{
  "question_id": "CG-P1B-FULL-110",
  "slug": "how-payments-to-vendors-are-automated",
  "display_title": "How are payments to vendors automated?",
  "format": "article-v2",
  "applies_to": {
    "countries": [
      "US"
    ],
    "frameworks": [],
    "tax_year": null,
    "platforms": []
  },
  "general_concept": true,
  "summary": "Software selects approved bills that are due, assembles a run, prepares payment instructions and remittance, and records each payment against its bill. A person who neither entered nor approved those bills releases the run, with a second person above a set limit. Before release, each payment's destination is checked against bank details verified independently; bills already paid or in progress stay out of later runs; and each item stays open until it is settled or returned.",
  "body": "## What does the payment step involve once a bill is approved?\n\nEach stage of paying an approved bill either runs on rules or waits for a person:\n\n| Stage | Software can do | A person decides |\n|---|---|---|\n| Select what is due | List approved, unpaid bills by due date | Holding disputed bills |\n| Schedule and fund | Date payments from terms and compare the run total with the balance | Covering a shortfall |\n| Choose the method | Apply each vendor's default method | Any change to a vendor's method, bank or contact details |\n| Release | Hold the run for approval | Releasing it, with a second person above your limit |\n| Send remittance | Deliver invoice details with or alongside each payment | Choosing a format the method can carry |\n| Post and clear | Record each payment against its bill | Resolving anything flagged |\n| Reconcile | Match payments to bank-statement lines | Investigating anything unmatched |\n\nSoftware prepares; a person releases. Capturing and approving the bill is a separate subject.\n\nA run can start in a payables platform, which prepares, routes and records payments in one system; as a file sent to your bank, whose controls govern release; or in the bank's own portal, where automation ends at the payment list. If you send ACH files to your bank, you are what Nacha's How ACH Payments Work page calls the Originator, and Nacha's ACH Guide for Developers says CCD and CTX transfers between companies require an agreement; ask your bank what the Nacha Rules require of you.\n\nWhen payments are released in the bank's portal, someone who neither approved nor released them records each one the same day, from the bank's record, as a payment of that specific bill rather than a new expense, and enters the bank's reference in the run register; otherwise the next run can select that bill again. The New York State Comptroller's guide Cash Management Technology recommends, if possible, giving recording to someone with neither approval nor transmitting duties. When the statement line arrives, match it to that recorded payment rather than adding it again.\n\n## How do the payment methods compare?\n\nMethods differ in when money leaves, what the vendor receives and how long you have to catch a mistake:\n\n| Method | How it starts | When money moves | What travels with it |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| ACH credit | A file your bank, or your platform's bank, sends to an ACH operator | Nacha's How ACH Payments Work page says ACH credits can settle the same day, the next banking day or in two banking days | Nacha's ACH Guide for Developers says a CCD entry can carry one addenda record and a CTX entry up to 9,999 |\n| Wire | A payment order to your bank | The Federal Reserve describes its Fedwire Funds Service, which banks use for their own and clients' payments, as carrying same-day transactions | Ask your bank what reaches the vendor |\n| Instant (RTP) | Through your bank, if it offers RTP | The Clearing House describes RTP settlement as final, anytime, every day | Ask your bank what reaches the vendor |\n| Check on your account | Printed by you or your software | When your bank pays it | The stub |\n| Check mailed by a platform | The platform mails it, as QuickBooks Bill Pay does | Ask when the platform withdraws the funds | Ask what the check carries |\n\nWhen one payment settles several invoices, a CCD's single addenda record may not carry enough for the vendor to apply it; use CTX where your bank and the vendor support it, or send a separate remittance advice.\n\n## Can a payment be stopped once it is released?