business banking ach prefunding webcast april delac intuit financial services university published...

Business BankingACH Prefunding Webcast

April DeLacIntuit Financial Services University

Published December 2011

p 2Business Banking ACH Prefunding webcast

© 2011 Intuit Financial Services. Confidential and Proprietary

Objectives

Main Objective: Support businesses using the ACH Prefunding feature in Business Banking.

By the end of this training, you will be able to:

• Describe to a customer the purpose and basics of prefunding an ACH file

• Set up your ACH Prefunding service in the FI Admin Platform

• Set up a customer with ACH Prefunding

• Walk a customer through the ACH Prefunding steps

• Process ACH prefunding batches

Note: Knowledge of the ACH module in Business Banking is a prerequisite for this training.

Prefunding Basics



ACH Prefunding - The Basics



ACH Prefunding - Decisions

Determining Method for Securing Funds

Your financial institution must determine how it will secure funds for prefunding required companies.

Here are two suggestions:

1. Manually debit the business user’s account and credit an FI funding account on your host system, or

2. Place a hold on the business user’s account on your host system to guarantee funds availability at the time of processing.

Defining how your financial institution will secure funds helps determine whether to use an FI account or the customer’s account to offset the prefunding credit batches.

Prefunding Set Up



Once prefunding is implemented, the ACH section of Policies is modified to include an “ACH Prefunding Cutoff Lead Time”.

• The ACH Prefunding Cutoff Lead Time is an earlier cutoff time than the main ACH Cutoff Time—this impacts all ACH Prefunding batches. For example, if the ACH Cutoff Time is 2:00 pm and the ACH Prefunding Cutoff Lead Time is set to 30 minutes, the ACH Prefunding Cutoff Time will be 1:30 pm.

• The dropdown will contain the following selections in ascending order:

[None], 30 mins, 60 mins, 90 mins, 120 mins, 150 mins, 180 mins.

Maintenance – Policies



If your financial institution will transfer funds from the customer's account to an FI Funding Account, you must set up your FI Funding Account.

Click the FI Prefunding Account Setup link to enter the FI Funding Account information. This will be used as the offset account for companies’ credit batches when approved from the new Pending Prefunding Batches screen (covered later).

Maintenance – Policies

Fields (all are mandatory):Account Number: up to 17 alphameric charactersAccount Name: up to 22 alphameric charactersRouting Number: prefills with your ACH ABA number, but can be edited.Account Type: select Checking or General Ledger



FI Administrator Profile Maintenance

To grant access to the proper administrators that will approve the prefunding batches, your Super User must go to the FI Administrator Profile Maintenance screen and check the Pending Prefunding Batches box.

This entitlement is separate from “Process ACH Files”, thus allowing your financial institution to have someone from your credit analysis or loan department make the decisions on your prefunding batches.



Workflow Email Routing

Enter up to 5 email addresses into “ACH Prefunding Pending Submission” field. These administrators get an email notice when a prefunding company submits an ACH batch.

Company Setup



Add New/Customer Maintenance

▪ In the ACH section, select the ACH Prefunding box.

• Unbalanced files are required for ACH Prefunding. Therefore, when ACH Prefunding is selected, the “Balanced and Unbalanced Batches Allowed” and “Balanced Batches Required” radio buttons are grayed out.

▪ When a company is enabled for ACH Prefunding, Suppress ACH ID Validation box will be grayed out.



Enabling ACH Prefunding

ACH Prefunding functionality links the ACH ID to the business’s offset account. Building an association between the ACH ID and the customer’s account number is what gives your financial institution the flexibility to select either the FI funding account or the customer’s funding account as the batch offset.




Complete the following steps to enable ACH Prefunding for a company:

1. On the Add New Customer or Customer Maintenance screen, select the account(s) to be enabled for ACH activity, enable the main ACH service, and click Add or Update.

2. Select the checkbox for ACH Prefunding, click OK on the pop-up, and click Update.

Note: The pop-up message reminds you to click Update first and then set up the ACH ID and account association.




3. Click the ACH ID button to complete the setup on the ACH ID Maintenance window, i.e. set up of the ACH IDs/descriptions and link them to an account number. Then click Update.

4. Click Update on the Customer Update screen.

• Selection of an account number is required for an ACH Prefunding customer. • For standard ACH customers the Account Number fields do not display.• If the company needs to associate an ACH ID with more than one account, assign a prefix to that

ACH ID.

Customer Platform



Batch Template Maintenance

The Batch Template Maintenance screen differs for ACH Prefunding customers:• The Offset Account dropdown is hidden. • The “Create Offset” checkbox is hidden.• The ACH ID options in the dropdown display as “ACH ID – Description – Account

Number” (all defined in the FI Admin Platform).



