Connecting a Bank Account to Accept Fee Payments

Connecting the Bank Account

ClearForms allows you to collect fees for permits and licenses easily online as part of any workflow. 

Governments can set up and manage their own payout account information in ClearForms. Once your bank account is connected, funds will be transferred from our secure PCI Level 1 payment platform (Stripe), where funds are held in a sub-account specific to each local government Team, to the specified government payout account on a schedule that you select.

To enter or update your payout account, you must first log into your ClearForms account associated with a Team. The primary administrator for your government can do this on their own, provided the administrator has access to the government’s bank account information. However, we recommend including a representative from your organization’s Finance/ Accounting department on your Team(s).

Note: As you’ll see from the list below, some of the information needed for setup is likely only known to your finance department.

1. Select the Teams tab. Usually, there will only be one team listed but sometimes you may have a "test" team here or a department-specific team. Select whichever Team you would like to work on if there is more than one available. Note: You’ll see all the teams that you have access to.
2. Now select the Team Name.

Select the Finance tab to enter the Payout Preferences screen.

Select Add a payout account to move to a page hosted by our payment processing company, Stripe. Stripe asks you to provide some information for the validation process that takes place on the Stripe platform, and will request:

• A representative's name and information (for the person setting up the account on Stripe)
• Your business (government) name (the way your government’s name appears on your bank account documents)
• Government tax ID number (EIN)
• Official government mailing address
• Bank Account number
• Bank routing number

Select Company rather than Individual for Type of Business and select Other/I’m Not Sure for Business Structure.

(This information is required in compliance with KYC regulations to prevent impersonation or misrepresentation and is required by our banks. Governments cannot receive payouts without providing this required information.) 

Enter the required company information select, submit, and continue.

(The exact  set of screens you see next will depend on the information you provide and the fraud detection system of our payment processor, but the general information you will have to provide remains the same as above.)

Once you have a payout account set up and verified, payouts will be tracked in the Transaction History tab of the Teams page.

Note: Stripe is a PCI Level-1 compliant payment processor. Due to neither credit card nor bank account residing on ClearForms' servers, we are able to benefit from Stripe's industry-leading credit card security protocols. Additionally, Stripe allows us to store each government's revenue and payment history separately in a managed sub-account, so revenue from each of our client governments' processes is kept separately for tracking and record-keeping.

Whitelisting our payment processor with your bank

Many government bank accounts are set to automatically refuse unauthorized direct deposits. Please check with your bank to determine if there are any necessary authorizations to enable our payment processor Stripe to make deposits into your account. Usually, this consists of whitelisting the following Stripe ACH Company IDs:

WFMSTRIPE1, 3270465600, 1800948598, and 2270465600.

Learn more about Stripe here!

Setting a schedule for payout transfers

The standard transfer timing for our government accounts is daily, though you can select a weekly or monthly payout timetable under Payout Settings.  We have found that setting a weekly payment transfer timeline allows local governments to issue any refunds needed (for example, if a constituent has paid an incorrect amount or a permit was denied after payment was received) BEFORE the funds are moved over to your bank account. These transfers will include all payments made more than two days previously. 

Our payment processor holds payments for two days for security/fraud prevention reasons. This prevents unnecessary accounting challenges associated with transferring funds before payments have fully cleared the payment processor’s systems.

Setting a Statement Descriptor 

Setting your statement descriptor is an important option. In your Payout Settings, you’ll see an option to select Payment Statement Descriptor and Payout Statement Descriptor. The Payment Statement Descriptor is the message next to the charge amount that applicants will see on their credit card or bank statements. By default, It’s set to ClearForms, Inc. but we strongly recommend adding your government name here. In the example below, this section says “Clear Lake Licensing” Please be advised that there is a 22-character limit for this description which is imposed by banks.

Note: If you try and save a longer name, you’ll get an error message.

Below the Payment Statement descriptor is the Payout Statement Descriptor. This is what will appear on your bank account records when money is transferred into your account from ClearForms. 

Pro Tip: If your government has many forms and multiple teams using ClearForms, each should set a different payout descriptor, for example, “ClearForms - PRK”, to make reconciliation go more smoothly for your finance people.