Payroll Help

Your Payroll Software questions answered here

Direct Deposit Funding and Timing Options

In this article

Background

When you run payroll, the way you fund your payroll will determine your payroll run deadlines.

  1. Typical ACH Option:  Patriot will collect money from your business bank account after payroll is run.
  2. Prefund Option:  Patriot will collect money from your business bank account ahead of time, so it will be ready to send to employees faster. You can process payroll as little as one day before the pay date. For more details about how prefunding works and disabling prefund for a payroll, see Using Prefunded Direct Deposit.  

Important notes:

  • You can also wire funds to Patriot as late as one banking day before the pay date. The deadline for wiring money to Patriot is 3:00 PM ET the day before the pay date. See Wire Instructions for Patriot Software Direct Deposit.
  • In all cases, your deadline for processing payroll with direct deposit will be 8:00 p.m. ET, although we recommend not waiting until the last minute, in the event of an unexpected technical delay.
  • The transaction on your bank statement will read “Patriot Software Payroll” for direct deposit collections and refunds.

Direct Deposit Timing

Patriot will collect the money from your business bank account after you run payroll, confirm the collection is successful, and then send the money to the employee bank accounts.

Standard 4-Day ACH Direct Deposit

When you use the Standard Option, the pay date must always be at least four (4) banking days after the date you run payroll. 

Here is an 4 day ACH example:

Expedited 2 Day ACH Direct Deposit

Two day direct deposit is only available for established, well-qualified customers.  You must process and approve payroll at least 2 banking days before the pay date.

Banking Holidays

It’s important to be aware of your direct deposit timing and banking holidays for payroll. When a bank holiday falls within a payroll week, you will need to add an extra day to your process.  For more details, see Patriot Direct Deposit Bank Holidays.

Direct Deposit Payroll Planner Tool

Use the planner tool below to help determine your payroll run date or pay date based on your ACH timing and banking days.

Prefunded Direct Deposit

When you use the Prefund Option, Patriot has already collected money from your business before you run payroll, so you can pay employees quickly.  Once your current prefunded balance is established, you can make the pay date either one, two, three, or four days after the date you run payroll. Any pay date over 4 days will use the Standard option, and your prefunded balance will not be used.  For more details, see Using Prefunded Direct Deposit.

Here is an example showing setting the initial prefunded balance to $1000 for the first time.

The transaction on your bank statement will read “Patriot Software Prefunding” for all prefunding collections and refunds.

How to Turn Off Direct Deposit for a Payroll

To turn off the direct deposit for one payroll,

  1. Go to Payroll Step One(Payroll > Run Payroll)
  2. Change the Direct Deposit toggle from “Enabled” to “Disabled.”
    • The payroll run will not have direct deposit, and you will need to print or handwrite paychecks.
  3. The Direct Deposit setting will return to “Enabled” after the payroll run.

Your feedback will not receive a reply. If you have a specific issue, please reach out to our support team here.