To initiate an ACH transfer you need five pieces of information: the recipient’s full legal name, their bank’s nine-digit routing number, the destination account number, the account type (checking or savings), and the dollar amount you want to send. Those are the fields every bank platform asks for, and getting any of them wrong is the most common reason transfers get delayed, returned, or sent to the wrong person.
The Five Required Fields
Recipient’s Full Legal Name
The name must match what the recipient’s bank has on file. For an individual, that means the full legal name rather than a nickname or abbreviation. For a business, use the entity name as it’s registered with the financial institution. A mismatch between the name you enter and the name on the destination account can trigger a return or a delay. The easiest way to confirm the correct name is to look at a voided check or a bank statement from the recipient.
Nine-Digit Routing Number
The ABA routing number identifies the specific financial institution where the recipient’s account is held. There are roughly 22,000 active routing numbers in the United States, each assigned to a particular bank or credit union.1American Bankers Association. ABA Routing Number Without a valid routing number, the ACH network has no way to determine which institution should receive the funds.
Routing numbers appear on the far left at the bottom of a paper check, and most banks also display them in the account details section of their online banking portal or mobile app.1American Bankers Association. ABA Routing Number One catch: some banks use a different routing number for paper checks than for electronic transfers. Confirm you have the ACH routing number, not the check routing number.
Account Number
The account number pinpoints the specific account within the recipient’s bank. On a paper check it sits immediately after the routing number along the bottom. Together, the routing number and account number work like a mailing address: the routing number is the zip code directing the payment to the right bank, and the account number is the street address directing it to the right customer.
Double-check every digit before submitting. A single transposed number can send funds to the wrong account, and recovering misdirected money is difficult at best. If the funds have already been withdrawn by the unintended recipient, the reversal process often fails entirely. This is the single most common point of failure in ACH transfers, and the one most easily prevented.
Account Type: Checking or Savings
You also have to specify whether the destination is a checking or savings account. This isn’t just a formality. The ACH system uses different transaction codes for each type: a checking account receives a code of 22 for credits and 27 for debits, while a savings account uses 32 for credits and 37 for debits.2U.S. Department of the Treasury – Fiscal Service. Federal Government Participation in the Automated Clearing House System (Green Book) Sending a transaction with the wrong account type code can cause the receiving bank to reject it.
Dollar Amount and Schedule
Finally, enter how much you want to send. Most banking platforms also ask whether the payment is a one-time transaction or a recurring one that repeats on a schedule, such as weekly, biweekly, or monthly. For a recurring payment you’ll set a start date and either an end date or an open-ended schedule you can cancel later.
Credit or Debit: Who Enters the Information
The ACH network moves money in two directions, and the direction determines who provides the banking details.
An ACH credit pushes money from your account into someone else’s. Payroll direct deposit is the most familiar example: your employer sends wages to your bank. When you send money through your bank’s online bill pay or transfer funds to a friend, you’re also initiating an ACH credit. You enter the recipient’s information, and your bank pushes the funds out.
An ACH debit pulls money from an account. When a utility company collects your monthly bill or a gym charges your membership fee, those are ACH debits. The company collecting the payment is the one entering the banking details, and you provide written authorization for them to withdraw funds.
The five data fields are identical in both directions. What changes is who enters them and who grants permission. All ACH transactions flow through the network according to rules set by Nacha, the organization that governs how payments move and settle.3Nacha. How ACH Payments Work
Authorization: What Counts as Permission
For an ACH credit you’re sending from your own account, initiating the transfer through your bank’s platform generally serves as authorization. You log in, enter the details, and submit. Your bank treats that action as consent.
ACH debits are more regulated because someone else is reaching into your account. Federal law requires that a preauthorized electronic fund transfer from a consumer’s account be authorized in writing, and the entity obtaining authorization must provide the consumer with a copy.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693e – Preauthorized Transfers In practice, “writing” includes clicking a digital consent checkbox or completing an online authorization form; it doesn’t have to be a physical signature on paper.
