There are two ways to fund and pay officials using direct deposit:
Fund a Transfer Using Your Bank Account. Withdraws the funds (via ACH) directly from your bank account at the time you pay officials. This method doesn't require you to plan ahead. Officials are paid in 4-5 business days from the time you initiate the payment.
Fund a Transfer Using Your Dwolla Balance. Requires you to transfer money (via ACH) from your bank account into your Dwolla Balance prior to initiating a payment to officials. Once the funds have cleared and are available in your Dwolla Balance (in 3-4 business days), you can initiate a payment using the Balance as your funding source. Officials are paid in 1-2 business days from the time you initiate the payment.
Option 1: Fund a Transfer Using Your Bank Account
The easiest way to pay officials is to fund the payment batch using your bank account at the time you pay officials. This process takes 4-5 business days from when you initiate the payment to when an official sees the money in their account.
When this happens, we initiate a single withdrawal from your bank account for the full amount of the batch of officials to be paid. Once this payment has cleared your bank account, we initiate the corresponding deposits into the bank accounts of each official to be paid.
When you pay officials, you will choose your bank account as the source for the payment:
Option 2: Fund a Transfer Using Your Dwolla Balance
The other method for paying officials involves manually transferring money from your bank account to your Dwolla Balance. Your Dwolla account is capable of holding funds on your behalf. When it is time to pay officials, the amount needed to pay officials is debited from the funds held in your Dwolla Balance, rather than being withdrawn from your checking account.
This process has several steps:
Initiate a transfer from your bank account to your Dwolla Balance
Wait 3-4 business days for the transfer to clear
Pay officials using your Dwolla Balance as the funding source
The advantage to this method is that your officials will see funds in their account within 1-2 business days of you initiating a transfer using funds available in your Dwolla Balance. Using this method requires that you plan ahead and transfer money into your Dwolla Balance in advance of when you want to initiate a payment. Only funds that have cleared your bank account, and are showing as available in your Dwolla Balance, can be used to pay officials using this method.
Initiate a Transfer to your Dwolla Account
To initiate a transfer to your Dwolla Balance, use the Transfer Funds menu item at the top of the page.
Wait for the Funds to Clear
Once you initiate the transfer, wait 3-4 business days for the funds to appear in your Dwolla Balance. Assignr will send you an email when you initiate the transfer, and another once the funds have cleared.
Pay Officials
When it comes time to pay officials, rather than choosing your checking account, you can choose Dwolla Balance as the source of funds. Assignr will debit the funds from your Dwolla Balance, and your officials see the payment in their bank account within 1-2 business days.
The total amount of funds held in your Dwolla Balance is visible from the Payor page. If you transfer too much money into your Dwolla Balance, you can always use the Transfer Funds page to move it back into your bank account.
The flow of funds using this method might look something like this, where you would initiate a separate transfer between your bank account and your Dwolla Balance, wait for the funds to be available, and then pay officials directly from your Dwolla Balance.
If you transfer more than what you need into your Dwolla Balance, you can always transfer the remaining funds back to your bank account at any time.
Cut-Off Time for Initiating Payments
Our cut-off time for initiating payments is 5:00pm Eastern on business days. Transactions that are initiated prior to 5:00pm Eastern will be processed sooner than transactions that occur after 5:00pm.
Bank Account → Dwolla Balance: 3 business days
Bank Account → Officials' Bank Accounts: 4 business days
Dwolla Balance → Officials' Bank Accounts: 1 business day
Transactions requested after 5:00pm on a Friday, or anytime on a weekend or banking holiday, will be processed as if they were initiated before 5:00pm on the following business day.
Funding Payments with a Mailed Check or Wire Transfer
Our payment system is exclusively ACH/direct deposit. Payments to officials are funded through an ACH withdrawal from your bank account, and officials are paid via ACH deposit.
You can also pre-fund your Dwolla Balance via an ACH direct withdrawal, which is initiated through the Assignr site, and pay officials using the funds stored in your Dwolla Balance.
Assignr does not accept paper checks for funding officiating payments, and we are unable to mail a paper check to an official for payment.
If you are interested in either of these services, please contact us, and we can let you know if this is something we add in the future.