ACH Files
Electronic payment transactions are sent through the ACH network in an ACH file. The following diagram shows the structure of an ACH file:
An
entry (short for
entry detail record) represents a single credit or debit transaction and is the basic unit of the fund transfer process. An entry contains information such as the recipient's ID, recipient's account number, the payment or debit type, and the amount of the payment or debit.
An entry can be accompanied by multiple addenda records depending on the SEC code. Each addenda record supplies additional information about the entry.
A
batch consists of one or more entries having the same SEC code. Different batches can contain different types of payment-related information. For example, one batch can contain payments to a business' employees and another batch can contain payments to that business' creditors.
An
ACH file contains one or more batches. The file is sent to the recipient over the ACH network. The recipient then parses the file and processes the appropriate batch information it contains.
