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

Reason	ACH Code	Short Description
InsufficientFunds	R01	The available balance isn’t enough to cover the value of the ACH debit.
AccountClosed	R02	The counterparty account has been closed.
NoAccount	R03	The 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.
InvalidAccountNumberStructure	R04	The structure of the account number isn't valid.
UnauthorizedDebitToConsumer	R05	A debit Entry was transmitted to a consumer account, but receiving consumer has not authorized debiting their account.
ReturnedPerOdfiRequest	R06	The originator of the payment requested that it would be returned.
AuthorizationRevokedByCustomer	R07	The customer who authorized the ACH payment has revoked authorization.
PaymentStopped	R08	The receiver of a recurring debit transaction requested to stop the payment.
UncollectedFunds	R09	Although there's sufficient balance in the account, the balance that is available for spending is below this dollar value.
CustomerAdvisesNotAuthorized	R10	The receiving customer informed their bank / financial institution that the ACH payment is unauthorized, Improper, Ineligible, or Part of an Incomplete Transaction.
CheckTruncationEntryReturned	R11	Check Truncation Early Return
BranchSoldToAnotherDfi	R12	Branch Sold to Another DFI
RdfiNotQualifiedToParticipate	R13	RDFI Not Qualified to Participate
RepresentativePayeeDeceasedOrUnableToContinue	R14	Representative Payee Deceased or Unable to Continue in that Capacity
BeneficiaryOrBankAccountHolderDeceased	R15	Beneficiary or Account Holder (Other Than a Representative Payee) Deceased
AccountFrozen	R16	Account Frozen/Entry Returned per OFAC Instruction
FileRecordEditCriteria	R17	File Record Edit Criteria
ImproperEffectiveEntryDate	R18	Improper Effective Entry Date
AmountFieldError	R19	Amount Field Error
NonTransactionAccount	R20	Non-Transaction Account
InvalidCompanyIdentification	R21	Invalid Company Identification
InvalidIndividualIdNumber	R22	Invalid Individual ID Number
CreditEntryRefusedByReceiver	R23	Credit Entry Refused by Receiver
DuplicateEntry	R24	Duplicate Entry
AddendaError	R25	Addenda Error
MandatoryFieldError	R26	Mandatory Field Error
TraceNumberError	R27	Trace Number Error
RoutingNumberCheckDigitError	R28	Routing Number Check Digit Error
CorporateCustomerAdvisesNotAuthorized	R29	Corporate Customer Advises Not Authorized
RdfiNotParticipantInCheckTruncationProgram	R30	RDFI Not Participant in Check Truncation Program
PermissibleReturnEntry	R31	Permissible Return Entry (CCD and CTX Only)
RdfiNonSettlement	R32	RDFI Non-Settlement
ReturnOfXckEntry	R33	Return of XCK Entry
LimitedParticipationDfi	R34	Limited Participation DFI
ReturnOfImproperDebitEntry	R35	Return of Improper Debit Entry
ReturnOfImproperCreditEntry	R36	Return of Improper Credit Entry
SourceDocumentPresentedForPayment	R37	Source Document Presented for Payment
StopPaymentOnSourceDocument	R38	Stop Payment on Source Document
ImproperSourceDocument	R39	Improper Source Document/Source Document Presented for Payment
InvalidIndividualOrCompanyName	R45	Invalid Individual Name/Company Name
IncorrectlyCodedOutboundInternationalPayment	R85	Incorrectly 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.

Verb	POST
Url	https://api.s.unit.sh/returns/:transactionId
Data Type	returnAch
Timeout (Seconds)	5

Attributes

Name	Type	Description
reason	string	The ACH Return Reason for returning the transaction.

Relationships

Field	type	Description
account	JSON:API Relationship	The Deposit Account of the customer.

Response

Response is a JSON:API document.

200 OK

Field	Type	Description
data	ReturnedReceivedAchTransaction	Transaction 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:

Type	Short Description
AccountFrozen	Account is not authorized to receive the funds
UncollectedFunds	Although 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.