Automated Clearing House (ACH) is a secure payment transfer system that provides a centralized clearing facility for Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) payments occurring within the U.S. and Canada. It is used widely for payroll and a variety of recurring payments.
The ACH account is defined on the Name and Address form in Govern. It is linked to the following through the Mailing Index:
- Real Property Tax
- Personal Property Tax
- Self Reported Tax
- Miscellaneous Billing
The configuration and administrative setup are performed in the following applications:
- Govern New Administration (GNA)
- Business Entity Designer (BED)
- OpenForms Designer (OFD)
There are three batch processes:
- ACH Pre-notification
- ACH Data preparation
- ACH File Generation
Configuration
In order to configure ACH Information in your organization, follow the instructions in the document that you can download in the Documentation section..
Documentation
For complete information on the configuration, administrative setup, ACH user forms, and ACH Batch Processing, open the following guide:
ACH ConfigurationImplementation
Govern OpenForms ACH Information
To use ACH for bill payments in Govern OpenForms, you need to complete the ACH Information in the Name and Address form.
Then, complete the ACH Information for each applicable subsystem, as described in this section.
Name and Address ACH Information
ACH Information is added to a separate entity in the Name and Address form. You can set up multiple ACH accounts for any name and address account.
To access the ACH Information by Name entity:
- Launch Govern.
- Open the Name and Address from.
- Perform a search and load the results to the tree view.
- Select the required Name and Address record in the tree view.
- Select the ACH Info by Name entity.
The selected Name and Address record is displayed at the top of the form.
The required fields are outlined in red.
- Select an option from the Account Type drop-down list.
- Enter a description for the account.
For example, both a personal and commercial Checking Account may be associated with the name record.
- Enter the bank transit and routing number in the Bank Transit No. field.
- This is a unique nine digit number used to identify the financial institution.
The first two digits identify the district in which the bank is located. The remaining numbers are unique.
- Enter the bank account number in the Bank Account No. field.
The bank transit and account numbers are cloaked when you enter them on the user form.
You can click the icon on right of the text to view these numbers in plain text, provided you have the access permissions.
- Click Save.
- Repeat the procedure to create multiple name and address accounts.
ACH Information in Tax Forms
- ACH Information is added to the following Govern user forms:
- Real Property Tax
- Personal Property Tax
- ACH Information in Self-Reported Tax
Real Property Tax
The ACH Information is added to the Mailing Index entity in the Real Property Tax form.
The following rules apply to the Making Index:
- The ACH Information is only available for the Primary Index.
- The Primary Index receives all original bills and other mailings. All other recipients receive duplicates of the originals. Also, the Primary Index is listed on all reports. Select this option for the property owner or the person to whom you are sending original bills.
The following conditions apply:
- There can be only one primary index per property.
- The property owner must be defined as the primary index, even when the Mortgage Company is paying the bills.
- If a primary index is not manually selected, the first name and address you enter automatically becomes the primary index.
- All original bills and other mailings are sent to the primary index.
- If the Status Information of the primary index is set to inactive, a duplicate bill is sent to the Primary Index and the original bill is sent to the Temporary Owner.
- All other recipients receive duplicates of the originals, unless the Do Not Send Bill option is selected.
- If Do Not Send Bill is selected for the Mortgage Company, an electronic bill is sent.
To access the Mailing Index entity in the Real Property Tax form:
- Launch Govern.
- Open a Profile that contains Real Property Tax.
- Open the Real Property Tax from.
- Perform a search and load the results to the tree view.
- Select the required record in the tree view.
- Select the Mailing Index entity.
- Select the Primary Index option.
- Click Save.
Personal Property Tax
Follow the instructions for adding information to the Real Property Tax Mailing Index.
Self-Reported Tax
Follow the instructions for adding information to the Real Property Tax Mailing Index.
Miscellaneous Billing
ACH Information is added to the Miscellaneous Billing Account entity. This information populates the Mailing Index table.
To access the Miscellaneous Billing Account:
- Launch Govern.
- Open a Profile that contains Miscellaneous Billing.
- Open the Miscellaneous Billing form.
- Select the Miscellaneous Billing Account entity.
- Select the description for the ACH Account that you want to associate with the selected Miscellaneous Billing Account from the ACH Account drop-down list.
- Double-click in the date fields and select a range of dates from the pop-up calendar if the ACH is to be used during a specific time only. You can enter a date in the From field or the Until field only.
- Click Save.
For further details, refer to the Miscellaneous Billing documentation.