ACH (Automated Clearing House), sometimes referred to as electronic check processing, e-Check, or ECP, is an alternative to credit card payments. Money is electronically withdrawn from the shopper’s bank account and then deposited into the merchant’s own bank account. This payment method is supported for US transactions.

BlueSnap's Secured Payment Collector allows you to securely collect your shopper's sensitive banking details for ACH payments. This feature consists of discrete input fields that give you complete control over the look and feel of your checkout form while giving customers the seamless experience of staying on your website. Visit the guide for complete implementation details.

ACH is also supported in the BlueSnap Extended API .

Benefits

Boost your sales — Reach additional shoppers who do not use credit cards or other payment methods.
Eliminate paper checks — Enable customers to provide their payment information online.
Simplify repeat purchases — Store your shoppers' account information for easier repeat purchases, including multiple ACH accounts for a single shopper.
Lower transaction costs — ACH transaction costs are typically lower than credit card transaction costs.
Reduce failed payments — Unlike credit cards, checking accounts do not expire, and shoppers rarely switch banks.
Avoid credit card limits — Credit cards might impose limits that cause issues for B2B transactions and other payments for high-cost items.
Account validation — Ensure that the shopper's bank account exists and is in good standing before transaction processing.

Enable ECP Payments

To process ACH/ECP transactions, you must enable the ECP payment method on your BlueSnap account:

Log into the Merchant Portal, and go to Checkout Page > Payment Methods.
Select Show in the menu next to Electronic Check (ECP).
Select Submit.

ACH Requirements

Permission to debit shopper account

To debit a shopper account, you must obtain authorization and authentication from the shopper. To meet these requirements, collect the following information:

Whether the authorization is for single entry, recurring, or subsequent under a standing authorization.
Amount of entry or method of determining the amount.
Receiver’s name (merchant).
Account to be debited.
Date of authorization.
Instructions for how to revoke, including the time and manner for the shopper to revoke. If it's a single debit authorization, the shopper must afford the merchant reasonable opportunity to act on the revocation.

NACHA provides a Sample Direct Payment Authorization Form, but you can alternately develop a custom page that collects the required information and authorizes the debit with a digital signature.

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Important
Per NACHA operating rules, you must preserve the shopper's authorization for two years and provide that authorization to BlueSnap upon request.
If you obtain authorization for the debit with a digital signature, store a record of the authorization and a record of the process that you used to obtain the authorization from the shopper.

For additional details, refer to the NACHA website.

Copy of signed authorizations for all debits

You must provide the shopper with an electronic or hard copy of signed authorization for all debit entries that you make to the shopper's account. You can use the following samples for shopper authorizations that were electronically signed:

One-time authorization:
This email confirms you have authorized[merchant name] to debit your bank account for any amount owed for your recent purchase or services or goods from us through our website and subject to our terms and conditions.
Recurring-transaction authorization:
This email confirms you have authorized[merchant name] to store your bank account information and debit your bank account for recurring or periodic transactions from us through our website and subject to our terms and conditions. You may amend or cancel this authorization at any time by providing notice to us within 30 (thirty) days.

For authorizations to debit business accounts, you can use any authorization form to indicate your right to debit the account.

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Important
BlueSnap imposes an obligation for those not using our Hosted Page to certify that the appropriate compliant authorization is requested, received, and retained.

To learn more about ACH obligations, review the Nacha Operating Rules.

ACH Transaction Processing

The following steps describe how BlueSnap processes an ACH transaction:

When the transaction is placed, BlueSnap verifies that the shopper's bank account and routing numbers are valid.
- If the bank account is valid, BlueSnap creates an invoice in pending status, sends the transaction to the shopper's bank for processing, and sends a Charge Pending webhook.
- If the bank account is invalid or is not in good standing, BlueSnap returns a 10001 error in the API and does not send the transaction for processing.
Within 3 days, the bank will notify BlueSnap if the payment was rejected. If BlueSnap does not receive the notification within this timeframe, the invoice will be approved.
- If the transaction is approved, the shopper's account is debited for the transaction amount and BlueSnap sends a Charge webhook.
- If the transaction is rejected, the shopper's account is not debited and BlueSnap sends a Decline webhook.
BlueSnap updates the invoice status to reflect whether it was approved or rejected.

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Note
We recommend delivering your product only after you receive the approval.

The shopper has 60 days to dispute the debit on their account. If this occurs, BlueSnap will remove the funds from your account and send a Refund webhook, and the invoice status will update to refunded. Please note that some banks might allow a longer timeframe for reversals.

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Resolving payment rejections
Payments can be rejected for a variety of reasons, including insufficient funds. To resolve a payment rejection, you can provide an alternative payment method and resubmit the charge.

Sandbox Testing

You may use the following bank credentials to test various scenarios. For Approved and Declined transactions, please allow 15 minutes after initiating the request for the status changes.

Scenario	Routing Number	Account Number
Approved transaction	`998877665`	`223344556`
Declined transaction	`987654321`	`123456789`
Format validation error	`123456789`	`123456789`