\n\nDo the checking before release; RTP settlement is final, as noted above, and other windows are narrow:\n\n| Method | What the rules allow |\n|---|---|\n| ACH credit | Nacha's Reversals rule lets the Originator or its bank send a reversing entry only for an erroneous entry (a duplicate, the wrong receiver, the wrong amount, a credit dated later than intended, or certain payroll credits), so the receiver's bank has it within 5 banking days after settlement; the rule permits the reversal, it does not promise the funds come back. Ask your bank or platform how much sooner it needs your request. |\n| ACH through QuickBooks Bill Pay | Intuit's page on cancelling a scheduled bill payment allows cancelling in Scheduled or Processed status before 5 pm on the day the vendor is to be credited, and gives steps for cancelling while a payment is processing, yet says ACH cannot be canceled once processed. Finish your checks before processing starts; if you find an error after that, select Cancel this payment at once, but do not count on it. Refunds arrive within 10 days of cancellation. |\n| Wire | The Federal Reserve's Fedwire Funds Service page says Fedwire participants benefit from the finality of payments credited to their Federal Reserve Bank master accounts. Ask your bank whether, and until when, it will try to cancel a wire; plan as though a released wire is final, and call the bank at once if you find an error. |\n| Check on your account | Under the Uniform Commercial Code's section 4-403, as enacted in your state, a stop-payment order describing the check with reasonable certainty must reach your bank in time, and in a way, that lets it act before acting on the check. It lasts six months, but an oral order lapses after 14 calendar days unless confirmed in a record within that period, and a record given while it is in effect can renew it for further six-month periods. Check your account agreement for how to place the order. |\n| Check mailed by QuickBooks Bill Pay | Intuit's cancellation page lets you request a void of a shipped check not yet credited to the vendor, and says voids take up to 7 days and refunds arrive within 10 days. Your bank's stop-payment and Positive Pay reach only checks drawn on your account, so do not pay the bill again until the void is confirmed. If the vendor signed up for QuickBooks Money before the withdrawal date, Intuit's payable-members page says the check is processed as an ACH payment instead, so the QuickBooks ACH row applies. |\n\n## Who should release a run, and when is a second person needed?\n\nThe New York State Comptroller's guide Cash Management Technology gives the reason for separating duties: without it, one person could be in a position to both commit a wrongdoing and conceal it. It says at least two individuals should be involved in each electronic transaction and that authorization and transmitting should be segregated. Whoever can enter or approve a bill, or change vendor details, and also release the payment can pay a false payable unseen. Set release rights to meet two conditions:\n\n- The releaser did not enter or approve any bill in the run, did not prepare the run and makes no vendor changes.\n- A second person also releases any payment above a limit you set in writing.\n\nWithout enough people for that, use the compensating measures under one person running the finance function.\n\nIntuit's page on bill approval and payment release workflows says the following about QuickBooks:\n\n- **Plans.** Workflows need QuickBooks Bill Pay Elite or QuickBooks Online Advanced. Downgrading from Elite without Online Advanced loses roles, permissions and bill approval workflows, lets bills needing approval be paid without it and rejects releases pending approval, so before any downgrade remove users in the bill clerk, bill payer and bill approver roles, as Intuit recommends, and re-set release rights before anyone pays again.\n- **Conditions.** Release conditions set by amount, vendor or both are what trigger approval, so make them cover every payment a person should release.\n- **Approvers.** Only admins can approve releases. The page does not say whether an admin can approve a payment they created or can edit vendors; find out, and if an admin can do either, have the vendor-register holder described below confirm from the audit log, for every release, that the approver neither created the payment nor edited that vendor.\n- **Second release.** For a release condition, the page says to select the bill approver; options for several approvers, such as Any 2 people approve, are described only for bill approval. Confirm whether a release can require two approvers; if it cannot, record a second person's approval of every payment above your limit before the admin releases it, or pay those amounts from your bank under its dual custody.\n- **Roles.** The Bill payer preset can pay bills and edit vendor details; custom roles need QuickBooks Online Advanced, and without them someone else reviews each payer's vendor changes.\n- **Held releases.** A release not reviewed after 30 days is automatically denied, so a held run must surface as unpaid bills.\n\nAt the bank, Wells Fargo's Fraud & Security page recommends dual custody on all online payment services and on administration services, and says wire dollar limits can be set at company, account and user level, with a payment over any of them unable to be sent. Ask your bank whether its dual custody covers adding users and changing limits, and which payment types and channels its limits cover.