Reconcile ACH History

The Reconcile ACH History function finalizes recurring ACH Module transaction in Collect! by applying the Posting Date for those transactions which Billing Tree has now processed. Prior to this process, recurring transactions appear in the Transaction tab with a Payment Date reflecting the intended due dates and either the Posted Dates filled and the original arrangement setup date OR the Posted Dates are blank, depending on how you set you ACH Setup preference for "Posted date blank on recurring".

Reconciliation of the ACH transactions is what triggers the update of the Posting Date to be finalized if the transaction cleared. It can be run as a batch process via the path " Daily Administration\ Payments and Charges\Reconcile ACH History" OR Users of CV11.6.2.7 and higher who are also licensed for the Scheduler Module now have an enhanced automation with the addition of the Reconcile process being added to the Scheduler Task list of options. You may run this process offline and unattended. Contact us at sales@collect.org for module pricing.

If your debtors prefer to go themselves to the Billing Tree ACH Gateway to enter their payment rather than give their personal banking information out over the phone, this is an option. Debtors must use their Collect! file number as their account number when entering the payment. This is now an external Billing Tree payment and when they have processed it, you will receive the posting auto-applied in Collect! with your next Reconcile ACH History batch run.

If a debtor incorrectly enters their file number or uses any other type of account number when they make the payment, then the transaction will appear in an Unmatched Externals report which can be used to help track/trace unmatched payments.

If Billing Tree returns unmatched transactions, Collect! stores the information in a file in the path "CV11\bin\BillingTree\ACH" with the date it was received as part of the file name.

Per Session Logins

If you intend to use more than one set of login credentials for you company, please be aware that you must run a reconcile for EACH UserID. Transactions are stored according to the UserID that posts them.

NSF Payments

When you reconcile ACH history, Collect! posts a reversal for any payments that are returned as NSF. The convenience fee payment is also reversed. If you switched ON "NSF cancels recurring payments" in the ACH Payments Setup screen, Collect! also removes all details of the recurring ACH payment schedule from the account, including post-dated transactions and EFT notices.

Unmatched Returns

When you reconcile ACH history, Collect! logs all returns that cannot be matched to accounts in your database. You can find these unmatched returns in the folder along the path CV11\bin\BillingTree\ACH. Each reconcile with unmatched returns has its own csv log file with a unique name composed of the date and time.

For example, "UnmatchedExternals-150519-145009.csv."

Unmatched returns may be caused by changing a File Number in Collect! or an incorrect file number entered by the debtor making an external payment directly on the Billing Tree portal. This causes the reconcile process to fail to match the account. Another cause may modifying the amount after processing, such as splitting of a payment across a group of accounts. If the reconciliation cannot match the amount of the payment, it will be rejected as a reversal. We recommend that Unmatched returns be reviewed with each process and to manage by manual update any which cannot be electronically applied by the module.

Billing Tree also returns any corrections the bank may report after a successful submission. Corrections that cannot be matched to an account in your database may also be found in the Unmatched Returns CSV file located in the file path CV11\bin\BillingTree\ACH.

If your established file structure for Collect! is not within primary folder called "CV11", then your path to the Billing Tree exception reports would follow the naming convention "folder name\bin\BillingTree\ACH" where "folder name" is the name of the main folder Collect! software and data sub-folders are stored in.

Unmatched Externals

When you reconcile ACH history, Collect! logs all externally posted ACH payments that cannot be matched to accounts in your database. An Unmatched External would be a debtor payment made by the debtor himself on the Billing Tree portal rather than verbally with a collector using the module in your office. You can find these unmatched externals in the same report that logs to the path "CV11\bin\Billing Tree\ACH".

Each reconcile with unmatched externals has its own CSV log file with a unique name composed of the date and time. For example, "UnmatchedExternals-150519-145903.csv."

Unmatched externals are ACH payments posted at the Billing Tree site but not matched in Collect!. Perhaps they were posted without the proper File Number. Perhaps the Debtor simply does not exist in your database.

In any case, you can examine the results in the unmatched externals CSV to resolve any issues, doing whatever is necessary to process these payments in Collect!.

The Billing Tree Module also ships with import maps that you can use to process the unmatched externals using Collect!'s Import/Export module. This still requires that you make whatever additions or corrections are necessary to match the externally posted payments to the correct Debtor.

If your established file structure for Collect! is not within primary folder called "CV11", then your path to the Billing Tree exception reports would follow the naming convention "folder name\bin\BillingTree\ACH" where "folder name" is the name of the main folder Collect! software and data sub-folders are stored in.

Billing Tree Corrections

Billing Tree also returns any corrections the bank may report after a successful submission. For instance, if the bank account number was not correct, but the payment was processed successfully. Corrections that cannot be matched to an account in your database may also be found in the Unmatched CSV.

When you reconcile ACH history, and a correction matches a File Number in Collect!, then a Review contact is created on the Debtor. The Description says "Billing Tree Correction" with the Code and the short explanation of the correction reported by Billing Tree.

As mentioned above, corrections that cannot be matched to accounts in your database are logged to the Unmatched Externals located in a csv file found via the path CV11\bin\BillingTree\ACH.

Processing Summary

When you Reconcile ACH History, Collect! creates a Processing Summary PDF containing the number of transactions successfully processed during the reconcile. You can find these files in the sub-folder named "CV11\bin\BillingTree\ACH". Each reconcile has its own uniquely named PDF summary file. For example, "ProcessingSummary-150519-153312.csv." This file contains the number of transactions successfully processed and the total dollar value. The Debit is the total number of ACH payments withdrawn and the Credit is the amount deposited to your agency's account. There is also a Batch ID, Date and Time for your reference.

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

See Also

- Billing Tree Topics