Initiate Batch

When an ACH Prefunding company initiates, uploads or approves an ACH batch:• A pop-up prompts the business user to click OK if they have funded their account. • A confirmation screen will tell the business user that the batch is “FI Pending”. • Batches will move to the Pending Prefunding Batches screen in the FI Admin Platform.• Remember: Prefunding batches may have an earlier cutoff time than regular batches.



Batch Statuses

Basic workflow and resulting statuses:

1. Company initiates a new batch = Pending status

2. Company approves the batch = FI Pending status

3. The financial institution approves the prefunding batch = Approved status

4. The financial institution downloads the ACH file = Downloaded status

Two other possible statuses:FI Pending Deleted - if a financial institution deletes a prefunding batchFI Denied – if a financial institution denies a prefunding batch, it displays in the Denied ACH Activity

section with the deny message. FI Denied batches will be available on the Edit Batch screen for edits and resubmission.

Processing Prefunding Batches



Processing Overview

ACH Prefunding requires customers to initiate or send unbalanced batches that are all credits or all debits. Debit ACH batches will not go through the ACH Prefunding process; instead, the customer’s account that’s linked to that ACH ID will be used as a credit offsetting account.



Pending Prefunding Batches

Admins go to the Pending Prefunding Batches screen in the File Processing menu. Credit Batches appear on this screen for your ACH Prefunding companies. Batches are retained here indefinitely; batches must be processed via action of Approve, Delete, Deny or on the Override screen before they are removed from this page.



Approve a Pending Prefunding Batch

Steps to approve a prefunding batch:

1. Access the Pending Prefunding Batches screen.2. Select the batch(es).3. Click Approve.4. On the host, initiate a book transfer from the

customer’s account to the FI funding account.5. Process the batch at the appropriate time under

ACH File Processing.

Consequent actions:• Approve updates batch status to Approved in the Customer Platform.• Approve inserts the FI funding account as the offset account.• Approve moves the batch to ACH File Processing.



Other Pending Prefunding Batch Options

• The financial institution enters a Deny Message (required) first, then clicks Deny.

• Removes selected batch from Pending Prefunding Batches screen.

• Updates batch status to FI Denied in the Customer Platform with the deny message.

• Allows company to access the batch on the Edit Batch screen.

• All Limits used for this batch are rolled back if denied on the same day the batch was submitted.

• Deletes batch from pending section and follow the rules of the current system deletes.

• Updates batch status to FI Deleted in the Customer Platform.

• All Limits used for this batch are rolled back if deleted on the same day the batch was submitted.

Other Actions



Override Pending Prefunding Batch

Select a batch or batches and click the Override button to arrive at the new ACH Prefunding Override screen. Use this screen to make additional processing decisions by selecting which funding account will be used as the batch offset.

Approve1. Creates offsetting transaction (based on selection) and inserts this in the batch.2. Updates batch status to Approved in the Customer Platform.3. Moves batch to ACH File Processing.

Show Pending – Displays the Pending Prefunding Batches screen. All batches that were not submitted on the Override screen are retained on the Pending screen.

Wrap Up



Notes for your Financial Institution

If using an FI Funding Account as the batch offset, it is recommended that you create a test batch to insure the account allows posting of ACH transactions.

The FI Funding Account information must be entered and stored on the FI Admin Policies section of the FI Admin platform.

If using the ACH Prefunding Lead Cutoff Time feature, it is recommended that you update your messages on the Initiate, Send and Edit screens to point out the two different cutoff times (one for Prefunding and one for standard).

Ensure all ACH Prefunding companies have a customer funding account number assigned to each ACH ID.

Decide if you will change the effective date control for your prefunding customers. Perform necessary maintenance on existing ACH IDs if you are currently using the Business

Banking ACH module. Businesses may use more than one offset account with the same ACH ID; the same ACH ID number to be defined multiple times, but each occurrence must have a unique prefix (FI defined). This will allow customers to use a payroll account for payroll batches and an operating account for other ACH activity, while still using the same ACH ID.



Notes for your Business Clients

Uploaded or Initiated individual batches must be unbalanced, containing only Debit transaction or only Credit transactions. Batches that include both credit and debit transactions will fail.

Do not upload mixed batches via Send ACH File, i.e. do not combine debit-only and credit-only batches in a single upload.

Existing ACH enabled companies must be given notification and instructions to unbalance all previously created balanced Batch Templates. Uncheck the “Create offsetting transaction” box to unbalance the template (in order to initiate those template after prefunding has been required).

The ACH ID will be used to determine which account is used for prefunding.



Questions?

Pause the webcast to jot down your question(s), then email them within 2 business days after the webcast to

[email protected].



Webcast Survey

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http://www.customersat3.com/csc/SatisfactionSurvey

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business banking ach prefunding webcast april delac intuit financial services university published...

Documents

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