\n\n### Should the run wait for release or go out on a schedule?\n\nA run held for explicit release keeps a person at the last checkpoint. To schedule releases instead, a person who neither enters bills nor changes vendors must authorize the schedule, its vendors and amounts, and every change to it. The vendor check below still runs before each payment date, and Wells Fargo's Fraud & Security page recommends reconciling accounts daily to detect suspicious activity.\n\n## How do you control vendor bank details before a run uses them?\n\nAn automated run pays whatever the vendor record says. Put these controls in place before any run uses a new or changed account:\n\n- **Keep editing apart from paying.** The Practice of Internal Controls, also from the New York State Comptroller, says access to the module for creating new vendors should be segregated from employees who authorize purchases or approve claims for payment; apply the same to changing bank and contact details.\n- **Verify outside the request.** Wells Fargo's Fraud & Security page says to verify vendor requests for payments or payment-instruction changes with a call to the vendor's telephone number in your files. Use a number held before any request, never one from the request or the current record.\n- **Treat contact changes as payment changes.** Give contact-detail changes the same verification and approval as bank-detail changes, because the call-back relies on them.\n- **Keep a register the editors cannot touch.** Someone who does not edit vendors keeps each vendor's verified bank details and earlier contact details outside the payment software, changing them only after confirming a verification. Before each run they compare every payment's destination with the register and hold any that differ. Never rely on a change list kept by vendor editors, since an unlogged change passes it; the register stays with you even when an outside bookkeeper edits vendors.\n- **Check the software's own audit log.** The Practice of Internal Controls recommends reviewing audit logs of applications, including the financial software, to ensure only authorized changes are made. Unless your platform confirms that it pays the details on file at release, allow no vendor-detail edits from release until every payment has processed; the log check detects a change after the fact, it does not prevent one. After each run processes, the register holder checks that log, or repeats the comparison if there is none.\n\nThe call-back procedure itself belongs to the question on verifying a vendor's request to change bank details.\n\n### What if you cannot see a vendor's bank details?\n\nIntuit's page on paying payable members says you and a QuickBooks Business Network member do not see each other's bank account info, and Intuit's vendor payment info page says such a vendor updates its ACH info in its own QuickBooks. Until the platform confirms it tells you of changes before a run, hold each such payment for explicit release until the vendor confirms, at a number in your register, that its bank details are unchanged. Neither page says whether you are told when a member changes its bank details, and a vendor whose QuickBooks account someone has taken over may not know of a change, so this hold reduces the risk but does not remove it.\n\nThe payable-members page also says that if a vendor signs up for QuickBooks Money before a bill's withdrawal date, an ACH payment goes to the details the vendor gave at sign-up, not the ones you entered, and a check payment becomes an ACH payment; you and the vendor are then connected in the network automatically. A register comparison will not catch this. On each withdrawal date, before processing, the register holder checks whether any payee in the run is newly connected; cancel any such payment and reschedule it only after the vendor confirms its details at a number in the register. Intuit's payable-members page does not say when, relative to the withdrawal date, processing starts, so a recheck on that date may come after the payment has already been processed, and Intuit's cancellation page says ACH cannot be canceled once processed. Find out from Intuit when your payments begin processing, and run this recheck before then.\n\n## How do you stop a run from paying the same bill twice?\n\nAutomation repeats whatever it is given, so check at three points:\n\n- **Within the run.** Sort by vendor, invoice number and amount, and hold any repeat until someone explains it.\n- **Across runs.** A bill stays open until its payment is recorded. Treat bills with a payment scheduled, processing or sent as paid, record payments made elsewhere, including in the bank portal, before selecting, and confirm how your platform keeps such bills out of a new run; until you know, exclude them yourself.