Let your customers pay invoices by ACH bank payment with a convenience fee

Learn how you can receive basic online payments from your customers by passing on a convenience fee to cover processing costs on an ACH bank payment.

If you have an active payments account and send an invoice with all online payment methods turned off, your customer can choose to pay the invoice online by ACH bank transfer if they pay a convenience fee. You’ll receive the funds in your deposit account after 5 business days and there’s no cost to you. 

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Make sure you have an active payments account

1. Go to Account & Settings, then Payments.

Make sure the Merchant details section shows a Merchant ID for your account, as in the screenshot below. If you don’t have payments yet, you can apply here.

Step 2: Create an invoice

1. Go to Customers and select Create invoice. 
2. Leave all payment methods (credit card, ACH bank payment, PayPal, and Venmo) off.
   You can go to Manage then Payments on an invoice to change which payment methods are available for that invoice. Under the header Your customer pays the fee, you should see ACH bank payments set to On.
3. If there’s a particular way you prefer to be paid, add a comment in the Payment instructions field or in the email body. 
4. When you’re ready to send your invoice, go to Review and send, then Send invoice.

Step 3: Get paid

When your customer receives the invoice, they can pay directly through our payment portal with their bank account. The payment will include the full invoice amount plus a convenience fee. 

Once your customer pays, you’ll receive the full invoice amount in your deposit account after 5 business days. We match the invoice to the payment and put it in your books. Need to update your deposit account? You can do so here.

The convenience fee your customer pays doesn't require any additional journal entries and doesn't appear in your books, so there's no impact to your accounting.

Note: If you have signed up for and scheduled Instant Deposit, deposits on ACH payments where your customer paid a convenience fee will also be deposited instantly for the applicable Instant Deposit fee.

You can also turn this option off in Account & Settings by going to the Sales tab, clicking into the Invoice payments section, and unchecking the box next to “Your customer pays the fee”. This setting will apply to all invoices you send.

Refund an ACH transaction with a convenience fee

Need to refund an ACH payment that included a convenience fee? You can do this through the Merchant Service Center. Just make sure at least 5 business days have passed since the initial transaction.

To refund a transaction

1. Visit the Merchant Service Center. Or, in QuickBooks, go to Account & Settings, then the Payments tab, and click Manage account. Merchant Service Center will open in a new tab.
2. From the Merchant Service Center, go to Processing Tools, then Refund an eCheck.
3. Select the date range for the payment you want to refund, then Search.
4. Find the transaction you’d like to refund or void, then Submit.
5. If the action was initiated the same day as the transaction, it will be voided. If the action was initiated 5 or more days after the transaction, it will be refunded. A refund cannot be processed if it’s been less than 5 days since the transaction.

Warning: Refunding a transaction from the Merchant Service Center does not automatically update your accounting books. 

To have your books correctly reflect the refunded transaction, you will need to do the following:

1. Create a refund receipt for the customer you refunded.
   1. Select + New, then select Refund receipt.
   2. From the Customer ▼ dropdown, select the customer you want to give a refund.
   3. Fill out the fields with the same info on the original sale.
   4. Note: If you choose an inventory item, QuickBooks will put it back into inventory. If the item is defective or if you don’t want it added back to inventory, you can make an inventory adjustment.
   5. From the Refund from ▼ dropdown, select the account you issued the refund from.
   6. From the Save and new ▼ dropdown, select Save and close.
2. Once the refund transaction happens, you’ll need to manually match the refund receipt to your bank transaction.

Turn payments on

If you want to give your customers the option to pay online without paying a convenience fee, you can turn on online payments. With payments, you can accept credit cards, debit cards, ACH bank payments, Apple Pay, Venmo, and PayPal.

To turn on payments for all new invoices

1. Go to Account & Settings then Sales. Open Sales settings
2. Select Invoice payments.
3. Select the payment options you want to provide your customers. You can turn on cards, ACH bank payments, and PayPal/Venmo separately. 

When any payment options are on, your business pays a fee per transaction and your customer doesn’t pay any fees. These funds are typically deposited the next business day, but can take 3-5 business days in some cases.