Patent ID: 8688580

Claim:
A method comprising: initiating a plurality of electronic funds transfer transactions using an automated clearing house (ACH) operator, wherein each of the plurality of electronic funds transfer transactions is associated with one of a plurality of financial institution routing numbers; storing time data that indicates a period to wait before marking any of the plurality of electronic funds transfer transactions as accepted; after storing the time data, receiving, using a payment management service computer that is different than the ACH operator, from the ACH operator or a processing server associated with the ACH operator, a negative return code for a particular transaction that is associated with a particular financial institution routing number; wherein the negative return code indicates that the particular transaction is associated with insufficient funds or is associated with uncollected funds or is another form of negative transaction; in response to receiving, using the payment management service computer, from the ACH operator or the processing server associated with the ACH operator, the negative return code for the particular transaction that is associated with the particular financial institution routing number and without waiting for an end of the period of the time data: identifying, using the payment management service computer, one or more other transactions, in the plurality of electronic funds transfer transactions, that are associated with the same particular financial institution routing number; marking the one or more other transactions as accepted; releasing the marked one or more other transactions; wherein the marking and releasing are performed by one or more computing devices.