Nacha’s rules add specifics. Consumer debit authorizations must be “signed or similarly authenticated,” use language that is “clear and readily understandable,” and identify the company in a way the consumer would recognize.5Nacha. Meaningful Modernization Becomes Effective Sept. 17, 2021 Oral authorizations are permitted for certain transaction types, but the company must either make an audio recording or send written confirmation before the payment settles, and retain that record for two years.
If you’re authorizing a recurring debit, read the terms. The authorization should spell out the amount (or range of amounts), the frequency, and how to cancel. You keep the right to stop any recurring ACH debit by notifying your bank at least three business days before the next scheduled withdrawal.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693e – Preauthorized Transfers
Timing: Cutoffs and Same-Day Limits
When you submit matters almost as much as what you enter. Banks and the Federal Reserve operate on fixed processing windows throughout the day. For standard next-day ACH, the Fed accepts files at multiple transmission deadlines, from 10:30 a.m. ET through several later windows extending to 2:15 a.m. ET.6Federal Reserve Financial Services. FedACH Processing Schedule Your bank, however, likely imposes its own earlier cutoff. A transfer submitted after your bank’s daily cutoff won’t enter the ACH network until the following business day.
Same-day settlement is available for transactions submitted before 4:45 p.m. ET, provided your bank offers the option and the payment falls within the per-transaction dollar limit.6Federal Reserve Financial Services. FedACH Processing Schedule Weekends and federal holidays are not business days, so a transfer submitted Friday evening won’t begin processing until Monday.
Same-Day ACH currently caps individual payments at $1 million per transaction. Nacha has approved an increase to $10 million per payment, but that change doesn’t take effect until September 2027.7Nacha. Increasing the Same Day ACH Dollar Limit to $10 Million To move more than $1 million in a single day right now, you would need to split the transfer into multiple payments or use a wire transfer instead. Standard (non-same-day) ACH has no per-payment dollar cap set by Nacha, though individual banks may impose their own.
After You Submit
Once you’ve entered the data and hit submit, your bank generates a confirmation or trace number. Save it. That number is the only way to track the payment through the ACH network if something goes wrong, and it ties your specific transaction to the batch your bank sends to the Federal Reserve or a private ACH operator.
Your account will typically show the transaction as “pending” before the funds actually leave. Pending means your bank has accepted the instruction but hasn’t settled with the receiving bank yet. Until settlement, the money is in transit: deducted from your available balance but not yet credited to the recipient.
If You Entered Something Wrong
If the information you entered is incorrect, the receiving bank will return the transaction with a code explaining the problem. A return for “no account” means the account number doesn’t match anyone at that institution. A return for “invalid account number” means the number itself is structurally wrong, with too many or too few digits. These returns typically take two to three business days to appear, and the funds go back to the originating account.
An unauthorized debit from your own account is a different problem. Regulation E protects you, but the protection depends on how quickly you act. Report an unauthorized ACH debit within two business days of learning about it and your maximum liability is $50.8eCFR. 12 CFR Part 205 – Electronic Fund Transfers (Regulation E) Wait longer than two days and your exposure jumps to $500. If an unauthorized transfer appears on a periodic statement and you don’t report it within 60 days, you could be liable for all unauthorized transfers that occur after that 60-day window closes.
Once you report the error, your bank has 10 business days to investigate and resolve it. If the bank needs more time, it can extend the investigation to 45 days, but it must provisionally credit your account within those first 10 business days so you aren’t without your money while the bank looks into it.9eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.11 – Procedures for Resolving Errors The bank must tell you the results within three business days of finishing its investigation.
Protecting the Numbers You Just Shared
Sharing your routing and account numbers is unavoidable when setting up ACH payments, but those numbers are essentially the keys to your account for anyone who has them and a willingness to forge an authorization. Never send banking details through unencrypted email or text messages. If a company asks for your information to set up ACH, look for a secure online portal or encrypted form rather than typing your numbers into a reply email or a PDF attachment.
If you’re on the receiving end, collecting ACH payments from customers, avoid storing routing and account numbers in spreadsheets, Word documents, or shared drives. A data breach exposing those numbers gives bad actors everything they need to initiate fraudulent debits. Use a payment platform that encrypts and vaults banking credentials rather than leaving them sitting in plaintext files.