Shopmonkey Payments: Accepting ACH Payments

What is ACH?

ACH (Automated Clearing House) is an electronic payment network used in the United States for processing transactions between financial institutions. It allows for secure, efficient movement of funds between bank accounts, and is used for a wide variety of transactions, such as direct deposits, bill payments, and business-to-business payments.

The purpose of ACH is to facilitate electronic transfers, replacing paper-based methods like checks. Its purpose is to reduce the inefficiency of manual check processing and provide a secure method for processing large volumes of transactions.

Please Note: ACH payments are only available to shops that are located in the United States.

Enable ACH in Your Shop

To enable ACH, your shop must have Shopmonkey Payments enabled and be located in the US. ACH can be toggled on and off in your general settings.

Select the Settings icon in the bottom left corner of your screen.

Select Payments under the Settings section on the left-hand side.

Toggle on ACH.

Processing Payments with ACH

The ACH process is broken into several steps to ensure that funds are transferred securely and efficiently. These steps typically take between 4-6 business days, depending on the financial institutions involved.

Authorization: The customer provides permission for their bank account to be debited (or credited) through an ACH transaction
- The customer’s bank account details (account and routing numbers) can be saved on their customer page
Clearing: The payment request is sent through the ACH network, which routes the transaction between the customer’s bank and the business's bank
Settlement: Once the transaction clears, the funds are either debited or credited to the respective accounts. Settlement finalizes the transaction

Select ACH as the payment method when accepting payment in your shop. If a customer is paying online, they have the option to select ACH when it is enabled in your shop.

Transaction Fees & Limits

Transaction Fee: Shopmonkey applies a cost of 80 basis points (0.80%) per ACH transaction
Minimum Transaction Fee: There is a $5 minimum transaction fee, which applies regardless of transaction amount
Refunds: Refunds must be processed within 180 days of the transaction
Failure Fees: The fee for a failed or returned transaction is a fixed $4
Disputes: ACH transactions must be disputed within 60 days of the transaction

Transaction Failures

ACH Direct Debit transactions can fail after the payment is initiated through payment confirmation. These failures can occur for a number of reasons, such as:

Insufficient funds
Invalid account number
Customer disabling debits from their bank account

If a payment fails after funds have been made available in your Stripe balance, Stripe immediately removes funds from your Stripe account. In rare situations, Stripe might receive an ACH failure from the bank after a Payment Intent has transitioned to succeeded. In this case, Stripe will reverse the payment with one of the following reasons:

Insufficient funds
Incorrect account details
Bank cannot process

Stripe charges a failure fee of $4.

Check out our help article Shopmonkey Payments: ACH FAQs to learn more.