Prenoting Process for Making Payments by Electronic Check or Receiving Refunds by Direct Deposit

The National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) has issued a rule requiring that all ACH web debits be validated before they are used to make a payment. To ensure that the University of South Carolina is following the new rule that was effective March 19, 2021, we are using prenoting to validate accounts. During the prenoting process, we will send a zero-dollar transaction file to the bank to validate if your account is active. 

• If you do not use your checking account to make electronic payments to the university, this rule will not apply to you and no further action is needed. 
• If you have already set up direct deposit for e-Refunds within your Self-Service Carolina (SSC) account and this is the same checking account you use to make payments to the university, your account has already been validated and no further action is needed. 
• If you make payments using your checking account and you have not saved the checking account as a Saved Payment Method and have not set up direct deposit via your SSC account, we encourage you to do so as soon as possible to avoid delays when it is time to make payments on your account. 
• If you have assigned someone as an authorized user on your account to make check payments, the checking account will need to be set up under the authorized user portal in the university system. If payments will be made by the student, the checking account will need to be set up under the student portal in my.sc.edu.

The validation process can take 3-5 business days. You will not be able to make payments using your checking account until your account has been validated.  If you choose to make an immediate payment using your credit/debit card, a non-refundable 2.5% convenience fee will be applied.  The prenote process will notify you if your payment method cannot be validated. The easiest way to validate your checking account ahead of time is to set up your payment profile in Self Service Carolina using the following instructions:

Student Accounts

• Log into my.sc.edu.
• Click on Account Information
• Click on Payment Gateway
• Click on Payment Profile
• Follow Instructions to input your banking information (routing and account number) and indicate if you want that same account to be used to receive eRefunds (direct deposits).
• Check status under My Payment Profile for verification.

Authorized Users

• Log into my.sc.edu.
• Click on Payment Profile
• Follow Instructions to input your banking information (routing and account number).
• Check status under My Payment Profile for verification.

For more information about the new NACHA rules, please feel free to visit www.nacha.org/rules and click on Supplementing Fraud Detection Standards for WEB debits.