How Does ACH Payment Processing Work?

For businesses using an ACH payment processing service to facilitate payments, there are two main stages of the process. The first is to create profiles for each customer that you wish to bill through this method. Then, when it comes time to actually send out a bill or invoice, all you have to do is select the pre-existing profile for the customer and send.
The ACH Payment Process - Creating And Sending The Invoice
In the case of point-of-sale or online billing, you would create a customer profile that includes pertinent information such as name, address, account number, etc. In the case of manually sending out invoices after a certain service has been performed, you will simply need to enter that information at that time.
The next step is to actually submit the order for payment processing. The way in which this happens depends completely on what stage of the process you are in (described above). When it comes time to send out invoices, you would open up your word processing software (or other means of creating an invoice) and simply choose the profile you wish to send.
At this point, your software will allow you to include all pertinent information about the customer in question - name, address, account number, etc. You can then print out the invoices or bills one-by-one (or however many you need) and include them in your outgoing mail.
In the case of point-of-sale invoices, you would simply print out a copy of the invoice from your computer at the time of payment and give it to the customer for their records. Later on, when you get your ACH payments from customers, this process shouldn't be any different.
The ACH Payment Process - Receiving Payments
When it comes time to receive your ACH payment, there are two ways you can go about doing this. First is to simply wait for your customer or clients to send in their payments. This isn't the best way though, as it could take some time and is somewhat unreliable.
The second, and best way, to receive your ACH payment is to use an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) service that will allow you to have the money deposited directly into your bank account. This is almost always done via the Automated Clearing House Network (ACH).