Can a customer use their bank account to pay invoices? (ACH payments)

[jtd1216]

The title of this post has been edited from the original: Can a customer use connected bank account to pay recurring invoices?

Hi,

A client of mine has no credit cards or even a debit card for her checking account. Since my service is monthly subscription based, I wanted to get her on recurring invoices. She asked if I could connect her checking account (ACH payments) for her payment. Can this be done through Square? 

Thanks!!

John

[#2]

Wanted to share an exciting announcement that ACH payments are now available for Invoice payments! 

Here's the announcement post where you can find full details on it from the lovely @kellyj here! Thanks for your patience as we rolled this out. 🎉

[VanKalkerFarms]

Square does not currently have a direct transfer option.  You would need to take a check from your customer so it comes out of their bank account and costs you nothing with Square or take a credit card payment.

[mattbjorkman]

I agree with this, i would like this feature too. For customers to be able to enter routing and account number to pay invoices.

[Bridget24]

It appears from the site that I can send customers an invoice and will not be charged for having them pay by E- check.  Is this correct?  It says:

"There are no monthly fees. Only pay for processing when you accept card payments. There are no fees for checks or cash."

My next question is it says that ACH payments are available in U.S. and Puerto Rico only.  Could you clarify what that means?  Does that apply to the seller, payer, or to both?  Can someone from Puerto Rico generate an invoice and have a U.S. customer pay by E-check, and vice versa?  

I know somewhere else on the website it mentions that Puerto Rico is not supported by credit card payments. So can people in Puerto Rico at least generate an invoice to be paid by E-check?   And can only fellow Puerto Ricans pay this? If ACH is free, is there a limit you can process each month? And is this easy to set up?  I don't need the exact details but need to know if this is something that I am going to have to deal with my own bank in person.  For example:  If I want a customer to pay by E-check, is this something simple to set in Square dashboard?  I may only want some of the invoices paid by E-check and last minute transactions to be paid by credit card.

Thanks

[VanKalkerFarms]

I'm not sure where you are seeing ACH payments are available in Square but at this time they are not.  there are no fees for checks or cash is referring to a person paying in person with a check.

Square uses ACH deposits to make your daily deposit and payroll deposits.  is it from this page?  https://squareup.com/guides/ach-payments that page has been confusing to me for a while as to why they even have it as they only use it for deposits.

[Bridget24]

I have to try and find it now.  I spoke to someone on the phone and they said E-checks are free.  Basically what I am calling ACH payment as the term is often used interchangeably.  She said I could set this up in my dashboard and send invoices that require the customer to pay by E-check instead of credit card.  No limit to the amount of transactions.  All free.  And the customer must have a bank located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico.  Only U.S. sellers have access to this option.  

I have to find the link...maybe I am going crazy.

[Bridget24]

Same link you posted.  Scroll down to the visual chart and that's where it says Puerto Rico and U.S.  

[TimK]

Yes please. I would like to be able to accept payments via ACH.

[Helen]

Hi @Bridget24! Helen here from the Seller Community team at Square! @VanKalkerFarms is correct: currently, Square does not process e-checks or ACH payments that your customers send to you. The blog post you linked is intended to be a guide to help business learn more about ACH payments in general. I'll share your feedback wtih the blog team that it's not clear in the post that this feature isn't available with Square yet! 

But you can record these sales in your Square Dashboard or with the Point of Sale app. For example, if you send a customer an Invoice you can mark it as paid and choose 'Other' as the payment method at checkout. The customer would then send you the e-check/ACH payment outside of Square (e.g. via their bank/another service) which is how you'd actually receive the money. Because Square doesn't process any funds for you there is no transaction fee to record these sales.

I hope this is helpful but if you have any questions please reply here to let me know! 

[Bridget24]

Thank you Helen for the clarification as I am writing all of this info for other readers too. And I don't want to spread misinformation. Is there a way to contact someone at Square for "official" answers because I did already post the information about free E-checks publicly and will go now to edit it. I'm sure not that many people have read it. It seems there isn't a way to verify things except to go by what someone online or on the phone tells me. And then check to see if that differs from another response. My information was not based on solely reading that link about ACH payments. The rep. assured me that my guests could pay online by E-check and we went over the whole thing about my type of business etc. I wanted to be sure that this was not something where I needed to get my bank involved, and she said I could set up everything from the dashboard and set up the option for guests to pay that way. I even said I only wanted some guests to pay by E-check, and others can use credit card. And I asked her about the limit of how many E-checks I could process and she said there was no limit at all. As long as the payer has a bank in U.S. or Puerto Rico it's fine, but only U.S. sellers can offer this.

[Helen]

Hi again @Bridget24, it sounds like there might have been a bit of confusion when you called in and I'm sorry about that. I'll make sure that the person you spoke to is aware that e-checks cannot be processed by Square. 

You can call our team again if you like, I know it's often easier to discuss things over the phone. The Seller Community is moderated by me, (among others) and we're here to answer questions and make sure the information in the Community is accurate.