DIRECT PAYMENTS

(ACH TRANSFER MODULE)

The Direct Payment module to the Windows Utility Billing software is a separate program which runs in the WINUB program. It is an optional module which may be purchased from Banyon Data Systems, Inc. Please note that the term ACH (Automatic Clearing House) and DP (Direct Payments) are used interchangeably. They both refer to the same context: WinUB Direct Payments.

Direct Payments contain these main parts:

- Gathering Information

- Setup

- Routine DP Cycle

- Transaction Reversal (optional)

- Accounts Maintenance

Gathering Information

Step 1 - Customer Accounts

You will need the following information for each customer ACH account record:

- Customer Bank Name

- Customer Bank Routing ID

- Customer Bank Account Number

- Customer Account is Checking or Savings.

Step 2 - Company Accounts

You will need the following information for your company ACH account record

- Employer Federal Identification Number

- Company Bank Name

- Routing Number for Company Bank

Step 3 - Transfer Method

There are three ways you can transfer billing data to your bank for Direct Withdrawal: on printed paper, by diskette, or by modem. If your bank allows transfer by modem, check for modem and modem software compatibility.

Setup

The Initial Setup involves four main steps: Setup Options, Account ACH Info Setup, Setup Company Account, Create Prenote File, and Transfer Prenote File.

Setup Options

In order to use the Direct Payment Module you will need to Right Click on the Account Screen and select the Setup menu item and then Setup Options menu item.

Then you will need to click on the Features tab and check the Use Direct Payment box. Also, if desired, you need to check the Auto-load Direct Payments box.

Setup Customer Accounts

You need to setup an ACH Account Record for each billing account participating in Automatic Payment. You will need the customer’s account information.

To setup an ACH account, at the Account Screen you must access the appropriate account or customer. Then click on the MISC tab and click to check the Direct Payment.

Then click on the Direct Pay Info Tab and access the Account's ACH window.

If the Account exists, the program will copy over the necessary information already available from the Utility Billing Accounts database such as Account Number, and Billing Name.

Click on the Customer's Bank Name cell and begin to enter the gathered information provided by the customer.

Customer Bank Name: Available 30 character field. Used for information purpose only. Not used in Transfer File.

Routing Number: Nine digit field identifying the customer’s Bank Routing Number. Must fill in all nine digits. Required for transferring.

Bank Account Number: Enter customer’s bank account number at Bank ID mentioned above. Dashes (-) and spaces are permissible.

Checking or Savings: Enter whether the customer's direct payment is to be taken from checking or savings account.

% or Amount of Remaining: Enter the flat amount or a percentage of the total Billing Amount to be transferred automatically each time. The default is 100.00 percent.

Amount to be Withdrawn: Transferring Amount as computed by the specified % or Amount and the %? fields.

YOU CAN ALSO ACCESS AN ACCOUNTS ACH INFORMATION BY RIGHT CLICKING ON THE ACCOUNT SCREEN AND THEN CLICK ON SETUP AND THEN CLICK ON ACCOUNT ACH SETUP
NOTE:

You can split the bill amount to be paid from more than one account. Enter the other accounts following the first on the subsequent rows in the window using the same format. The total Bill Amount is applied (by fraction or whole depending on the way you setup) to the bank accounts in the order they appear - first account first. Suppose you have two accounts. The first one is setup to take 60% of the total Bill Amount. The second is 40% of the “total”. Then they should have the following information in these columns:

Before entering your % or amount you must first select what type of entry it is. So, click on the drop-down arrow next to the field and select whether it will be a % type or currency type entry.

Account No. % or Amount of Remaining

account #1 60.00

account #2 100.00

The second account show 100% ? What this says is that it takes 100% of the “rest“ of the bill!

