Q: How much does it cost?

A: The ACH account is $20 per month and $2.25 per transaction. If more than one inspection per month is paid with ACH you will typically break even.

Q: Do I still have credit card processing fees?

A: Yes, if you are using ISN’s convenience fee tool, then you can choose to increase your inspection fee by a percentage or a fixed amount (you control the amount) which will cover your monthly processing fees. However, Guardian also has a surcharging account where Guardian charges the surcharge and splits that portion off of your batch, so you get the full inspection fee. Guardian gets the surcharge amount, eliminating the processing fee. Your monthly credit card fees would be $0

Q: How do I know if the ACH transaction is good?

A: ISN is dialing into a system that verifies the account number and that the routing numbers are valid. With ACH, funds will not be verified for 3-5 business days. If that ACH transaction is returned for “insufficient funds”, ISN will notify you so that you can collect payment another way. Other third-party systems require you to log in to their dashboard every day to look for declined transactions, otherwise, you would not be aware if the transaction was declined. Only with ISN’s integrated ACH will you get the security of knowing you will be notified if a transaction is declined at a later date.

Q: Do I have to have a credit card processing account with Guardian?

A: Yes. ISN has been referring Guardian for more than 15 years. ISN is currently the only inspection software that has access to Guardian’s preferred gateway and has an integrated ACH processing account. Guardian can get you connected with a merchant account that has no monthly fees, and they will guarantee to lower your existing rates. By switching over to Guardian, not only will you gain access to ISN’s integrated e-check feature, but you will save money on your processing fees every month.

Q: Do I have to have to be an ISN user?

A: ISN is currently the only inspection software that has access to Guardian’s preferred gateway and has an integrated ACH processing account.

Q: How long does a transaction take to fund?

A: It takes 3-5 days for funds to reach your account.

Q: Do the ACH transactions get funded with the credit card transactions?

A: The funding is separate from the credit card transactions. Both ACH and credit card account transactions show in the same report area but are listed completely separate. Inspectors can tell the transactions apart because the ACH transactions are labeled E-Check vs Visa or MC or AMEX, etc.

Q: If an ACH transaction is approved, does that mean it is guaranteed to fund?

A: No. ACH transactions (often referred to as electronic checks) run just like a paper check. They still have to go through a FDIC clearing house and can still bounce. We are able to verify up front that the account information is correct but not if there are funds available. So the transaction can still “bounce”.

Q: How should I keep track of any bounced transactions?

A: Similar to when you deposit a physical check, the bank will accept the check and deposit the money in your account, but you don’t find out if it bounces for a week or so. ACH works the same. It’s important for you to check your CardPointe dashboard regularly to find out if any past transactions were “returned” (this is the term it uses for rejected transactions).

To do this, simply follow these steps:

1. Login to your CardPointe dashboard, then click on the “Reporting” tab (if you have never logged into your CardPointe dashboard, see instructions below).

2. Click on the “Date” drop down and do a search for a specific date range (if you haven’t done this yet, you will want to go back to when you started accepting ACH. In the future, you can just use the default view of the “last 7 days”)

3. Click on the “Method” drop down and check the box for “ACH Return”. The transactions that show up in this report are ones that showed up as “paid” in ISN but later were rejected (bounced). In these situations, you will want to reach out to the customer and collect another form of payment.

Q: My ISN shows the ACH transaction as pending. Will the report still be released?

A: Yes. ISN is releasing the report to the customer in that status. The status will change to “paid” once the transaction has fully cleared.

Ready to onboard? If you’re already an ISN user, all you need to do is reach out to a member of the Guardian team to turn the ACH feature on!

Give us a call at 1-800-608-7363, email us at sales@inspectionpayments.com, or fill out the form.