How to accept ACH Payments Without Plaid

Bob_f

According to the square AI help bot, he 'You can process ACH payments through Square without relying on Plaid. Square lets businesses accept ACH payments directly via Square Invoices ' but I can not find how to do it. Plaid is kind of a pain and only works with certain banks, requires people logging into another site with their bank username and password (some businesses don't allow this to be given out) and even my own bank isn't supported. People are use to giving out their routing and account number for direct deposits and payments but not their banking log-in credentials.

So how can we set our invoices to accept ACH with routing / account number and not go though Plaid ?

TheRealChipA

Hi there @Bob_f.. When you create invoices, you have the option to specify which payment types you accept. ACH payments is one of those types. In order to accept ACH payments, it's best to have a Square Checking account because then you aren't charged service charges for those customer payments. Anyway, when customers get invoices that allow ACH payments, the customer must enter their account info and Square handles it from there. When they pay via ACH, those funds will show up in your Square Checking account.

Also, you didn't ask, but once you have a Square Checking account you can use Square Bill Pay to pay bills via ACH. You just set up vendors and it sends new vendors an email allowing them to provide bank information for them to receive ACH payments.

Let me know if you need more information.

Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator and member of the Square Champions group. (But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)

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Bob_f

We do have ACH enabled as an option, but the screenshot shows what the customer sees when they click on the pay bill link from the invoice email. The only ach option they are being presented is ACH though Plaid, and plaid isn't supported at all banks and credit union.

I don't think the volume of ACH payments we receive is worth banking with Square at this time. A majority are credit/debit payments with very few ACH, possible because of Plaid.

TheRealChipA

@Bob_f I see. I misunderstood, then. Apologies. Most likely, that statement from Square AI is an hallucination -- something still common in all AI models. It doesn't help you, but I'm going to at least flag this to the Square moderators so they can pass this on to the AI team. It might be as simple as an out-of-date help document that the AI has found causing the hallucination.

@Kassi_@RSosebee1 @_Violet @MayaP @Summer2024 @Summer2024 @Ellie_@Katie_SQ @Laurie_@Sammie_CSquare AI told @Bob_f that his customers can pay via ACH without using Plaid. That does not seem to be the case. Is the AI hallucinating, or can this be done? If it can't someone might want to figure out where the AI found the erroneous information and correct it.

Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator and member of the Square Champions group. (But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)

Was my post helpful? Take a moment to mark it as a solution. Marked solutions help other sellers find possible resolutions to similar problems. Also, if you find your solution elsewhere (say, through Support), it is helpful to come back to your post and tell us about it, then mark that as a Solution. Solutions are what this Community is all about!