With bulk ACH payments, businesses can save significant time and effort by processing a large volume of transactions simultaneously. Instead of creating and submitting dozens of individual payments, they can complete a single workflow to handle payroll, vendor payments, subscriptions, and more. Businesses get better visibility into all transactions from a unified view and can enter clear payment descriptions to simplify reconciliation. Note: Bulk ACH payments are supported only in the web app, not in the mobile app.
A payment scheduled for a future date will undergo risk evaluation on the scheduled date, along with other steps, such as balance and limit checks. Each individual payment within a bulk payment is evaluated individually. Once each payment passes risk evaluation, whether automatically or manually, we send an email to the user confirming the payment has been initiated. For more information on manually approving payments that your institution's risk settings have flagged, go to Use DB ACH Manager for Review. To learn about the bulk ACH payment communications we send, go to End-User Communications - Bulk ACH Payments.
For more information on ACH payments, go to About ACH Payments. For individual payment instructions, go to Send or Collect an Individual ACH Payment.
To send or collect a bulk payment:
From the web or mobile app, select Transfer > Payments > Make a bulk payment.
On the page that appears, enter the Payment details that will apply to all of the payments in the table:
Payment title – If you use the combined summary, payments will appear as one total per day on your statement, using this payment title.
Account – The source account for sending or destination account for collecting
Payment type – The transaction type that goes into the NACHA file.
Entry description – The purpose of the payment that goes into the NACHA file. To customize the list of entry descriptions, please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager. Default entry descriptions are:
Ext Transf – General external transfers
Payroll – Employee salary and wage payments
Bill Pmt – General bill payments
Refund – Reimbursements or returned funds
Loan Pmt – Loan repayments
Internal note (optional) – Add an internal memo
Select Next.
On the next page, enter the following information for each payment you want to send:
Date – The date defaults to today’s date, but you can open a calendar selector to choose a different date.
To/From – Select a recipient from the dropdown. To add a new recipient, select Add recipient. Go to Add an ACH Payment Recipient for more information.
Action – Select Send for credit payments or Collect for debit payments.
Description (optional) – Add details like an invoice number to help you identify this payment. This description appears on the statement.
Amount – The payment amount
Select View limits and disclosures to view the ACH payment disclosure text and limits. To update the disclosure text for your institution, go to Narmi Command under Configurations > Institution settings and edit the following settings:Institution Ach Payment Disclosure – For sending payments
Institution Ach Collect Payment Disclosure – For collecting payments
For information on setting limits, go to Transfer Limits.
Once you add a recipient, the Speed appears. Depending on your institution’s setup and payment type, the available speed options may be Instant, Same Day ACH, or Standard. Instant speed is not available for collecting payments (debits). When expedited via Instant or Same Day ACH, eligible individual payments within a bulk payment will be expedited based on the fastest available delivery speed for the recipient’s institution.
Note: Instant and Same Day ACH may be charged a premium fee. Narmi will simply display the fee to the customer/member during the transaction. The fee itself is charged by your institution’s core banking system and must be configured there. If you would like to configure fees, please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager.Instant (Send only) – These payments are expedited via FedNow. Instant processing is only available for sending payments (not collecting) and only for payments scheduled for today to institutions that are live on FedNow. If the organization has dual approvals enabled, instant payments should process upon approval. Note: Instant payments do not expire if they are not approved.
To send instantly, check the Expedite all eligible payments box, which defaults to Fastest method available.
Note: The Expedite all eligible payments checkbox applies to all payments in the bulk payment at once — there is no option to expedite individual payments within the same bulk payment. If you need to expedite only some payments, we recommend separating them into a distinct bulk payment.
If your institution is set up for Same Day ACH, that option is also shown. Total expedite fees appear at the bottom.
If the Expedite all eligible payments box is not checked, the payment is sent standard. Note: If the daily ACH processing cut-off time has passed for the current day, and the Expedite all eligible payments box is not checked, you will be prompted to expedite or schedule the payments for the next business day.
Same Day (Send or Collect) – Payments can be expedited via Same Day ACH if scheduled for today and sent/collected before the ACH cut-off time, or if scheduled for tomorrow. All financial institutions are eligible for Same Day ACH. Your institution must be operationally set up to process Same Day ACH payments (for details, see Institution Settings for ACH Payments).
To send or collect Same Day, check the Expedite all eligible payments box, which defaults to Fastest method available (if payments qualify). Total expedite fees appear at the bottom.
Standard (Send or Collect) – These payments are sent/collected via standard ACH. Any payments scheduled on a date after tomorrow will be sent/collected using standard speed.
Select Add payment to include each additional payment.
You can also duplicate or delete a payment. Select the box next to the payment row, then choose Duplicate to create a copy or Delete to remove it.
You can choose how payments will display on your statements. By default, payments appear on your statement as separate transactions. To change this, select Edit above the table.
A dialog box appears where you can select:
Individual payments – Each payment is a separate line on your statement with its own amount. If provided, the description also appears on the statement.
Combined summary – Each day’s payments are grouped into a single total amount on your statement, labeled with the payment title.
Select Save changes.Once you have added all the payments, select Review.
If your institution has Elevated Authentication enabled for ACH payments, the next page requires identity verification by entering a two-factor authentication (2FA) code. Select a verification method and select Continue. Follow the prompt on the next page to enter the code that appears on the trusted device.
To enable or disable Elevated Authentication for ACH payments, go to Narmi Command under Institution settings > Features Requiring Elevated Authentication > ach_payments. After a user completes the 2FA step, they remain in Elevated Authentication Mode for the number of seconds specified by the Elevated Authentication Mode Duration institution setting. To ensure a user has sufficient time to receive and enter their authentication code, the default is 600 seconds (10 minutes).
For users who have biometrics set up on their mobile device, Elevated Authentication uses biometric verification instead of 2FA. Please contact your Narmi Relationship Manager to enable sudo mode biometrics for your institution.
For more information, go to Elevated Authentication.
On the page that appears, review details. Select View # payments to view the individual details.
Select Submit.
A payment receipt appears. Select Done to be directed to the Payment Activity page or select Make another payment.
If dual approvals are enabled, payments are submitted for approval to all Org users who have permission to approve payments in the web and mobile apps. For more information, go to Using Dual Approvals for ACH Payments.
Each individual payment within a bulk payment is evaluated individually. Once each payment passes risk evaluation, whether automatically or manually, we send an email to the user confirming the payment has been initiated. To learn about the bulk ACH payment communications we send, go to End-User Communications - Bulk ACH Payments.