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 Overview

Every employee bank account involved in direct deposit must go through the Pre-Note process to determine that a deposit can be successfully transmitted. A pre-note is a zero-dollar amount credit that is sent to the employee's bank account before a direct deposit can be made to this account. This Pre-Note process ensures that the routing/transit numbers and bank account numbers are correct, so that the bank can successfully receive a credit to that account.

The approval process for pre-notes takes 10 business days, excluding bank holidays. You will normally receive no confirmation of accounts that had successful pre-note transmissions; you are notified only of those pre-note transmissions that were rejected. After 10 days, you can consider all pre-notes for which you received no rejection to be approved, and those accounts can be considered ready to process direct deposit transactions.

When you begin a new payroll cycle, you are reminded if there are any pre-notes that have been sent but not yet approved. You are also given the option to approve pre-notes at that time, so that newly approved accounts can begin direct deposit processing in the current payroll cycle.

 Before You Begin

Employees must be set up for direct deposit before pre-notes are sent. For more information, see Set Up Employees for Direct Deposit.

 

To send pre-notes for approval

1. Select Payroll Direct Deposit menu > Pre-Note Selection Register.

2. All employee bank accounts that have No selected in the Pre-Note Sent field in the Employee Maintenance Direct Deposits window are selected automatically for pre-note processing and are printed on the Pre-Note Selection Register. For more information, see Pre-Note Selection Register - Fields.

3. Verify that the correct date is entered in the Pre-Notes to Be Sent One field, and then click Print. After the Pre-Note Selection Register is printed and updated, the Pre-Note Sent field is set to Yes and the pre-note sent date is updated.

4. Select Payroll Direct Deposit menu > Generate Pre-Note ACH File.

5. Make any needed selections and then click Proceed to generate the pre-note ACH file. For more information, see Generate Pre-Note ACH File - Fields.

   The ACH file is saved in the location specified in Payroll Options.

6. Follow your bank's instructions for sending the ACH file to them.

7. After 10 days, select Payroll Direct Deposit menu > Pre-Note Approval Register.

8. Enter the pre-note information and click Print. This sets the Pre-Note Sent field from Yes to Approved in the Employee Maintenance Direct Deposits window for all accounts that are approved. For more information, see Pre-Note Approval Register - Fields.

9. For accounts that were rejected, select Payroll Main menu > Employee Maintenance.

10. Select the employee number and click Direct Deposit. For more information, see Employee Maintenance - Fields.

11. In the Direct Deposits window, double-check your entries and make any necessary corrections. If any changes are made, the Pre-Note Sent field is set to No to force a pre-note to be sent again for the account during the pre-note selection approval process. Click OK, and then Accept.

After an employee bank account is approved, you should not change the employee first or last name, bank account number, account type, or routing/transit number of an account without again going through the Pre-Note process for that account. You can, however, change the amount to be deposited, the distribution method, the order of the accounts in the employee's record, and the description. If an employee's employee number is changed, you must resend a pre-note unless the "Do Not SEnd a Pre-Note When Employee Number Changes" check box in Payroll Options is selected.

Any new account to which an employee wants to make deposits must go through the Pre-Note process before direct deposits can be processed for the account. You can delete an approved account if an employee wants to remove an account from the list. Consult with your bank for complete details on the Pre-Note approval process.