Toast Payroll: Unsuccessful Direct Deposits

In this Article:

• Unsuccessful Direct Deposit
• Review Your Employee's Payment Method Setup
  • Employees With Incomplete Direct Deposit Information
  • Completed Direct Deposit
• Return of Funds
• ACH Reversal
• Federal Trace Number
• Next Steps

Unsuccessful Direct Deposit

After a payroll is submitted, Toast Payroll will process it during the next scheduled sweep (sweeps occur at 4:00 PM CST on non-federal holiday business days) and employees will receive their wages on their effective/check date (or on the following non-federal holiday business day if payroll is submitted late). Toast Payroll uses any available routing and account numbers on employee profiles to initiate a direct deposit, but these accounts must be added to employee profiles before a payroll has been opened, which is when the Preview button of a payroll run has been pressed. Employers should submit payroll at least four business days prior to the check date in order to provide the highest chance that direct deposits will be successful.

There are different reasons a direct deposit could be unsuccessful:

• The routing and/or account numbers are incorrect or incomplete
• The account on file belongs to a different individual
• The employee's bank account is closed
• The employee's bank account has a hold on it
• Hours (timesheets) were unapproved or not recorded
• A payroll run was not completely submitted to Toast
• An employee's pay is set to $0
• If an employee's net pay was $0, they will not receive a deposit
• An employee's Form W-4 has potentially excessive withholding amounts
• Payroll was submitted less than four business days before the check date, triggering a paper check due to timing restrictions
• Banking details were added after payroll was begun, making direct deposit unavailable for that cycle

A quick way to narrow down what happened is to consider other direct deposits. If the issue occurred with only one staff member, it's likely that the error is with the employee's account or bank. If multiple employees are reporting missing direct deposits, it's more likely that the issue lies within the payroll itself, usually whether it was submitted correctly or fully completed.

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Review Your Employee's Payment Method Setup

Your employees are invited to select their preferred payment method during their new hire onboarding. If your employees are having trouble completing the payment method step, refer them to out a more specific instructional guide. Because most employees opt to be paid via direct deposit or Toast Pay Card, there is a report that allows you to see who has and has not completed those types of payment methods. Learn more below.

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Employees With Incomplete Direct Deposit Information

To view which of your employees has not completed their direct deposit setup or have completed it incorrectly, navigate to Settings > Payroll > Direct Deposit. In the Employees with incomplete direct deposit information section of this page, you'll see all employees who have not successfully set up their direct deposit (or Toast Pay Card) account. This means these employees have not completed the required steps for Toast Payroll to digitally deposit wages into their bank account.

Toast Payroll highly recommends routinely reviewing this report, including instances when a direct deposit is unsuccessful. As soon as you realize a direct deposit failed, check this report to view each employee's direct deposit status (complete vs. incomplete) and easily email employees who have incomplete direct deposit information. The email guides them to revisit the direct deposit information on their profile in order to be paid via direct deposit. Note: This list only shows employees who have selected direct deposit or Toast Pay Card as their payment method, not paper check.

1. Navigate to Settings > Payroll > Direct Deposit.
2. To the right of an employee's email address, there are three dots with two options:
   1. Select the three dots > Email employee. This will send an automated email to the email address in the report. The email cannot be customized, but you can view the template by selecting View email details towards the top of this section.
      1. To quickly email the visible employees in this section, select the topmost checkbox (to the left of the Name column) and select Email selected employees. You may wish to scroll down to the View field and select View all in order to send to all employees in this tile.
   2. Within the three dots, you'll also see the option to Fill out direct deposit manually. This will bring you to the employee's Payment Method page. Follow the steps in the Add a Direct Deposit Account Manually (Without Plaid) section of Toast Payroll: Get Help With Direct Deposit Accounts.
3. Only employees with a Toast account will be sent the automated email. To check if an employee has an account, log into Toast Web, navigate to Employees > Employee management > Employees, and look for a checkmark in the Account Created column.
4. The Last emailed column shows you when the automated email was last sent to a staff member. Once an employee has successfully updated or added their direct deposit information, they will move from this section of the page to the Completed direct deposit section below.

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Completed Direct Deposit

This section displays information for all employees who have successfully completed their payment method steps. If an employee splits their direct deposit between two accounts, the percentages will appear here. The Split dep. column would show the order for any deposits split between these two accounts.

Select the v caret icon to open this section. Select an employee's name to be taken to their Payment Method page.
 

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Return of Funds

When the routing and/or account numbers are incorrect (and lead to a non-existent or closed bank account), a return of funds is triggered. A return of funds is when direct deposits are delivered back to the payor (in this case, Toast Payroll). It takes up to three business days after the check date for us to receive a return of funds, so if an employee realizes they have not been paid on their check date, we may not know the funds have been returned quite yet.

Once Toast Payroll receives a return of funds, our Banking team will deposit the funds back with the business and the employee's payment method will be automatically changed to paper check to avoid further instances of this. An email is sent to the restaurant's financial contact (set in Toast Web) to indicate a return of funds was processed. If you'd like to view or change the financial contact, review Optimize Communication Preferences.

After receiving these funds, you might decide to write the employee a manual check. A quick calc should not be necessary if the original payroll record was correct and not voided. Toast Payroll will not void a payroll record unless you direct us to do so. See Next Steps for suggestions on what to do for the future.

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ACH Reversal

Sometimes direct deposits are sent to the wrong bank account. Toast does not receive notification when this happens since the funds are not returned to us. When the employee or restaurant recognizes this happened, Toast Payroll can perform an ACH reversal for a fee of $25 up to five days after the check date.

A successful ACH reversal will result in a net payment. Upon retrieval, this will revert the funds to Toast Payroll so they may be returned to the restaurant. Depending on the specific circumstances, remaining taxes may be voided. This void will reduce the employer's tax liability on their next payroll.

Contact us within five business days of the check date in order to initialize an ACH reversal. Select the blue dot in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page to begin a chat with us. Toast Payroll cannot guarantee the success of an ACH reversal.

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Federal Trace Number

If the deposit has not been located, there is no return of funds, and more than five business days have passed since the check date, we cannot file an ACH reversal. In this case, reach out to us via the blue chat dot in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page and ask for a Federal Trace Number. Every electronic deposit has a federal trace number which can assist banks in locating where the funds have moved. This takes Toast around one business day to retrieve. Once you have the federal trace number, contact the employee's bank to continue.

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Next Steps

1. Once you have determined that a direct deposit was unsuccessful, verify with the employee and their bank that their account is open and active.
2. Since full routing and account numbers can no longer be viewed by anyone, including Toast admins, use the History button to review changes or additions made to the direct deposit page. This may help determine if the routing and/or account numbers were changed recently. HR+ users can contact Customer Care via the blue chat dot in the lower-right corner of the page to learn the name of the person who made each change.
   
    
    
3. Once corrected, contact Customer Care via the blue support button in the lower-right corner of any Toast Payroll page so we can attempt to move the funds back to the employee. Due to the sensitivity of this matter, an HR+ user must reach out, not the employee themselves.
   1. Toast Payroll will deposit a return of funds to your bank account one day after being received by Toast. We will email your Finance Contact with a breakdown of this amount so you are aware of which employee(s) was impacted and what amount was involved. The business can then apply the payment in their own way and work with the employee to update their bank account, if necessary.
   2. If an ACH reversal was requested, we will contact you with the results. This takes around three business days and more information will be provided at that time.

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This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or any other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for advice.