Ivy makes it easy for your clients to pay you online via credit card and ACH/bank transfer. But what does a "Pending" status on an ACH payment mean?
True ACH payments/transfers from one bank to another traditionally take 5-7 business days. To expedite this process, Ivy deposits the funds your client paid into your account in 2-3 business days. In this way, Ivy absorbs the risk of payment failure so that you can get paid more quickly and efficiently! However, *it still takes about 5 business days for your client's bank to let us know if the payment has failed.* What does this mean? If your client submits an ACH payment on a Monday, you should receive the funds by Wednesday or Thursday, but within the next few business days (5 business days from original time of payment), the bank might let us know that your client had insufficient funds in their account, provided the wrong account information, etc, and the payment in reality has actually failed. In case of ACH payment failure, the previously deposited funds will be withdrawn from your account so that you can reissue the payment request to your client.
When your client pays your proposal, invoice, or retainer request via ACH/Bank Transfer, the following happens:
You will receive an e-mail letting you know that a payment is processing and is pending final approval
The payment record on the document will show a "Pending" status, and will say "*Waiting for final payment approval."
Once the payment is fully cleared/approved (within 5 business days), you will receive an e-mail notification that the payment has cleared, and the status will change to "Paid."
If the payment fails, you will receive an e-mail notification of the failure and the funds will be withdrawn from your account.