Collecting Payments via ACH

What is ACH?

ACH is a bank-to-bank transaction (think Zelle or Venmo, except for businesses.)

In an ACH direct-payment transaction, the person sending the money sees an ACH debit appear in their bank account. This debit shows to whom the money was paid and for what amount. ACH transfers allow for safe money transfers online and is ranked as one of the most secure payment methods with a lower risk of fraud.

You can relax, because you can now take payments however you want, just let your customers choose the best option for their convenience.

ACH lets you accept payments from customers with a US bank account.

Can I accept ACH payments in Kickserv?

Yes!

You can accept ACH payments from your customers directly in Kickserv. There is no need for a third party application.

ACH is included in the following plans:

• Flex
• Lite
• Standard
• Business
• Premium

There is nothing you have to do to set up ACH payments in your Kickserv account. It's already included as a payment option.

A processing fee of 1% + $0.30 will be applied to all ACH transactions, which can be passed along to the customer (optional)

Applying ACH payments is easy

When you send the unpaid invoice to your customer, they can select either Pay with card or Pay with bank. If they select Pay with bank, they will be asked to enter their bank account information.

What if the customer's bank isn't found?

Currently, financial institutions that support connecting through Plaid are supported. This includes national banks (such as Wells Fargo or Bank of America) and many regional banks. We will be adding routing and account number support for all other financial institutions in the near future.

How long will it take to get paid?

With ACH Direct Debit, it can take time for funds to become available in your Stripe balance. The amount of time it takes for funds to become available is referred to as the settlement timing. The following tables describe the settlement timings for ACH Direct Debit payments that Stripe offers.

Initial payments made from select bank accounts that use temporary account numbers with Financial Connections might be subject to settlement delays.

Online payment fees - am I able to offset transaction fees?

Yes!

You can add Online Payment Fees to any job created after turning on Enable Online Payment Fee. This applies to Stripe card and ACH payment types, is completely optional, and can be added either as a percentage or a flat fee.

(Important: the same online payment fee will apply to both ACH and credit card transactions, which have different costs. So choose your fee wisely.)

ACH Microdeposits (updated 2/26/25)

In addition to ACH Direct Debit, you can now offer the option to set up a more traditional microdeposit payment method to your customers. The setup on the Kickserv side will remain the same, the bulk of the work will be controlled by the customer. The typical process without downtime will take about 7 business days.

Your customer will need to be proactive about this method otherwise the transaction will stay in the 'awaiting verification' stage until they address it.

What benefits are there?

• More secure with a manual-entry verification point at the customer-designated email, so your team doesn't have to deal with filling anything out
• Much wider bank access. Instead of being limited to just the major institutions, your customers can hook up whatever account they want, including smaller regional banks and credit unions.

What your customers see:

To take advantage of this alternative ACH method, your customer will enter their email, and then click the link labeled 'Enter bank details manually instead'. It's found below the bank shortcut tiles. That will open the following screen (minus the test mode bit) for them:

From there the form is self-explanatory. Submitting this form will prompt an option to save that data. It's not mandatory and has no effect on the immediate transaction. They can skip past it if they want and continue to the checkout. That will look like this:

Tapping 'Back to Kickserv' will bring up the filled out checkout form:

As noted on the form, your customers will be informed that Stripe will deposit a single cent in their account in 1-2 business days. This is the microdeposit itself. They will also receive an email at the address they entered earlier with instructions on how to verify that deposit. The communications will look something like this:

Opening the verification email will bring up a set of instructions and a link to Stripe which will lead to this:

All they have to do at this point is enter the code and the connection will be complete in 3-5 business days.

What this looks like for you:

You'll be able to check the verification status in the logged payment entries on the invoice:

The status will update and the money will transfer to your company's Stripe account when your customer has completed these steps.

Thank you for reading, and please reach out to our Success team with any questions.