To use the ACH feature, make sure your bank — the bank where your organization has one or more accounts — is capable of the following:

• Originating and receiving an ACH file
• Disbursing the amounts to the appropriate employee or vendor accounts Debiting your account

If your bank meets these requirements, enter your bank's information in the Required Information section of the ACH Setup tab and leave the remaining fields blank. Depending on your organization's circumstances, you may need to complete additional fields.

This section explains key features of ACH setup in greater detail. Read it carefully before entering ACH setup information.

Required information — This section contains the originating institution's bank routing number followed by your organization's originator ID and name.

Separate Destination Bank — If the originating bank is sending the ACH file to another bank for processing, you must specify a separate destination bank by selecting Separate Destination Bank and entering the bank's routing number and name.

Create a Balanced File — To create a balanced ACH file, select this option on the ACH Setup tab and enter the routing number of the bank where your organization has the account to be debited. In addition, you must also enter the account number that will be debited. If you select Create a Balanced File and do not specify a routing number, the Routing Number field displays the routing number you entered in the Required Information section when you click OK.

If your organization requires you to send a balanced ACH file, select this option on the ACH Setup tab and enter the routing number of the bank where your organization has the account to be debited. In addition, you must also enter the account number that will be debited. If you select Create a Balanced File and do not specify a routing number, the Routing Number field displays the routing number you entered in the Required Information section when you click OK.

Sending the ACH file one or two days in advance — To send the ACH file up to two days in advance, select the option from the drop-down list at the bottom of the ACH Setup tab. Identifying when you want to send the file creates a prompt in the Payroll and Accounts Payable modules to adjust the ACH file date appropriately. This ensures that your ACH transmission is not rejected as some institutions will not accept ACH files (particularly balanced ACH files) that were created too far in advance.

For internal posting purposes, when processing or issuing checks, ACS sets the Effective Entry Date as the check date entered in the Payroll or Accounts Payable modules. For file transmission purposes, the File Creation Date is set to one or two days before the check date depending on your selection. For example, if you printed Friday's payroll checks on Monday, assigned a later check date of Friday, and indicated that you wanted to send the ACH file two days in advance, the Effective Date is set to Friday's date (the check date) and the creation date is Wednesday, two days after the processing date.

Fill with 9s — Some banks require that the file ends in all 9s even if the record count is divisible by 10. Selecting this option places all nines (9) at the end of the ACH file.