Here is another example. Let the first account take a flat amount of $20.00, no mater how much the bill is. The second takes the rest of the bill. Then you should set them up as follow:

Account No. % or Amount of Remaining

account #1 20.00

account #2 100.00

What if the bill is less than $20.00 you ask? In this case, the first account takes whatever the bill amount is. Whereas the second account does not pay at all.

To exit the Bank Information window, Click on the X box in the upper right hand corner of the window.

Setup Company Account

You will need to provide information regarding your organization's bank account and destination of transfer files, select what printer to use for reports and select the location of your communication program and modem (optional).

To do this, you must right click on the Account Screen and then select the Transfer menu option. Then click on the Direct Payment Transfer menu option. If it is found by the system that there is missing information on an Account or Customer your system will warn you. To correct, go back to the account and make the required entries.

If all cells have been entered, then you may select the Setup Main ACH Account and enter your entity's Routing ID and ACH Routing Name, Account #, and path for where the Direct Payment file should be sent and give it a name. Also, select the printer to be used to print the ACH Report and if necessary enter the Name of the Modem software if transferring ACH electronically

Click on the binoculars icon in the lower right hand corner of the window to search for the file name.

On the following page are the fields to be entered. However, Banyon Data Systems wants you to know that the information to be entered here varies from Bank to Bank. Consult your Bank personnel for appropriate entries. All fields are common ACH terms and the Bank will be able to tell your organization what to enter.

ROUTING ID'S

Immediate Orgin:

Immediate Destination:

Company:

Originating DFI:

Create Prenote File

Before your bank can withdraw money out of your customers’ bank accounts, it needs to verify if the provided information about the ACH accounts are correct. Your part is to notify the bank of these new accounts it needs to verify. This process is called Prenotification.

You are required to provide the bank a Prenote File for all new ACH accounts. To create this file, at the ACH Transfer screen, click on the PreNote All tab and all employees will be checked. Then click on the Send All tab to select all employees. This you should do the first time you Prenote your customers. Thereafter you can select only new Direct Pay customers.

Then, select the transfer to disk or printer icon at the lower right of the screen. This process will do some preliminary checking to see if all required info was given. The validity (existence) of the information (Bank IDs, Account Numbers) will be verified by your bank.

After a Prenote File is created, it is given a batch number unique for the day. The first batch is 1.

The Transfer amount is always zero for a Prenote File.

NOTE: You can create as many as 38 Transfer Files on a given day. If you can delete some of the files on the same day, you can create over 38 files. All files created on the say day share a similar name - only the Batch Name part is different. This is discussed in the Transfer File section of this document.

If you have setup, during Load Payments process, to have the Transfer File copied to disk automatically, the program will ask you to enter the Drive Letter for the diskette. After the file has been copied, press the Enter key to continue. The program will instruct you how to label the diskette.

If you have setup to print the Transfer File automatically, the program will send the Transfer Information to the printer.

Transfer Prenote File

You need to transfer the Prenote File to your bank for verification of new ACH accounts. You can print the data, or copy to diskette, or send directly by modem. Check with your bank for preferred method or methods of transferring.

Print a Transfer File

For testing purpose, let us print the transfer file once to see how it looks and maybe save it for reference. Click on the printer icon and print the file information to be transferred.

You can also edit, with a text editing program, the *.txt file for transfer and view it their also.

Transfer File to Diskette

You can also send a diskette containing the Transfer File to your bank instead of a printed report. Click on the diskette icon in the lower right portion of the screen, next to the printer icon. Similarly the program will ask for your confirmation before copying the file to diskette.

The Transfer File on the diskette is renamed to ACH.TXT.

NOTE: Do not attempt to copy the file to your diskette by means other than through this method. The file format used through the menu is ACH standard. Other format may get rejected by your bank.

Transfer by Modem

Click on the phone icon next to the diskette and printer icon. Similarly the program will ask for your confirmation before switching control to your modem software.

The program will ask for the location of your software on the hard drive. Given the existing location, the program will then transfer control to your modem software. Naturally, you should already be familiar with the modem software you are using. Again the success of transfer depends on the compatibility between modems and modem software.

