Online ACH Payments
Accept bank-account (ACH) payments from your customers — the same "get paid" job as cards, on a lower-cost rail.
Accept payments directly from a customer's bank account over the ACH (Automated Clearing House) network. It's the same job as an online card payment — a customer pays you for goods or services — on a lower-cost rail. Use it at checkout, on an invoice, or on a payment link, wherever you'd otherwise take a card.
ACH is a tender type on the same payment API you already use for cards: set tenderType to ACH, pass the customer's bank account, and track it to settlement. If you've integrated Sale, you're most of the way there.
Accepting a payment vs. managing your own moneyThis section is for accepting an ACH/bank payment from a customer (accounts receivable for a merchant). Moving money already inside your program — funding a Passport Account, disbursing, or pulling funds as a treasury operation — is a different job on a different platform. See Treasury → Collections.
How ACH payments work
- Collect bank details: Your customer provides their routing number, account number, and account type (checking or savings), plus authorization to debit their account.
- Submit the payment: You send the payment to the API with
tenderType: ACHand the ACH entry class that matches how you obtained authorization. - Track to settlement: Unlike a card authorization, an ACH payment isn't approved instantly by an issuer. It starts as
PendingACHand settles (or returns) over the following business days.
Before you begin
- A fully underwritten merchant account enabled for ACH acceptance. Contact PCE Integration Support to confirm ACH is turned on for your
merchantId. - A valid x-api-key for authentication.
- A record of the customer's authorization to debit their account (see entry class below).
Features & capabilities
- Accepting a payment
- Accept an ACH Payment: Charge a customer's bank account in a single call (
tenderType: ACH), set the SEC entry class, and track it to settlement — the ACH counterpart to Sale.
- Accept an ACH Payment: Charge a customer's bank account in a single call (
- Reconciliation & monitoring
- ACH Activity & ACH Returns: Monitor pending, settled, and returned ACH payments.
PENDING-PUBLISHConfirm the exact ACH Activity / ACH Returns report slugs (and whether they're standalone pages or sections of Reports & Reconciliation) before publish, and update the anchor above.
ACH entry class (SEC codes)
ACH requires an entry class (entryClass) that reflects how you obtained the customer's authorization. Set it on every ACH payment.
| Entry class | Use it when |
|---|---|
PPD | Consumer authorization (signed or online), e.g. a customer paying an invoice from a personal account. |
WEB | Consumer authorization captured over the internet or a mobile app. |
TEL | Consumer authorization captured over the phone. |
CCD | Business-to-business authorization from a corporate account. |
CTX | Corporate payment carrying structured addenda (remittance) data. |
Next steps
See also
- Accept an ACH Payment: the ACH action page
- Sale: the card counterpart on the same API
- Reports & Reconciliation: ACH Activity and ACH Returns
- Treasury → Collections: managing money already in your program (a different job)
Updated about 17 hours ago