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Posted March 12, 2021

Returned Customer Payment

When your customers use checks or eChecks, it's possible that your bank or your Payment Processor is unable to deposit the payment to your account or that it needs to revert the transaction. This usually occurs due to insufficient funds, rejected payments, stop payments initiated by your customers, or incorrect account numbers.

Note: When processing an eCheck transaction, the only thing that is verified by payment processors is the ABA routing number, making sure it is a valid number. If an invalid routing number is entered, the transaction will decline right away. The bank account number is not validated in real time. It could take a couple of days or more for the account number to be validated so it is very possible that after 3-5 days the eCheck transaction will come back as a decline due to invalid account information or an issue with the funds.

Note: All payment processors provide means for you to be notified about returned payments. You should contact your payment processor to understand the best way to be informed about such situations.

There are two main ways how payment processors handle the process:
1. The initial deposit includes all checks. Then there is another reversal entry for the returned payment.
2. The deposit only includes checks which were processed and were not returned.

Note: Follow the steps for Processing Returned Customer Payments