After exiting your modem software, the Direct Payment program will regain control.

During the Pre-notification process, you may find that it takes more than the first trial to get every ACH account straighten out. Some accounts may contain erroneous information and need to be corrected and go though the Pre-notification process again.

GOOD JOB. You have now completed the Initial Setup Process.

Routine Direct Payment Cycle.

Only after the Prenotification process, an ACH account is allowed to have money withdrawn automatically. The process of creating the Transfer File with actual Billing Amounts is almost exactly the same as of the Initial Setup: Load Payments, Edit Payments, Transfer Payments. This process is referred to as a Routine DP Cycle.

Step 1 - Load Payments

To start, you calculate your bills and then right click and go to the Transfer Menu option and click on Direct Payment Transfer. Then click on the Select All for Transfer tab.

Next, you need to Load Payment Data for each Billing Period you want your customers to pay for. All the fields should have been filled in with the correct information during the Prenotification process. You need to enter the Dates by which the program can prompt you a list of Bill Groups to select for transfer and also the Effective Date.

Again the Effective Date is most important as for it is used to determine when the actual account transfer between banks will take place.

NOTE:

You may have opted to have the system auto-load the amounts based on the billed dollar amount. This would have been done on the Feature tab of the Setup Options menu as discussed at the beginning of this document.

If not using the auto-load feature, click on the Load Payments tab start the Loading process. The program will load Billing Amounts for all ACH customers found in these selected Bill Groups.

Step 2 - Edit Payments

The Load Payments process only gathers payment information (billing amounts). You may want to view/edit the ACH records as they appear on the screen before you transfer.

Add an account for prenotification

If you need to “prenotify” an ACH account again because of the changes in the account information, refer to the Accounts Maintenance and Update Existing ACH Accounts section of this document.

Removing an account from the transfer list

If you do not want to include a certain ACH account in the current batch of transfer, simply uncheck the box on the account record list.

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Step 3 - Transfer Payments

Once the Billing Information has been loaded and verified for correctness as in steps 1 & 2,

you need to transfer the information to your bank. This process requires the creating of the Transfer File and then the actual transferring of the file.

To create a Transfer File, Click on the printer, diskette or phone icon, depending on your mode of transfer being used. The program will ask for your confirmation before creating.

The system will notify you of the amount and the file location and name.

Step 4 - Receipt Transfer

Once the Transfer File has been sent, the program automatically creates a receipt batch for you with the direct payment entries. Right click on the Account Screen and click on Receipt Entry and find the batch name and date and Print, Edit and Post as you would for a normal receipt batch.

You now completed the Routine Direct Payment Cycle.

Accounts Maintenance

The Accounts Maintenance Process involves the following common tasks: add new ACH accounts, delete existing ACH accounts, change/update existing ACH accounts.

Add New ACH accounts

You need to do prenote on new ACH accounts. On the ACH screen click on those accounts which will be prenoted. Put a check in the box under the Prenote Only column.Once the prenote is successful, remove all prenotes.

Delete Existing ACH Accounts

To temporarily turn off the ACH status for an account, remove the check in the box for that account on the ACH screen or remove the check on the Direct Payment box on the Accounts MISC tab accessed through the Account Screen.

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Update Existing ACH Accounts

If account information is changed, a prenote will need to be sent to your bank to verify the changes. Use the ACH screen and the transfer list find the one that has been changed and make the necessary corrections. You may also go to the Account screen, find the account and right click and click on Setup and then on Account ACH Setup.

File Maintenance

As time goes on, there will be more and more Transfer Files. You will notice this each time you go through the File Transfer process - the menu will be full of Transfer Files. They also take up disk space. Thus you may want to remove them.

The Transaction File Maintenance option under Utilities allows you to delete unwanted Transfer Files. It also allows you to backup and restore old Transfer Files to and from diskette.