Getting Started with Same Day ACH Payouts for Marketplaces

Same Day ACH for crediting bank accounts entered the payments landscape in September of 2016. Since this release, our team has helped marketplaces and platforms go live with speedier payouts, enabled by Same Day ACH.

In this blog post, we’ll talk about the value of Same Day ACH payouts, the logistics behind them, and how others have integrated this value-add into their payments process.

First, we’ll cover the details of Same Day ACH for credits, which was Phase One of NACHA’s initiative to introduce faster ACH payments into the marketplace.

An overview of Same Day ACH for credits

With the first phase of Same Day ACH, transactions can process in as little as one business day when CREDITING a bank account.

The increased processing speed is especially exciting to marketplaces and platforms that pay out to vendors, sellers, or service providers frequently, and recipients can now receive payments the same business day they’re initiated. We’ll go into more detail on the processing and settlement times for ACH payments below.

How businesses find value with Same Day ACH payouts

In most business cases, faster is better and the same holds true when delivering payouts.

When we first launched Same Day ACH Credits as part of our Access API, we received plenty of excited feedback. Since then, we’ve seen a variety of businesses go-live with Same Day ACH credits to improve efficiencies in their payments process. With Same Day ACH, the business gets better control over cash flow, while the end-user gets access to their funds more readily.

For example, some businesses use our Access API + Same Day ACH to deliver speedy payouts once someone has successfully sold an item within their marketplace. The seller lists an item, someone buys it, and the marketplace can then deliver a better user experience because the seller will receive their payout in as little as one day.

Another example is Nomad Health, an online staffing platform connecting doctors or medical facilities with clinicians as needed. Nomad needed a payments partner that would allow for quality cash flow management while providing a delightful customer experience. Same Day ACH allowed Nomad Health to capitalize on both of these opportunities.

Results:

• Nomad Health integrated Same Day ACH payouts into its existing Dwolla integration in as little as 4 hours with one developer
• Doctors now receive payments in as little as the same day, several days faster than traditional temporarily staffed clinicians receive payment

Read the Full Nomad Health and Same Day ACH case study.

How to Integrate Same Day ACH Payouts

A common misconception about integrating new technology or functionality is that it’s going to demand a lot of valuable developer time. Let me stop you right there. With Same Day ACH for payouts, it’ll likely take less than a day for your developers to enable Same Day within your existing Dwolla integration — and the payoff could easily exceed the time commitment once you’re up and running.

Here are the details on how to programmatically send ACH payouts same day.

Additionally, when integrating Dwolla’s Access API equipped with Same Day credits, it’s important to understand the cutoff times for submitting transactions. When a transfer is initiated before 12 PM Central Time on a business day, it’ll process and funds will be available the same day.However, if a transfer is initiated after this 12 PM CT cut-off time, it’ll process the following business day — still markedly quicker than the timing of a transfer when paying out with standard ACH.

As new efficiencies in ACH enter the market, we’ll continue to bring added functionality to the Access API. To learn more about Same Day ACH and how to get started with an integration, reach out.

Originally published at www.dwolla.com on June 1, 2017.