Subaccounts and ACH Distributions

When it comes to payday, everyone’s favorite day of the week, there are some benefits you may be missing out on. Setting up direct deposit for your paychecks can have more of an impact on your finances than just having access to your money right away. Setting up direct deposit also gives you the option to set up “ACH distributions”. These are helpful in a variety of ways. When an ACH distribution is set up, part of the funds from your direct deposit are allocated to another account/payment.  

The first step in this is setting up sub accounts that best fit your needs. A sub account is an additional savings account that is linked to your account number to allow for separating funds and/or budgeting. Some examples are vacation, home improvements, rent, insurance, pets, medical, etc. The list goes on. You can also set up distributions for your loan payments. 

Let’s look at an example:  

John is looking to set up some ACH distributions from his bi-weekly paycheck, which is usually around $1500. He has a personal loan, an account for rent, an account for groceries, a home savings, a vacation account, and accounts for both of his children that he would like to allocate funds for. John has contacted the credit union with his requests and has the following set up to distribute each time he is paid:  

$100 to his personal loan 

$400 to his rent account 

$200 to his groceries account 

$130 to his home savings account 

$100 to his vacation account 

$10 to each child’s accounts 

With these set up, John does not have to worry about making sure he leaves enough in his account to cover these expenses and debts. The remaining $550 will go to John’s checking or savings account to be used at John’s discretion. There is plenty of flexibility with subaccounts and distributions so that you are able to use them as much or as little as you find fit. 

Abby Runkel

Community Relations Assistant

Tis blog is not on behalf of Peninsula Federal Credit Union.