Is there a way to pay owner distributions for an S corp electronically (i.e. ach, bill pay, etc.) and properly account for it

Call your bank. Get set up to ACH from your checking account. Make payments in real life. Finally record them in QB. Account is Shareholded Distribution, an equity account. Add it if you don't have it.

If you want to one-step direct deposit you have to have each shareholder set up as a Vendor and have a payroll subscfiption.

Shareholders' Distributions can be paid by any method you have to get cash to them.

I suggest either ACH or send bank check from the free-check writing service offered by almost all banks.

I have not written a single check since I started my business in 2008 nor written any personal checks. and most of my clients don't either.  Saves time and money on check stock, printers, ink, envelopes and stamps plus time printing, signing and mailing. Bank does all that for free and has for well over a decade now, business and personal accounts.

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@Thomas100 wrote:

I have read these posts.

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/reports-and-accounting/when-entering-partner-distr... 

 

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/write-checks/set-up-and-process-an-owner-s-draw-ac...

 

However, the second only shows how to write a check to the owners.  What if you want to send electronic payment to their personal account not setup as an external account ( i.e. for deposit only).  Please outline the full approach to record and send owners distributions in an S-corp electronically.

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@Thomas100 

In QBO, they also have "Bill Pay for QuickBooks Online" 3rd party app. But they charge $0.99 per ACH transaction; $1.99 per check.

Refer to this article for more info:

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/pay-bills/what-is-online-bill-pay/01/186144

Properly accounting and making payments are 2 different things combined in one. You paymdnt, no matter how , credits banking and debits shatdholder distribution,  an equity account.

Teri we had a contractor withdraw twice for the same transaction using ACH that they themselves set up. They used our written check that we took picture of for them to deposit electronically. Bank refused to honor our request for refund, claiming that our check was ACH authorization from that point on lol. Since then we have felt weary of ACH. Have you run into this problem?  Obviously now, ACH could be done with echeck or any check, but seems at least a little harder to justify with a hard copy check, since a check is by its definition a one time transaction authorization thats authorized every time by the payor.