A Review of How to Set Up Direct Deposit:
There are several steps you need to complete in order to set up direct deposit on your site:
OPTIONAL: Grant the person in charge of pushing payments through access to your Payor.
👉 Set Up your Payment Account within your Payor.
Activate direct deposit, by purchasing a direct deposit plan.
This article covers step 4 of 6: Setting Up a Payment Account. Be sure you've completed all the necessary steps above this one, prior to completing the steps in this article.
You can learn more about all direct deposit setup steps here: An Overview of How to Set Up Direct Deposit.
Meet Dwolla:
Our payment system uses Dwolla to help facilitate bank transfers to pay your officials. If you have not heard of Dwolla, they are a payments solution that takes the complex world of payments processing and wraps it into a seamless experience, all accessible from within your Assignr account.
Your initial account setup will require that you provide personal information about yourself, so that we are able to verify your identity. The information requested is not unlike the information a bank might request if you were to set up a checking account.
We strongly encourage you to plan ahead, as this process includes a verification process to ensure we know who is processing payments on our platform. In some cases, some customers are able to complete the process in 30 minutes or less. Other customers may require 3-5 business days to provide and verify the information about you and about the business entity that is paying your officials.
How to Set up a Payment Account within your Payor:
This process should be completed by the person that will ultimately push payments through to officials. In order to do this, you will need Full Control of the payor.
1. Select Financials → All Payors.
2. Enable Direct Deposit.
Under the payor you are working with, select Enable Direct Deposit.
3. Get Started.
You can read through the direct deposit pricing on this page. When you're ready, select Get Started.
4. Tell us about: Who's Paying.
💡 Depending on the nature of your paying organization, you will be asked to provide slightly different information to us in the following steps.
Follow the on-screen prompts to share the requested information about who's paying.
💡 If your business type is a corporation, LLC, or partnership, then your organization must be a registered business entity in good standing with the respective state agency that handles business registration.
5. Tell us about: You.
Follow the on-screen prompts to share the requested information about you.
💡 The system requires that each payor have a unique email address tied to it. In the email address dropdown above, be sure to select an email address that has not been used in setting up a previous payor, or in setting up a bank account designed to receive money as an official.
If needed, you can add and confirm a new email address to your account.
6. Tell us about: Your Organization/Business.
If your paying organization is a business (e.g. sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation, etc), you'll be asked to share information about your organization/business in this section.
If your officials will be paid from your personal bank account, then you'll be asked to share information about yourself here instead.
Regardless, follow the on-screen prompts to share the requested information about your organization/business (or yourself).
Learn more about the requested information below:
Name of Business. This must match the business name on file with the state agency that your business is registered under.
EIN. Your 9-digit Employer Identification Number. If officials will be paid from your personal bank account (rather than a business account), then you'll be asked to provide your social security number and date of birth here instead.
Street Address. This must be a physical mailing address where business is conducted. P.O. boxes, virtual addresses, and registered agent addresses are not acceptable. If a business does not have a physical address, then a residential address of the organization's controller should be provided instead.
Doing Business As. Do not fill in this field unless you have filed a d/b/a or fictitious name with a government authority. If your business uses a 'Doing Business As' name, you will need to provide a Certificate of Assumed Name or other documentation that substantiates that you are permitted to do business using the assumed name. You'll be prompted to do this after moving through these initial payment account setup steps.
Classification. Our suggested classifications for organizations paying officials include educational services, personal services, nonprofit/educational, and nonprofit/other.
7. If Prompted, tell us about: Your Controller.
If your organization is a business (e.g. sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation, etc), you'll be asked to share information about your controller.
If prompted, follow the on-screen prompts to share the requested information about your controller.
A few notes on some of the requested controller information:
'Choosing' your Controller. A controller is anyone who has significant responsibility for managing the legal entity of the account. This could be a president, VP, secretary, or treasurer of the organization.
Home Address. This must be their home address, not a business address, since this step is verifying who the individual is.
8. Create your Payment Account.
At the bottom of the screen, you'll see links to Dwolla's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, for you to read through.
When you're ready, you can select the checkbox to agree to Dwolla's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, then select Create Account.
💡 You'll also be sent a separate email from SignWell, asking for your signature on these documents, as well.
9. If Applicable, tell us About: Your Beneficial Owners.
If your organization is a business, you'll be brought to a page asking you to add your beneficial owners.
Who Needs to Add Benficial Owners?
If your organization is a for-profit business, then anyone that has 25% ownership (or more) of the business, should be added as a beneficial owner. This will allow us to verify their information.
