Organizations within the United States can implement ACH US Direct Debit as a donation option to enable donors to give using their bank details.

ACH is a popular payment method for making larger donations, not least because of its lower processing fees: 0.8% per donation with a 5 USD cap, compared to the standard 2.9% + 0.30 USD fee charged by Stripe for card and wallet-based payment methods.

Prerequisites

To enable ACH US Direct Debit in Fundraise Up, you first need to enable it in Stripe. This requires accessing your organization’s Stripe account using an account with either the Administrator or Developer role.

Enabling ACH

Enabling ACH US Direct Debit for your donors is a simple two-part process. First, you need to enable ACH from your Stripe account, and then from your Fundraise Up Dashboard.

Step 1: Enable ACH from Stripe

1. Log in to Stripe.
2. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen and click Settings.
3. In the Payments section, select Payment methods.
4. Locate the ACH US Direct Debit option and click Turn on.
5. When prompted, select Turn on anyway.
6. If prompted, reenter your password and select Continue.
7. You may see a Confirm financial data access alert. If you do, select Confirm in the alert.
8. When shown the list of data types that you can use, confirm that Tokenized account and routing number is selected. This is the only data type you need to enable.
9. Select Save.
10. You may be redirected to the Settlement timing page. There are no settings that you need to configure on the page, and you can navigate away from it.

Step 2: Disable emails from Stripe

Stripe has a series of emails to assist with account verification and payment confirmation, which are unnecessary if you're using our ACH solution as we allow you to customize template versions of those emails right from Fundraise Up. If you don’t disable Stripe’s email sequence, your donors may receive sets of emails both from Stripe and Fundraise Up.

1. Go to your Stripe dashboard.
2. Click Settings.
3. Scroll down to Business settings and, under Your business, click Emails.
4. In the Customer emails section, toggle Debit emails off.

Step 3: Enable ACH from Fundraise Up

1. In your Fundraise Up account, click the name of your organization in the top-right corner and click Settings.
2. In the left-hand menu, click Payment methods.
3. Select ACH US Direct Debit from the list.
4. Click Enable.

Verifying donor bank accounts

Once you’ve enabled ACH successfully, you’ll be able to choose verification methods. There are three ways your donors can verify their donations when they choose to make their donation with ACH.

Online banking verification

The first verification method is verification by logging into online banking. With this method, the donor logs in to their online banking service to confirm the payment instantly. This verification method is enabled by default when you set up ACH as a payment method in the Fundraise Up Dashboard, and is represented by the Allow donors to donate by logging in to online banking checkbox.

Manual verification

The second verification method involves donors entering their account and routing numbers in the Checkout form when they make their donation. Then, Stripe will send the donor either two microdeposits, or one microdeposit with a confirmation code attached, to the donor’s bank account. The donor will receive emails with a link prompting them to confirm the amounts or code they received. Like online banking verification, this method is enabled by default when you set up ACH as a payment method in the Fundraise Up Dashboard.

Automatic verification

This verification method automatically verifies all valid bank accounts — it is manual verification with the microdeposit/code step removed entirely. In the Checkout form, the donor enters their account and routing numbers. If these match any existing bank account, the payment is automatically confirmed.

This means that automatic verification does not explicitly confirm that the donor is, in fact, the account holder of the bank account from which they’re making their donation. For this reason, automatic verification is a trust-based payment method that can carry risks, and it is not automatically enabled for organizations when they first enable ACH as a payment method. Please note that this verification method is not available for the Donor Portal.

Verification fees

As well as Stripe’s processing fees (0.8% of the transaction, capped at 5 USD), donations from a new bank account can incur a small verification fee.

The first time a donor uses a new bank account (e.g. for the first installment of a new recurring plan), Stripe charges a small verification fee if the donor uses Automatic verification.

Disputes

ACH US Direct Debit provides a dispute process for bank account holders to dispute donations. Donors can dispute a donation debit through their bank for up to 60 calendar days after a debit on a personal account, or up to 2 business days for a business account. A donor’s bank can honor any dispute within this period.

Refunds

Donations made using ACH US Direct Debit can be refunded within 180 days of the original donation. Refunds require at least 3 business days to process.