\n- **After a failed run.** Never resend the batch. Confirm item by item what was accepted and what left the account, then reselect only bills whose payment is confirmed rejected, returned or cancelled, with any void or refund complete.\n\nRecovering a duplicate that has already left is a separate question.\n\n## Which bank services check a run from outside your books?\n\nAsk your bank what each service compares and which payments it covers:\n\n- **Positive Pay.** Wells Fargo's Payments Fraud page says its Positive Pay compares checks presented for payment with your issued-check files to detect serial numbers and dollar amounts that do not match, and its Payee Validation flags payee names that differ from your check issue files. Cash Management Technology advises returning nonconforming items by default and keeping staff who approve Positive Pay exceptions apart from those who prepared the checks. It adds that positive pay is not foolproof. Producing the issue file is a separate question.\n- **Name checks.** The Federal Reserve Banks describe a Payee Name Verification service giving financial institutions with a FedLine Direct or FedLine Command solution the ability to verify an intended payee's name with an account (routing and account number) before issuing a payment, initially drawing on 12 months of historical transaction data. Ask whether your bank uses it on your payments and what it reports for an account with no history.\n- **Alerts and callbacks.** Cash Management Technology recommends asking your bank about alerts and about requiring verification of transactions over certain amounts, possibly through callbacks, emails or text alerts.\n\nNone of these confirms that a bill is genuine or replaces the vendor register.\n\n## How should a payment post, clear the bill and reconcile to the bank?\n\nAccountingTools states that paying a liability debits accounts payable, eliminating the liability, and credits cash. A platform that records each payment against its bill makes that posting, so do not key it again. If a $7,450.00 run is released and one $1,200.00 ACH payment in it is returned, the books should end up showing:\n\n| Event | Account | Debit | Credit |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| Payment recorded by the platform (check when yours does this) | Accounts payable | 7,450.00 | |\n| Payment recorded by the platform (check when yours does this) | Cash, operating account | | 7,450.00 |\n| Payment returned | Cash, operating account | 1,200.00 | |\n| Payment returned | Accounts payable | | 1,200.00 |\n\nIf the bill has not reopened after a return, ask the platform how it restores the bill rather than posting your own entry; never add an entry after the platform has reversed the payment, which would overstate cash and payables.\n\nThe ledger cannot tell released from settled, so keep a register for each run that gives every item one status:\n\n- **Scheduled.** The payment is in the platform but not yet released.\n- **Released.** It has a confirmation or check number but is not yet on a bank statement.\n- **Settled.** It is matched to a bank-statement line and, for a platform payment, the vendor has been credited or the check cashed.\n- **Returned or cancelled.** It is reversed, and its bill is open again.\n\nFind out whether your platform records the payment when it is scheduled, processed or settled, and note in the register which statuses are already posted. For a platform payment the statement line is the platform's withdrawal, not the vendor's credit, so keep the item open, under the exception owner's watch, until you confirm the vendor was credited or the check cashed, and match any later refund to that item.\n\nClose the run only when every item is settled or returned. The Practice of Internal Controls says bank reconciliations should be prepared monthly with differences researched and explained, reviewed by a supervisor who authorizes any correcting entries, and performed by someone without custody of or access to cash who records no receipts, disbursements or journal entries. Reconciling payment items is a separate question.\n\n## What should happen when a payment fails, comes back or is never cashed?