How-to: Add a deposit-only bank account (both personal and business)

Sheena Trepanier
Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team
edited May 2023 in How-to Docs

There are 2 different types of deposit-only accounts, depending on your needs! A deposit-only bank account allows you to be reimbursed by your employer or get paid for bills and pay invoices.

Expensify vocabulary to understand before we get started:

  • Deposit-Only Personal Bank Account - connecting a personal bank account allows you to receive reimbursements from your employer via ACH.
  • Deposit-Only Business Bank Account - connecting a business bank account allows you to receive payments for invoices/bills via ACH. You can also use this account to pay invoices sent in-product.
  • Verified Business Bank Account - connecting a verified business bank account allows you to reimburse employees via ACH, pay bills, receive invoice payments, and get the Expensify Card. 

Who should connect a personal deposit-only bank account?

  • US employees who will be reimbursed for expense reports submitted to their employer.
  • Australian employees who will be reimbursed by their company via batch payments. More details about this here.
  • International (Non-US) employees whose employers will use Global Reimbursement
  • International (Non-US, non-Aus) employees whose employers will use Expensify to collect their bank details to do manual online payments.
  • Expensify.org Justice Grant volunteers who want to be reimbursed by their campaign manager.

Who should connect a business deposit-only bank account?

  • US vendors who want to be paid via ACH for bills sent to customers/clients.
  • US vendors who want to pay invoices.

Note: If you are using Global Reimbursement, your Policy Admin will need to set up the policy and you will need to set your default policy (under your profile pic) before adding your deposit account.

Adding a Deposit-Only Bank account

1: Navigate to your Settings > Account > Payments and click the Add Deposit-Only Bank Account button. This will take you through the flow to add a personal or business deposit-only bank account, so follow carefully!


2: Click Log into your bank button and click Continue on the Plaid connection pop-up window.

  • Search for your bank account in the list of banks and follow the prompts to sign-in to your bank account, then head to step 3.
  • If your bank doesn't appear, it means it's not supported by Plaid. Click the 'x' in the upper right corner of the Plaid pop-up window and click Connect Manually, then head to step 5.


Step 3: Enter your bank login credentials when prompted

  • Note: If your bank requires an additional security checkpoint, your bank will prompt you after the login details are entered.
  • Expensify will automatically determine if it's a personal or business account based on this step. If it doesn't, you can change it in a later step.


Step 4: If you have more than one account under that login, you will be able to select from them during this step. Otherwise, you'll see a Success message.

  • Note: Please ensure the account you connect to has Direct Deposit/ACH enabled.


5: (For the Manually Enter Account Details option only): Enter your account information, then click Save & Continue. This step is similar for non-US bank accounts.


6: Finish adding your bank account information. If the default type shown is incorrect, you'll need to change from personal to business or vice versa by clicking "Switch to Business" or "Switch to Personal". The types cannot be changed once the account is added.

Note that if you add a business bank account, you will need your company name, FEIN, and website (formatted https//www.domain.com):


7. You're done!

A successful personal deposit-only account will appear as so, and is ready to receive expense report reimbursements:

And a business deposit-only account ready to receive bill payments will be shown as so. Only if you need to fully verify the account (so that you are a person issuing expense report reimbursements) do you need to click the green Verify button. Otherwise, you're all set!


Deleting a bank account

Bank accounts are easy to delete! Simply click the red Delete button in the bank account under Settings > Account > Payments.

You can complete this process either via the web app (on a computer), or via the mobile app.

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