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If you process ACH payments and one gets returned, you may come across the return code R01. A return code means that, for one reason or another, an attempted payment wasn’t successful. There are a total of 85 ACH return codes.
This means that there are 85 possible issues that could prevent a transaction from going through successfully. Some
of these codes are more common than others. The R01 return code is one of the most common ones you may receive.
Learning about ACH return codes and how to avoid them will keep your payment processing quick and efficient. So,
what happens if you get the R01 ACH return code? Read on to learn the ACH return code R01 definition and how to resolve it.
What Does ACH Mean?
ACH stands for Automated Clearing House. The Automated Clearing House is a direct bank-to-bank payment method
used by businesses in the United States. When you process a payment over this network, some payments will be
reversed, or returned to the sender, for one of 85 possible reasons. One of the reasons relates to R01.
What does ACH Return Code R01 Mean?
The R01 ACH return code simply means that the bank account you requested payment from didn’t have the funds necessary to cover the payment. When the reason code comes up, the terminal may also read, “insufficient funds.”
For example, let’s say you attempt to debit (or deduct) $100 from your customer’s bank account, but they only had $80 in the bank at the time.
The ACH system is all-or-nothing, which means the entire payment would decline. In other words, you would not receive the $80 they did have available. Instead, you would receive a complete decline with the return code R01. It takes about 2 days from the attempted collection to receive a decline.
You can attempt to collect this payment one more time within 180 days of the original attempt. If the second attempt is also unsuccessful, you cannot try that same bank account again until the 180-day window has passed. We’ll discuss ways to resolve this a bit later.
Formal Definition
The formal definition of the R01 return code is, “Available balance is not sufficient to cover the dollar value of the debit entry.” That’s a fancy way of saying that the bank account didn’t have enough funds to cover your request.
Solutions to Fix R01 Return Code
You can try to fix ACH return code R01, a few different ways:
- Attempt the payment again. Before attempting the bank account a second time, it’s advisable to contact your customer and let them know about the issue. They can advise whether or not it’s safe to proceed based on the amount of money held in their account, or top up the balance to ensure that payment is collected successfully.
- Get an alternative payment method. In the event that an ACH payment no longer seems viable, request an alternative form of payment.
- Dispute the returned transaction. In very limited circumstances, you may be able to dispute the returned ACH transaction with OFDI.