If your business is a sole proprietorship, unincorporated association, trust, publicly traded corporations, or a non-profit, and there are no individuals who own 25% or more of this business, then you are not required to add a beneficial owner, and can select the checkbox under Certification Required, and select Submit.
How to Add Beneficial Owners
If your organization is a for-profit business, here's how to add your Beneficial Owners:
1. Select Add a Beneficial Owner.
2. Follow the on-screen prompts, sharing the beneficial owner's name, address, SSN, and date of birth.
3. Select Save Changes.
4. If prompted, select Upload a Document next to the beneficial owner's name. Follow the on-screen prompts, uploading a color scanned photo of the owner's state-issued driver's license or US government-issued photo ID card. Non-US persons must upload a color scanned photo of a passport. Be sure the scanned photo is clear and high-quality.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 for all beneficial owners.
6. When you're ready, in the Certification Required window, select the checkbox.
7. Select Submit.
At this point, most people will be directed to the next step in the direct deposit set up process: adding a bank account to their payor.
Frequently Asked Questions — Setting Up a Payment Account:
1. I've completed the steps above. Now what?
Congratulations! Now it's time to add a bank account to your payor. This is the bank account that will fund your direct deposit payments to officials.
You can learn how to do this here: How to Add a Bank Account to your Payor.
You can view all the steps that need to be completed in order to set up direct deposit in this article: An Overview of How to Set Up Direct Deposit.
2. My payor is in Document status. What do I do?
Every so often, Dwolla requires additional documentation to verify a business. If this is the case with your business, your payor will be put into Document status.
You'll notice a blue banner across the top, indicating this, from your Financials → [Your Payor Name] page.
If this happens to you, simply follow the on-screen prompts, and upload scanned color images / PDFs of the requested documentation.
You'll be able to see what documentation is needed in the Payment Account window of your Payor page, as shown above. 👆
Common Documentation Needed:
Situation | Documentation Needed |
Controller Identification Verification | If Dwolla is not able to verify your controller's identification, you may need to provide a state issued driver’s license or a U.S. government-issued photo ID card. |
'Doing Business As' Name Verification | If your business uses a 'Doing Business As' name, you will need to provide a Certificate of Assumed Name or other documentation that substantiates that you are permitted to do business using the assumed name. |
General Business Verification | If Dwolla is not able to verify your business, you may need to provide an IRS-issued SS4 EIN confirmation letter.
This is the letter sent to you by the IRS when you established your EIN. If you don't have a copy of this letter you can call the IRS Business & Specialty Tax Line and ask them to send you a copy. |
Sole Proprietorship Verification | If Dwolla is not able to verify your sole proprietorship, you may need to provide one or more of the following, as applicable to your business:
|
Once you've uploaded the requested documentation, Dwolla will review it and will email you with a status update and any necessary next steps.
3. I'm getting an error message when trying to create my payment account, saying this email address already exists. How do I fix this?
The system requires that each payor have a unique email address tied to it. In the email address dropdown , be sure to select an email address that has not been used in setting up a previous payor, or in setting up a bank account designed to receive money as an official.
If needed, you can add and confirm a new email address to your account. Once you've done this, you can select the newly-added email address in the dropdown shown above.
Alternatively, you can reach out to us at [email protected] and we can enable a workaround for you.
4. I'm being asked to provide an SS4 letter, but I don't have one. What do I do?
The quickest and easiest way to get verified is to provide your organization's SS4 letter, which was sent to you by the IRS when you established your EIN.
If you don't have a copy of this letter we recommend calling the IRS Business & Specialty Tax Line and asking them to send you a copy.
Other business documents that may be acceptable on a case-by-case basis instead, are as follows:
Any US government entity (federal, state, local) issued business formation or licensing document exhibiting the name of the business enrolling in our Direct Deposit services, or
Any business formation documents exhibiting the name of the business entity in addition to being filed and stamped by a US government entity.
Examples include:
Filed and stamped Articles of Organization or Incorporation
Sales/Use Tax License
Business License
Certificate of Good Standing
Again, these are accepted by Dwolla on a case-by-case basis. If you choose to upload one of these instead of an SS4 letter, Dwolla will review it and let you know if they were able to verify your business with it or not.
5. My payor is in Retry Status. What do I do?
Retry status means that Dwolla needs you to re-enter, and possibly re-upload, information into the system.
Follow the on-screen prompts to re-enter the requested information for your payor. When doing so, be sure to triple-check that all of your information is accurate and aligns with whatever information is on-file for your organization, according to the state agency your business is registered under.
💡 If your payor is put into Retry status, Dwolla requires you to share the full social security numbers for individuals, versus just the last 4 digits.