FedNow® for Positive Pay and Accounts Receivable Aging Using Request for Payment

Make Every Invoice Actionable

What Is FedNow® Positive Pay Using Request for Payment?

Traditional check positive pay compares presented checks with a company-issued file. In a digital RfP workflow, “positive pay” is a business-control concept: the Payer receives a payment request and can review invoice details before instructing its financial institution to send an instant credit transfer. The RfP itself is a non-monetary message; it does not pull money from the Payer’s account.

This approve-before-pay design can support separation of duties, vendor verification, exception routing and an auditable decision trail. After authorization, the Payer’s participating financial institution may initiate the associated instant payment, subject to its controls and service terms.

Mission Statement

From A/R Aging to a Real-Time Collection Workflow

Request for Payment Parameters and Attributes

A 140-character description and hyperlink can be useful product-design choices, but they are not universal FedNow requirements. Allowed fields, lengths, aliases and links depend on the applicable FedNow message specification, participating financial institutions and the end-user channel.

Benefits and Features for Business Merchants

How to Get Approved for a FedNow®-Enabled Merchant Processing Account

A business cannot open an account directly with the FedNow Service. FedNow participation is available to eligible financial institutions, and customer access is delivered through participating banks, credit unions and their service providers. Today Payments can begin a merchant-services intake and help identify an eligible connection path.

1. Start the online intake. Submit basic business and contact information. The initial “Activate My Real-Time Payments” intake is designed to take about three minutes.
2. Verify the organization. Provide legal name, DBA, EIN or taxPayer identification, entity type, addresses and authorized signers.
3. Describe the payment use case. Explain invoice types, customers, expected volumes, average and maximum transactions, refund practices and recurring-payment needs.
4. Verify ownership and control. Complete identity, beneficial-ownership and authorization checks required for the account and applicable law.
5. Connect an eligible deposit account. Confirm whether the bank or credit union offers the necessary FedNow receive, send and/or RfP capabilities; capabilities vary by institution.
6. Complete risk and compliance review. Underwriting may include KYB, sanctions screening, fraud controls, website review and industry-specific documentation.
7. Configure the service. Establish internal merchant/location identifiers, users, permissions, invoice mapping, aliases where supported, hosted pages and accounting integrations.
8. Test before launch. Validate request delivery, Payer presentation, payment confirmation, exception handling, reconciliation and customer support procedures.

Eligible entity types may include: sole proprietorships, Schedule C businesses, partnerships, LLCs, S corporations, C corporations, nonprofits and other organizations. Acceptance is not automatic; approval and supported industries depend on underwriting, participating financial institutions and applicable rules.

24 Feature-Rich Reasons to Choose Today Payments’ Premier FedNow® Enablement

1. Online merchant-services intake with no physical bank visit to begin.
2. Guidance on connections to participating banks and credit unions across the United States.
3. Multiple internal MIDs or account identifiers for divisions, subsidiaries, brands and locations.
4. Support for phone, email or other aliases where the connected institution and service permit them.
5. One-time and recurring billing workflow support with documented Payer authorization.
6. An integrated operating view for eligible FedNow, ACH and card payment options.
7. Batch import and export tools for higher-volume finance operations.
8. Hosted payment pages linked to invoice and RfP workflows.
9. QuickBooks® Online integration options for receivables and reconciliation.
10. CFO-level payment visibility, exception queues and reporting.
11. Payee and Payer verification controls designed around alias and account relationships.
12. POS, retail, wholesale, MOTO, mobile, email, SMS and QR use-case support.
13. Credit-push payments that avoid card-style chargebacks, while preserving applicable return, error and fraud-handling processes.
14. Structured onboarding for new, thin-file or credit-challenged businesses, subject to review rather than guaranteed approval.
15. Multi-division, franchise and multi-location organization.
16. Payment-choice orchestration for eligible A2A, B2B, B2C and C2B use cases.
17. Scheduling and recurring-invoice options when supported by the connected provider.
18. Payee-initiated RfP creation followed by Payer-controlled payment authorization.
19. ISO 20022-aligned request, response and payment-data mapping.
20. Near-real-time payment-status tracking and configurable alerts.
21. Risk-based review for specialized industries instead of a blanket claim that every merchant is accepted.
22. Mobile-optimized dashboard access, subject to service availability.
23. Assisted onboarding, configuration and testing.
24. Powered by Today Payments, Inc., with the Real-TimePayments.com market-facing brand.

“Set It and Forget It” Recurring Billing—With Proper Authorization

A standing approval can let a Payer pre-authorize future payments that meet agreed conditions, such as a named biller, maximum amount, frequency and expiration date. The Payer’s financial institution or payment provider must support the arrangement, and the merchant must retain clear authorization records and follow applicable consumer-protection, error-resolution, cancellation and notice requirements.

Recurring FedNow-enabled payments are credit transfers initiated through the Payer’s provider; an RfP is not a debit transaction and cannot independently withdraw funds. Once an instant payment is accepted and settled, funds generally become available quickly and the payment is designed to be final, but legitimate return requests and fraud/error procedures may still apply. Therefore, “no card chargebacks” should never be marketed as “no returns under any circumstances.”

Minimum ISO 20022 Request for Payment Data: Practical Summary

FedNow uses ISO 20022 messages, but the Federal Reserve’s current implementation guide—not the unrestricted global ISO schema—controls what is mandatory, optional, conditional and permitted for a FedNow RfP. A production implementation should validate against the exact current FedNow specification available through MyStandards.

ISO’s current catalogue identifies pain.013 as the Creditor Payment Activation Request and pain.014 as its status report. Version numbers evolve. Do not hard-code a generic version or assume every globally available element is accepted by FedNow.

How can a business use FedNow Request for Payment for positive-pay-style invoice approval?

A business can send structured invoice information in a FedNow RfP workflow so the Payer can review the Payee, amount, due date and remittance details before authorizing a credit transfer through a participating financial institution. This creates an approve-before-pay control that can complement accounts-payable policies and vendor verification.

How does FedNow Request for Payment improve accounts receivable aging and reconciliation?

Connecting RfP status and confirmed payment data to A/R aging can help collectors prioritize unpaid invoices, identify expired or unanswered requests, and match incoming funds to customer and invoice references. The result is a more current collection queue and less manual cash application.

Where can a merchant apply online for FedNow-enabled payment processing without visiting a bank?

Merchants can begin an online intake with Today Payments through Real-TimePayments.com. Today Payments can collect business requirements and help coordinate an eligible service path, while the participating bank, credit union and applicable providers determine availability and final approval.

Can one company organize multiple bank accounts, aliases, divisions and subsidiaries for instant payments?

Today Payments can organize internal merchant identifiers, locations and accounting mappings across multiple business units and eligible financial-institution relationships. Whether a phone number, email address or other proxy can be used depends on the relevant directory, bank and service configuration.

Move from Aging Reports to Actionable Payment Requests