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ACH Returns

ACH payments may be returned by the receiving financial institution, for a number of reasons. This applies both to originated ACH payments, and received ACH payments.

When you're on the originating side of an ACH payment, the counterparty's institution may issue a return. This can happen in the case of ACH Debit (example reasons: unauthorized debit, insufficient funds in the counterparty's account) or ACH Credit (example reason: incorrect account number). When such returns happen, the payment.returned webhook event will be fired. In addition, a Returned ACH Transaction will be created within the relevant deposit account, to offset the original transaction associated with the ACH payment. When you're the receiving side of an ACH, Unit typically handles returns on your behalf.

ACH Return Reasons

ReasonACH CodeShort Description
InsufficientFundsR01The available balance isn’t enough to cover the value of the ACH debit.
AccountClosedR02The counterparty account has been closed.
NoAccountR03The owner details of the account number referenced in the payment don’t match the details referenced in the ACH payment. Alternatively, it may indicate that the account isn’t open.
InvalidAccountNumberStructureR04The structure of the account number isn't valid.
UnauthorizedDebitToConsumerR05A debit Entry was transmitted to a consumer account, but receiving consumer has not authorized debiting their account.
ReturnedPerOdfiRequestR06The originator of the payment requested that it would be returned.
AuthorizationRevokedByCustomerR07The customer who authorized the ACH payment has revoked authorization.
PaymentStoppedR08The receiver of a recurring debit transaction requested to stop the payment.
UncollectedFundsR09Although there's sufficient balance in the account, the balance that is available for spending is below this dollar value.
CustomerAdvisesNotAuthorizedR10The receiving customer informed their bank / financial institution that the ACH payment is unauthorized, Improper, Ineligible, or Part of an Incomplete Transaction.
CheckTruncationEntryReturnedR11Check Truncation Early Return
BranchSoldToAnotherDfiR12Branch Sold to Another DFI
RdfiNotQualifiedToParticipateR13RDFI Not Qualified to Participate
RepresentativePayeeDeceasedOrUnableToContinueR14Representative Payee Deceased or Unable to Continue in that Capacity
BeneficiaryOrBankAccountHolderDeceasedR15Beneficiary or Account Holder (Other Than a Representative Payee) Deceased
AccountFrozenR16Account Frozen/Entry Returned per OFAC Instruction
FileRecordEditCriteriaR17File Record Edit Criteria
ImproperEffectiveEntryDateR18Improper Effective Entry Date
AmountFieldErrorR19Amount Field Error
NonTransactionAccountR20Non-Transaction Account
InvalidCompanyIdentificationR21Invalid Company Identification
InvalidIndividualIdNumberR22Invalid Individual ID Number
CreditEntryRefusedByReceiverR23Credit Entry Refused by Receiver
DuplicateEntryR24Duplicate Entry
AddendaErrorR25Addenda Error
MandatoryFieldErrorR26Mandatory Field Error
TraceNumberErrorR27Trace Number Error
RoutingNumberCheckDigitErrorR28Routing Number Check Digit Error
CorporateCustomerAdvisesNotAuthorizedR29Corporate Customer Advises Not Authorized
RdfiNotParticipantInCheckTruncationProgramR30RDFI Not Participant in Check Truncation Program
PermissibleReturnEntryR31Permissible Return Entry (CCD and CTX Only)
RdfiNonSettlementR32RDFI Non-Settlement
ReturnOfXckEntryR33Return of XCK Entry
LimitedParticipationDfiR34Limited Participation DFI
ReturnOfImproperDebitEntryR35Return of Improper Debit Entry
ReturnOfImproperCreditEntryR36Return of Improper Credit Entry
SourceDocumentPresentedForPaymentR37Source Document Presented for Payment
StopPaymentOnSourceDocumentR38Stop Payment on Source Document
ImproperSourceDocumentR39Improper Source Document/Source Document Presented for Payment
InvalidIndividualOrCompanyNameR45Invalid Individual Name/Company Name
IncorrectlyCodedOutboundInternationalPaymentR85Incorrectly Coded Outbound International Payment

Return Received ACH Transaction

Returns a Received ACH transaction with a specified ACH Return Reason.

Returning a Received ACH transaction creates a Returned Received ACH transaction, posting the funds immediately in the opposite direction.

note

This API is not enabled by default for all customers. Please contact Unit if you need to enable this functionality.

VerbPOST
Urlhttps://api.s.unit.sh/returns/:transactionId
Data TypereturnAch
Timeout (Seconds)5

Attributes

NameTypeDescription
reasonstringThe ACH Return Reason for returning the transaction.

Relationships

FieldtypeDescription
accountJSON:API RelationshipThe Deposit Account of the customer.

Response

Response is a JSON:API document.

200 OK

FieldTypeDescription
dataReturnedReceivedAchTransactionTransaction resource.
Example Request:
{
"data": {
"type": "returnAch",
"attributes": {
"reason": "AccountFrozen"
},
"relationships": {
"account": {
"data": {
"type": "depositAccount",
"id": "13052"
}
}
}
}
}

The following reasons can be used to initiate a return of a received ACH transaction:

TypeShort Description
AccountFrozenAccount is not authorized to receive the funds
UncollectedFundsAlthough there's currently sufficient balance in the account, the balance that is available for spending is below this dollar value, since some of the funds are committed to payments that have not been settled yet.