Making payments using ACH

You will now have the option to pay for activities you book directly through a business on the provider's widget using ACH (Automatic Clearing House). ACH payments are directly linked to your bank account.

You can see and manage your ACH accounts once you log in to your Sawyer account and go to the Account section. You will also have the opportunity to add an ACH account at checkout if the provider is accepting ACH payments. This will be discussed later in this article.

Please note:

• Providers will be able to charge a customer's ACH account after it's been linked.
• You cannot use ACH accounts to pay for activities on the Marketplace.
• ACH is optional. You can still choose to pay by credit card if you do not want to use ACH.
• Providers will not be able to add ACH on behalf of a customer.

Adding and managing ACH from your 'Account' section

1. Log in to hisawyer.com using the email address and password associated with your Sawyer account.

You will see a new banner on the Account page informing you that ACH is now available. Click the x to remove the banner.

2. Click on the Account section and select New ACH Bank Account from the payment methods dropdown.

3. You will be prompted to fill in your email, full name, and bank. Then, you will be directed to Stripe payment page. Once you agree to the terms, you will be asked to Select an Account and Link Account. Once complete, you will see the screen below. You can then click on Continue with Sawyer.

Note:

• If your banking institution is not present, it means that the automatic authorization does not exist for that bank and you need to go through the manual flow instead. See below for how to do this.

Entering banking info manually

1. After you chose Pay with ACH Direct Debit, click on Enter Bank Details Manually.

2. You will be prompted to enter your bank account details in the screen below. Make sure to click on Continue and Done to finish.

Note:

• Stripe will add micro-deposits into the account for verification (and send emails with steps to complete the authorization).
• Due to this delay for verification, the new ACH account may not be immediately available for use or show in the Account page.
• If you are having issues authenticating your bank account, this could be because your bank rejected the attempted debit. Stripe Support advises to add Stripe's ACH company ID to your bank/account's allow list.

3. Once your bank account info is added, you must click Save. This will give Sawyer permission to add ACH to your account and allow us to charge it. 

Managing ACH on your Sawyer account

• ACH payment will be displayed in the list of payment methods.
• Similar to credit cards, an ACH account will be designated as the Default ACH payment method. Only default payment methods can be used for payment at checkout and there can be a default payment method for each payment type. (i.e. You can have both a default credit card and a default ACH).
• If more than one ACH account is added, you can change the ACH account that is designated as the default.

Removing ACH (or credit cards) from your Sawyer account

• Payment methods that are not the default can be removed at any time.
• Default payment methods (i.e. default credit cards or default ACH) can be removed if you don't have any recurring payments using those defaults. 
• If you try to remove a default payment method that is an existing recurring payment for that payment type, there will be a warning message that will display telling you that you are required to add another payment as the default before the current one can be removed. This ensures that if there are upcoming/recurring payments, there will not be a situation where payment cannot be collected.

Note:

• If you have both credit cards and ACH payment methods, you will have the option to choose which payment type you would like to be your preferred primary method of payment.

Submitting payment via ACH on a provider widget

ACH payment methods will only display if the provider accepts ACH. If you set ACH as the preferred primary method, but the provider does not accept ACH, the ACH option will not display and it will display the default credit card (if one is available).

If there is no payment method selected yet, you can add either a credit card or ACH, if the provider accepts it.

To do this, click on +New ACH. You will be directed to the payment methods section where you can add or select your payment options. Once selected, you will see the same flow as in the Accounts page.

• Note: The only difference between the flow during checkout vs. in the Account page is that the ability to enter your banking information manually in checkout is not possible. This is because there is a delay in the micro-deposit flow (of 2-3 days) and bookings may be created without payment. Therefore, the manual flow has been disabled when adding ACH from checkout.

If the provider accepts ACH and you have ACH selected as your primary method of payment, the ACH account will display as the default in checkout.

Clicking on Update will open the new Checkout Method section. (This will only work on widget checkout directly from the provider and not on the Marketplace).

• All of the payment methods that have been added to your account will display.
• Default credit cards and ACH accounts will be labeled.
• You are able to select a different credit card or ACH account in this view.
• You must click Save to save any changes.

Confirmation emails

Upon successful completion of an order, you will receive a confirmation email with the payment method used.  

Order status

Because ACH has a delay in its payment processing, you can check the the status of your ACH order after making a purchase. These are the different ACH order statuses you can see:

1. 1. ACH Processing - Displays when the order has been placed, but final payment to the provider has not been processed. This can take up to 4 business days.
   2. Paid - Same as current behavior. Paid will display when payment was successful.
   3. Payment Failed - Displays when the payment has been processed but failed. The bookings associated with this order still exist. You should work with the provider to resolve the payment issue.

Payment activity

You will be able to see the payment method used for the order in the Payment Activity section on your order. If you change your ACH payment method default, the ACH account used will reflect in the Payment Activity section.