Billing Tree ACH Payments - Quick Tour

This page is a quick tour of the steps involved to use the ACH functionality of the module, covering:

The initial setup for ACH payments

How to do a Single Payment

How to schedule a recurring payment

How to setup your Electronic File Transfer(EFT) Notices

How to reconcile your ACH History

For more detailed information and instructions, see the Help topic, " Billing Tree ACH Payments - Step by Step".

Billing Tree ACH Setup

There are two preliminary steps to complete before being able to access and use the ACH interface.

You require licensing from Comtech Systems Inc. to enable the Billing Tree Module for your site. For pricing information and acquisition, please contact us at 250-391-0466 or email sales@collect.org.

You require an active ACHNow account with Billing Tree. They will provide you with all the login credentials necessary for the module to connect to the ACH Gateway automatically. You may also use your login credentials for direct/external access to the Gateway via your Internet browser.

The url is entered into the "Server" field on the Setup screen, along with a UserID and Password.

ACH Payments Setup

Other fields entered in this window are described in detail in the section called "SET ACH LOGIN".

Single ACH Transaction

Click the ACH button in the lower right corner of the Debtor screen to access the ACH Payment Tasks window, then click the 'Run a Transaction' to open the Single ACH Transaction window.

Select the ACH button

If this is the first time you are accessing this screen, after signing into Collect!, you will be prompted to enter your ACH UserID and Password.

Billing Tree ACH Password

Once you enter your UserID and Password, they stay in effect until you sign out of Collect!.

If you have entered a system-wide Password into the ACH Payments Setup screen, you will not be prompted to enter a Password unless you are in any of User Levels 1, 10 or 99.

Click the ACH button on the Debtor screen to access the ACH Payment Tasks menu.

ACH Payment Tasks

Click RUN A TRANSACTION to open the Single ACH Transaction window.

Single ACH Transaction

Some of the fields will be auto-filled for you on the screen. Banking information is stored in the Debtor Detail tab. If you already have banking information for this debtor correctly entered into the right fields in the Detail tab, you should see the banking fields also auto-fill with data.

If you wish to charge a convenience fee, you must have enabled ACH convenience fees in your ACH Setup screen and also for the individual Clients in the Advanced Settings screen.

Client Settings

If enabled, you will be able to check the Apply Fee box and the designated fee amount will auto-populate.

The Apply Fee check-box and Fee amount field both remain appear greyed out if the convenience fee is not enabled.

You may then fill in other details such as save the banking and address information to the Debtor or Cosigner and submit the payment.

Ready to Submit Single ACH Transaction

Collect! then posts the payment, and fee if applicable.

ACH Transactions Posted

Single ACH payments are submitted to Billing Tree immediately. Any transactions that go NSF will be reversed in Collect! when you run Reconcile ACH History.

Recurring ACH Payments

Click the ACH button in the lower right of the Debtor screen to enter the ACH Payment Tasks menu, then click 'Recurring Payments'.

Select the ACH button

If this is the first time you are accessing this screen, after signing into Collect!, you will be prompted to enter your ACH UserID and Password.

Billing Tree ACH Password

Once you enter your UserID and Password, they stay in effect until you sign out of Collect!.

If you have entered your Password into the ACH Payments Setup window, you will not be prompted to enter a Password. Only User Levels 1, 10 and 99 will see the Password prompt.

ACH Payment Tasks

Recurring ACH Payments

If you wish to charge a convenience fee, you must have enabled ACH convenience fees in your ACH Setup screen and also for the individual Clients in the Advanced Settings screen.

Client Settings

It is the above preliminary setup steps that enable and control ability and amount to be charged per transaction. Until you check the Apply Fee box, the Fee amount remains greyed out.

If the fee is not allowed at all or disallowed for certain clients, the Fee and Apply Fee fields will be read-only/greyed out.

You can fill in other details as needed, save the banking and address information to the Debtor or Cosigner and submit the payment.

Ready to Submit a Recurring ACH Schedule

Collect! posts the payment transactions with Payment Dates entered according to the schedule you set up. The Posting Dates are filled with the date you initiated the recurring ACH arrangement UNLESS you check the ACH Setup Field called "Posted date blank on recurring". This feature will leave the posted date with no entry until the date the transaction is reconciled.

The whole post-dated arrangement is then posted in the Transaction tab on the Debtor account. This is strictly an ACH recurring arrangement aspect. By comparison, Recurring Credit Card arrangements are not stored in Collect! and do NOT appear in the Transaction tab until the payment comes due and has been processed by Billing Tree.

ACH Transaction Schedule Posted

Recurring ACH payments are not finalized in Collect! until you run Reconcile ACH History.

Collect! posts a Promise contact to keep track of the payment schedule.

Promise Contact for Recurring ACH Payments

Collect! automatically sets up a Review Contact to remind you of the end of the payment schedule.

Review Contact for Recurring ACH Payments

You can also schedule EFT notices to go out reminding the Debtor of the next payment due and a fixed schedule of 'X' days prior to each payment coming due.

EFT Notices and Reviews

EFT Notices

In compliance with EFT requirements, the Billing Tree Module enables you to automatically schedule authorization letters and EFT notices for recurring credit card and recurring ACH payments. You can access this setup screen from the Billing Tree Setup menu.

EFT Notices Setup

It is your responsibility to ensure that any letters you send to debtors are compliant in format and content with legislation and regulations in your region.

When you submit a recurring ACH payment schedule, Collect! will automatically schedule letters and Review Contact events according to your setup and arrangement parameters.

EFT Notices and Reviews

View EFT Notices

Reconcile ACH History

The Reconcile ACH History function uploads payments which have now become currently due to the ACH Gateway. It is a batch process that will also download any new NSFs/chargebacks, as well as any payments a debtor may have made on their own directly at the Billing Tree portal that your office is as yet unaware of.

You can Reconcile ACH History once per day or multiple times as you wish. The system keeps track of reported payments and will not duplicate a transactions which has already been posted.

If you have set the check-box in ACH Setup for 'Posted date blank on recurring', this download process is what will write the Posted Date into your processed item in the Transaction Tab.

Reconcile ACH History

Collect! displays a summary screen to let you know what actions were taken, how many of each kind of transaction was uploaded and/or downloaded. It also writes an exception file if any transactions cannot be matched.

Reconcile ACH Summary of Results

It also writes a detailed log into the path "CV11\bin\BillingTree\ACH\achnow.txt".

If unmatched returns are downloaded, you will find the exception reports located in the folder located via the path CV11\bin\BillingTree\ACH.