DIRECT DEPOSIT

CCS Payroll provides you with tools to automate Direct Deposit for your employees. We will initially discuss how to set up Direct Deposits so that employees can have their net pay sent to a single bank account of their choosing. We will then examine more complex scenarios. We will use Company 99 for illustrative purposes. The steps involved in setting up Direct Deposit are as follows:

A. Deduction Code: Set up Deduction Codes as required. Company 99 has two such Codes already established: 901 and 902. Code 902 is the Code that is set up to send an employee's net pay to a specific bank, so let's examine it in some detail:

  1. The Category for Direct Deposit will always be Z (ZERO OUT--DIRECT DEPOSIT).
  2. The Type will normally be 21 (% OF NET). As its description states, this Type is only available if you selected Z for a Category.
  3. The Frequency will normally be 0 (EVERY PAY PERIOD).
  4. The Amount will normally be 100. (Remember: The TYPE specifies this as a percent, so 100 in the AMOUNT control means 100% of the Net.)
  5. The Global checkbox will normally be checked. Note that each employee must have Direct Deposit enabled on his or her Employee Form before the Code would actually apply. (See below for details.)

Once you put a Code like this in place, every employee on your payroll can opt to have his or her paycheck deposited directly into his or her bank.

B. Employee Data: The program must be informed about every employee who opts for Direct Deposit. Click on the button on the Rates Tab of the Employee Form labelled Direct Deposit. Follow the instructions: click on the Enable Direct Deposits checkbox, put the Account # and the Routing # in the appropriate controls, and click on OK. Unless changes are made to the Deduction Codes (see below for other options), this employee will have 100% of his or her net pay deposited in the bank according to the Routing and Account Numbers. If an employee decides that s/he temporarily does not want Direct Deposit, uncheck the Enable Direct Deposits box and the process will stop for that employee.

As soon as a Z Category Code is processed during paycheck generation, it shows up in the employee's Paycheck form in the Direct Amt. field. Any funds not designated as direct deposit would remain in the Check Amt. field and be available for printing as a paycheck.

C. Disbursements: The final step in Direct Deposit is Disbursement. Once paychecks have been generated, click on the Disbursement button in the Home Menu. You will be taken to a form that guides you to prepare a report for submission to a clearing house that actually makes the inter-bank transfer. (See the Disbursement Form for details.)

D. More Complex Scenarios: So far, we have examined the process of depositing 100% of an employee's net pay into a single bank. With CCS Payroll, however, you have the capability of dividing an employee's paycheck into a limitless number of deposits into a limitless number of bank accounts. Again, we will use Company 99 as an example.

When defining multiple direct deposit codes, please ensure that the code that deposits 100% of the net has the highest code ID number. We recommend that you use ID #'s in the 900's so it will show up on the paycheck entry screen last.

We noted above that Company 99 has two Direct Deposit Deduction Codes: 901 and 902. We saw that Code 902 was set up to transfer 100% of an employee's pay to the bank account of the employee's choosing. Code 901 is an example of how one employee's paycheck can be distributed to two accounts. Let's first look at Code 901, Employee #0:

  1. The Category for Direct Deposit is, of course, Z (ZERO OUT--DIRECT DEPOSIT).
  2. The Type in this example is 01 (FIXED RATE). Therefore, this Code is going to cause a specific amount to be directly deposited.
  3. The Frequency is 0 (EVERY PAY PERIOD). Therefore, the amount will be deposited every time the employee receives a paycheck.
  4. The Amount for the Company-Level Code (Employee # 0) is 0. This is because every employee will not want the same amount of the paycheck deposited separately into the same bank account.
  5. The Global checkbox is not checked. Note that each employee must have Direct Deposit enabled on his or her Employee Form before the Code would actually apply. (See below for details.)

Code 901, Employee #0, therefore, sets up the Company-Level Code, allowing you to create specific Direct Deposit transactions for individual employees. The next step would be to create Employee-Level Codes for each employee who wanted to split up his or her Direct Deposit. In Company 99, Leslie Riggins (Employee # 1916) is set up in this manner because she wants to deposit a certain amount per pay period in her savings account. There are two differences in this Employee-Level Code:

  1. The amount for Leslie Riggins is established at $25.00.
  2. The bank account information for this separate Direct Deposit is specified. (Click on the Bank button of the Earning/Deduction Form to view the bank data.)

Here is how the bank account information works: when the CCS Payroll program sees that a Direct Deposit Code applies to an employee, it looks to see whether bank account information is specified in the Direct Deposit Code. If it is, the program uses that bank account; if it isn't, the program uses the employee's bank account information (see Employee Data for details). Leslie Riggins would, therefore, have $25 deposited to the account specified in her Employee-Level Direct Deposit Code; the remaining net pay would be deposited in the bank account specified in her Employee Data.

