Today we're very excited to talk about one of our newest features in our most recent BQE CORE update, which literally just took place over the weekend. 😁 CORE ACH ePayments is now available and we couldn't be happier to share the news with you. Keep reading to learn all about this feature and the value it brings to your business and clients.
Expanding ePayment Options in CORE
Electronic Fund Transfers (EFTs) are steadily becoming the preferred method for businesses to accept payments from their customers. Popular forms of these online payments include credit card transactions and ACH transfers. Previously, CORE introduced the ability for businesses to accept credit card payments that allowed customers to pay their balances using borrowed credits from credit card companies. CORE has now expanded the available online payment options to include Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfer payments. ACH transfer payments are electronic payments that pull funds directly from a specified bank account instead of allowing a credit card company to act as the middle person. They are, however, supported for businesses based in the United States only. When compared to credit card payments, the main benefit of ACH transfers is the reduced cost of transaction fees. Providing more payment options to your customers ensures that your business can conveniently cater to all of their different payment preferences.
Getting Started with ACH Transfers in CORE
BQE has partnered with Stripe to help us facilitate ACH payment transactions.
Stripe Conducts the ACH Transfer
Stripe is another third-party company that securely conducts the payment transfer between bank accounts. When creating a Stripe account, your business must provide a verified bank account and authorize BQE CORE to facilitate payments to and from this account. ACH payments conducted through Stripe can take up to 5 business days to process a successful or failed payment.
ACH payments on Stripe cost 0.80%, capped at $5, with no monthly fees or verification fees. [BQE does not charge any extra fees for using ACH payments in CORE.]
Configuring ACH Transfer Payment Account in Global Settings
In order to set up your business for accepting ACH transfer payments, CORE uses a configuration wizard in Global Settings > ePayments to help you gather and organize the information from Stripe to set up an ACH online payment account. Check out CORE Help for details on setting up the online payment accounts.
After configuring your Stripe account, you can specify a bank account, expense account, and other account details. You can also decide if you’d like to charge the Stripe processing fee to your clients or not. Manage this payment account or add more payment accounts using the Add Payment Account option.
Monitoring ACH Transfer Payments within CORE
After you’ve finished configuring a payment account for ACH payments, you may now begin associating invoices with it. To do so, go to the Invoices screen and open the invoice details to check the option to allow online payments on that invoice and select an online payment account. The status of ACH transfer payments can be tracked in the Invoices list view using the ePayment Status column. This column will specify if an ACH payment is in progress or has been completed/rejected.
After an ACH payment has been completed, CORE automatically creates a reconciled payment entry in the Payments screen. CORE also automatically creates a deposit to the associated bank account that’s visible in the Deposits screen.
In the event that an ACH payment is not successful, you will receive a notification in CORE and the ePayment status of the associated invoice will be updated. You can see this updated ePayment status reflected in the Invoices list view. A payment entry and deposit will not be created for this.
What Your Client Sees
After enabling online payments for your invoices, COREsends your clients to the ePayment Portal where they are able to see and pay their invoices electronically. The invoice details are specified for them on this portal and they are presented with the options to pay the invoice through credit card or an ACH payment.
When your clients log in and connect their bank accounts, they can authorize a payment by entering their email on the invoice and checking the disclaimer. After the online payments are validated by Stripe, CORE reflects the ePayments status accordingly. It also processes relevant notifications and delivers them to the CORE user who creates the invoices as well as the project managers.
Are you ready to start using CORE ACH ePayments? For additional help, please visit CORE Help Center or contact our Support team.