\n\nAutomation removes the person who would have noticed. Name one exception owner who, on a set schedule until every item is settled or returned, checks unsettled payments, return notices and Positive Pay exceptions. Cash Management Technology advises separating Positive Pay exception approvers from check preparers but does not say whether returns and unsettled payments need an owner who neither prepared nor released the run; decide that when you set release rights. Where duties cannot be separated, use the monthly review under one person running the finance function. Handle each case this way:\n\n| If this happens | Do this |\n|---|---|\n| An item is rejected before it leaves | Keep the bill open, confirm nothing was debited, and fix the cause |\n| An ACH payment is returned | Make sure the bill is open again, as above, and check the vendor's details against the register before paying again |\n| Positive Pay flags a check | Decide before your bank's deadline, through someone who did not prepare the checks |\n| A check stays uncashed | Contact the vendor. Intuit's cancellation page says QuickBooks Bill Pay voids checks not cashed within 90 calendar days; stop your own checks before reissuing, and reissue only once the bill is open again |\n| A held release is denied or expires | Return its bills to the due list and tell the vendors affected |\n\n## What record should each payment leave?\n\nThe IRS page What kind of records should I keep says supporting documents for an expense should identify the payee, the amount paid, proof of payment and the date incurred, and describe the item or service to show it was a business expense. It counts documents reflecting electronic funds transferred as proof of payment and applies the same requirements to electronic records. For each automated payment, keep these records:\n\n- The approved bill, which normally carries the description\n- The release approval, showing who approved and when\n- The instruction sent, such as the file, confirmation number or check number\n- The bank's confirmation or statement line showing settlement\n- The remittance sent to the vendor\n- Any exception, and the verification behind any vendor-detail change relied on\n\n## What changes when one person runs the finance function?\n\nThe Practice of Internal Controls describes compensating controls as supervisory or other oversight procedures designed to reduce the risk of errors or fraud not being detected, and says that in small, one-person offices accounting entries and bank reconciliations should be reviewed monthly by a supervisor. In a business, the owner is usually that reviewer:\n\n- The bookkeeper prepares the run and the owner releases it, or approves it as the bank's second user, within bank limits the owner sets.\n- The owner keeps the vendor register and verifies every bank or contact change before a run can use it.\n- Each month the owner reviews the journal entries, the reconciliation and the bank statements for anything out of the ordinary, such as suspicious payees and large dollar amounts, as The Practice of Internal Controls recommends.\n\nIf the owner is the only person, nothing independent stands between a change and a payment, so protection rests on verifying changes through contact details held before the request, comparing each run with the register kept outside the software, bank alerts and limits, and statement review. An outside accountant's monthly review of register changes and statements adds a second view.\n\n## What does a control checklist for one run look like?\n\nEach stage must meet its condition before the run moves on:\n\n| Stage | What must be true before the run advances |\n|---|---|\n| Selection | Only approved, open bills, none with a payment scheduled, processing or sent; disputed bills held; outside payments recorded |\n| Vendor details | Every destination matches the register, or the payment is held for explicit release; before processing starts, a time you have confirmed with Intuit because its payable-members page does not state it, any payee newly connected in the Business Network has had its payment cancelled until it confirms its details |\n| Duplicates | No vendor has a repeated invoice number or amount without an explanation |\n| Funding | The paying account holds the run total |\n| Method and remittance | Each method can carry the remittance its vendor needs |\n| Release | The releaser entered, approved and prepared nothing in the run and changed no vendor, and a second person released, or recorded approval of, anything above the limit |\n| Transmission | The confirmation matches the run item by item |\n| After processing | The audit log or a repeat comparison shows no vendor change, and no payee joined the Business Network before its withdrawal date without confirming its details |\n| Exceptions | Each rejected, returned or flagged item is resolved by its owner, and uncashed checks are followed up |\n| Reconciliation | Every item is settled or returned, matched to bank lines and reviewed by someone who did not release the run |",
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      "url": "https://www.wellsfargo.com/com/fraud/payments-fraud/",
      "title": "Payments Fraud",
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      "title": "What kind of records should I keep",
      "publisher": "Internal Revenue Service",
      "published": "last reviewed or updated August 3, 2026",
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