If Leslie decided she wanted another fixed amount deposited to yet another bank account, all you would have to do would be to create another Direct Deposit Company-Level Code and then make an Employee-Level Code for her with the correct amount and bank account data. You can, of course, create as many Direct Deposit Codes as your payroll situation requires.

CCS Payroll processes Direct Deposit Codes intelligently: it will process every Direct Deposit Code that is not Type 21 (% OF NET) first. The remaining balance is then used for Type 21. So, in Leslie's example, her $25 Fixed Rate Direct Deposit transaction would be created first, thereby reducing her available net pay by $25. The remaining balance would then be available for her Type 21 Direct Deposit.

Note: The default ODFI (Originating Depository Financial Institution) number defaults to the ACH Processing Company of Georgia. If you will be using an ACH Processor other than the ACH Procssing Co. of Georgia, you will need to override this default setting, Please see the file "ODFISample.dat" in your data directory for further information. If you do not have an ACH processor already please contact CCS for further information.

 

 

More tips on setting up Direct Deposit

The first thing to keep in mind is that you want the 100 Percent Z category deduction codes to have the highest code number, so that they will last on the paycheck entry screen.

The next rule is that if you are utilizing a savings account, the savings account number will always require a separate Z Category code with an employee specific code attached (remember to click the Savings account click box inside the Bank Button). You will also input the information in the Employee/Rates Tab/Direct Deposit Button (you may duplicate the banking information here or input the real routing number and a dummy account number (ex. 1234)), however the information utilized will come from the Savings Code/Bank Button.

When setting up a DD that needs to be deposited to multiple accounts, create the codes as needed (fixed rate and/or %) and add them to the applicable employees via the deduction pick list or by adding employee specific codes.

For Example: If you have an employee who wants to put $75.00 into savings, $85.00 into a 2nd account and the balance into a live check, then create the codes for the $75.00 to savings, the $85.00 to the 2nd account and add them to the employee. What ever is left over will want to go into the checking account specified in their employee file. You will have to create an override code for this employee (for the 100% of the net code). Enter the amount as 0.0000, this will override the company level code and deposit 0.0000% of the net to checking, leaving the balance to be printed in a live check.

When you have the situation that you need to put $75.00 into savings, $85.00 into a 2nd account and the balance into a third account you will use a code designed to deposit the $75.00 into the savings account (with an employee specific code specifying $75.00 to that account), a different code to deposit $85.00 into a 2nd account and the balance (100% of the net) into a 3rd account. The code for the 100% of the net (into checking) will be the code with the largest code ID#. The code for 100% of the net into savings should probably be one code Id less (if 100% of net to checking is code 950, we would recommend that 100% of net to savings be code 949).

Processing the NACHA (Direct Deposit) file:

Once you are setup in CCS you will need an ACH Processor to submit the file on your behalf. If you are not already signed up with an ACH Processing company, then you will need to do so before you can process your first file.

CCS Software is a representative of ACH Processing in Atlanta, and therefor the program is set up with ACH Processing as the default originating depository financial institution (ODFI). If you are using CCS payroll to create a NACHA formatted file (for direct deposit) and using someone else to process your NACHA file please follow the instructions below to edit the configuration file, which will allow the proper processing of NACHA files by another ACH processor.

We are also a representative of National Payment Center, please let us know what your needs are and we can help you find the best solution to your direct deposit needs.

The direct deposit configuration file is distributed from CCS named ODFISample.DAT This file is in your CCSWin/Data directory. Please open the file using Notepad and enter the routing number and abbreviation for your ACH processor on the first line of the ODFISample.DAT file. Read over the remainder of the file and determine if you would like to implement any of the mentioned functionality, if so edit those lines as required. When you are done with your edits, rename and save the file as ODFI.DAT (ensure it is still in your data directory).

 

Instructions for creating your NACHA file for direct deposits

Once all direct deposit employees have account numbers and routing numbers added and they have been clicked as Enable Direct Deposit in their employee file and the appropriate (Z category) codes have been setup and used to to process the paychecks you should see the direct deposit transactions in your Disbursement window. Click the direct deposit transactions you wish to process, change the Settlement Date to the date you want the employees to be paid and click Pay. You will be shown the path where the file will be saved to. Click OK if you like the default path (or change the path to where you would like to save the file using the browse button). REMEMBER WHERE YOU ARE SAVING THE FILE, THIS IS WHERE YOU WILL RETRIEVE THE FILE FROM USING THE SOFTWARE FROM YOUR ACH PROCESSING COMPANY. You may get a message ... The export file is not empty! Do you want to add new data to the existing data? Click Yes to append, or No to delete existing data before adding any new data or Cancel to abort this export.

If you will be sending multiple companies direct deposit files at one time, click No to delete existing data when creating the first export, then click Yes to append any additional direct deposit files you wish to send in this batch. When you are ready to send the file, open your ACH Processing Software and "retrieve" or import the NACHA file you created in CCS and send it to your ACH processor, via thier ACH Processing Software.

If you do not have an ACH Processor please contact CCS for assistance.