Positive Pay

Positive Pay lets you pre-approve the payments you expect, so Unit can block anything that doesn't match. When a payment is received, Unit evaluates it against the account's active Positive Pay rules and either allows it to proceed or blocks/returns it before the payment moves.

Note

Positive Pay is not enabled by default. Contact Unit if you would like to enable this functionality.

Rule Types

You create Positive Pay rules under an account for each payment type you want to protect, using the Positive Pay API:

• Received ACH Debit Positive Pay — authorizes a specific ACH originator (by originatorName and/or originatorEntityId) to debit the account, optionally up to a maximum amount. If the rule omits amount, any amount from an approved originator is allowed.
• Check Payment Positive Pay — authorizes a specific issued check (by checkNumber) to be presented for payment, for an expected amount.
• Wire Drawdown Positive Pay — authorizes a counterparty to initiate wire drawdowns against the account; a drawdown must reference the Positive Pay rule ID and (for processing) the rule must be Active with an uploaded authorization document.

How Positive Pay Evaluates Payments

Received ACH Debit

Unit compares an incoming ACH debit's originator name and/or entity ID, and its amount, against the account's active rules.

• Accepted only if it comes from an approved originator and its amount is less than or equal to the rule's maximum amount (or any amount if the rule omits amount).
• If a debit does not match an active rule, it is returned.

Check Payment

Unit compares a presented check's checkNumber and amount against the account's active rules.

• Accepted only if its check number matches a pre-registered rule and its amount is within a $1 tolerance of the rule's expected amount.
• If the rule also specifies a payeeName, Unit matches it against the presented check's payee for added specificity, rather than ignoring it.
• Checks that don't match an active rule are returned.

Wire Drawdown

Wire drawdowns don't use amount limits on rules. Instead:

• A drawdown request must reference a Positive Pay rule ID.
• The referenced drawdown rule must be Active (an authorization document uploaded) for the drawdown to be processed.
• Drawdowns that reference a rule that is not Active are rejected outright.
• Drawdowns that reference an Active rule are routed to the bank for manual review against the uploaded document and may still be returned if the bank determines the drawdown doesn't align with the authorization.

Rule Statuses

The possible statuses are (not every status applies to every payment type):

Status	Description
Active	The rule applies and is used to evaluate incoming payments. For wire drawdowns, Active specifically means an authorization document has been uploaded and the rule is eligible for bank review.
Expired	The rule has passed its expirationDate and no longer applies.
Cancelled	The rule was manually cancelled and no longer applies.
AwaitingDocuments	Relevant only for Wire Drawdown rules: the rule was created but has no authorization document uploaded yet, so drawdowns referencing it are rejected.

Opting In

Received ACH Debit and Check Payment rules only take effect for payment types the account has opted in to; Wire Drawdown isn't part of this opt-in policy, since drawdowns already require referencing an Active rule ID, as described above.

• Opt-in is configured per account or per deposit product, for the CheckPayment and ReceivedAchDebit payment types.
• When a payment type is opted in, every payment of that type must match an active Positive Pay rule to be processed; otherwise it's returned as described above.