What does ACH stand for?
It stands for Automated Clearing House -- a centralized US financial network for banks and credit unions to send and receive electronic payments and money transfers.
Since Momence uses Stripe for ACH payments, how does Stripe ACH work? What's the customer experience?
If you've enabled ACH from Settings > Get Paid, your customers will now see an option in their Momence checkout pages to Pay with ACH Direct Debit.
If they click it they'll be prompted to sign into their bank account to provide account information for this transaction and any future checkouts where they elect to use ACH.
How long does an ACH payment typically take and why is this?
ACH transfers take an average of one to three business days to complete. They're processed in batches throughout the day and are not instantaneous.
The reason for this is that a receiving bank may choose to hold the funds before releasing them to ensure the originating bank has sufficient funds -- much like a bank might behave if they received a physical check deposit.
What's the upside to using ACH?
Customer's and Hosts love ACH for its fee saving aspects. If you're on a Momence plan where credit card fees are factored in, then not having to pay these fees (or pass them on to customers) is appealing.
For a Momence Pro account that has its customer's absorbing CC fees and direct debit fees, here's the difference in fees for a customer purchasing a monthly renewing membership priced at $100/month.
Is there a potential downside?
ACH works much like taking a written check. There's a delay in determining if the payment passes or fails. If the goods/service are rendered before a failure occurs, then the business will need to follow up with the customer. In short, if your business is willing to accept a physical check, taking ACH effectively runs the same risk as a customer bouncing a check.
Does Momence notify the customer when a failure occurs?
Yes, here's an example of messaging sent to a customer where renewing subscription charge failed.
How can I keep track of any failures that occur?
Momence has built a special report you can run from Analytics > Reports called 'Failed Direct Debits'. It lives in the section titled 'Other'. To keep this report at the top of your reports page, click the star icon next to it.
I've decided I just want to offer credit card payments. Where can I toggle off ACH payments?
Click Settings > under Administrative click Get Paid.