How Does ACH Work?

[kaneohe]

I get deposits from 2 different funds on the 2nd business day of each month.
Generally the 2 deposits are there in my bank acct in the early AM when I get up. On rare occasion 1 may not be there but if that is true, it is generally there an hr or so later.

This AM 1 was there but 6 hrs later the other was still missing. The receiving bank says there is no way to see if anything is incoming but not in their system. The sending fund says it was sent on Aug 30 which is the Friday before the wkend/holiday. Who is to blame for the delay?

 

[njhowie]

With traditional ACH, there is really no guarantee of how quickly your transfer will go out/arrive. The hold up could be on either side, and the customer service person you're speaking to on the phone (from either side) will have no idea other than what their screen says - which is the same as what yours shows. Chase now provides real-time ACH/EFT - it is really neat. I can have the Chase site open in one window, my other bank account in the other, I hit send in the Chase window, within a couple seconds I see it in the other bank account. In time, most all ACH/EFT will be real time like what Chase is now providing. Some institutions are still playing with the float, and that will no longer be acceptable.

Learn How ACH Payments Work
https://www.thebalance.com/how-ach-payments-work-315441

 

[kgtest]

I can tell you how it DOESN'T work... only because I work in FinTech...


Soo, if it's batched ACH ledger in some sort of batch processing job, that errors, and on top of that potentially takes down some "point in time" database...then it doesn't work because some poor engineer is trying to re load the data, re run the jobs and scripts and figure out who he wants to strangle.

Soo, yeah... 2 days or 48 hours is my expectation for a simple ACH. Pray to the tech gods that the processing doesn't bug out.

 

[kaneohe]

Not the best situation but sounds like at least the sender understands what might be happening. The management company recently changed and the claim is that ACH will now take 2-3 days vs the prior 1-2 days. I guess it was the uncertainty that something might have gone wrong that was the worst thing. The deposit came in somewhere between 6 and 10 hrs later than the other fund company and it was that change from the prior standard (when both were there first thing in the AM and set the high expectations) that was upsetting.

Hopefully they will be exploring ways to improve the delayed times.

 

[thefinancebuff]

This AM 1 was there but 6 hrs later the other was still missing. The receiving bank says there is no way to see if anything is incoming but not in their system. The sending fund says it was sent on Aug 30 which is the Friday before the wkend/holiday. Who is to blame for the delay?

Most of the time, the sender (or the vendor they used) is to blame. The sender is in control. If they don't send by the cutoff time, there's nothing for the receiving end to receive. Here the receiving end showed they processed the incoming funds just fine (unless you know the one that showed up was sent one day earlier on Aug. 29).

 

[kaneohe]

Most of the time, the sender (or the vendor they used) is to blame. The sender is in control. If they don't send by the cutoff time, there's nothing for the receiving end to receive. Here the receiving end showed they processed the incoming funds just fine (unless you know the one that showed up was sent one day earlier on Aug. 29).

Thanks, tfb, that makes total sense. I know w/ my broker, ACH in or out takes 1 day period if I do it before the cutoff time. Otherwise add 1 extra day
and I'm controlling so I'm responsible. At least the sender admitted they were responsible so looking forward to see what the future brings. Expectations are lower now so I can only be surprised on the good side (I hope).

 

[Senator]

It's all about batch processing and hoping that a string of jobs, on both ends, process in a timely manner.

If one quits/abends/aborts, the others next in line are too. And some subsequent jobs only wait so long before they continue without the precursor job.

 

[MRG]

I can tell you how it DOESN'T work... only because I work in FinTech...


Soo, if it's batched ACH ledger in some sort of batch processing job, that errors, and on top of that potentially takes down some "point in time" database...then it doesn't work because some poor engineer is trying to re load the data, re run the jobs and scripts and figure out who he wants to strangle.

Soo, yeah... 2 days or 48 hours is my expectation for a simple ACH. Pray to the tech gods that the processing doesn't bug out.

+1

Those old batch processes were something I never wanted to support. Left that for the old folks who cut their teeth on it and never could get out.