD a week for the first 4 months. The 4 months refers to your payment history i.e. card payments, ACH etc. To be eligible for an ACH limit increase, your account should have enough payment history - at least 3-4 months. If you would like to get the limit increased, please contact Stripe Support.