Payroll

Direct deposit, in plain English.

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Direct deposit pays employees by electronic transfer straight into a bank account instead of a paper cheque, clearing through the national banking system on a set lead time before payday.

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It removes the cost of printing, distributing, and reissuing lost cheques. Workzoom Payroll runs direct deposit natively across Canadian, US, and Bahamian banks, with multi-account splits configured per employee.

How Direct deposit works.

Direct deposit moves net pay electronically into an employee bank account through the national clearing system, on a file submitted ahead of the pay date. Every country sets its own file format, lead time, and recall rules, and that lead time is what constrains the payroll calendar. Once a file is submitted, fixing an error usually means a reversal request rather than an edit.

Where Direct deposit goes wrong.

  1. The most common failure is accepting a bank detail change after the file cut-off, so pay lands in an account the employee already closed.
  2. Skipping a pre-note or validation step means a wrong account number only surfaces when the payment bounces, days after the file submitted.
  3. Payroll calendars built without the clearing lead time built in leave no margin to catch and resubmit a failed transfer before payday.
  • 2000 Running payroll since Workzoom has run Canadian payroll for 25+ years.
  • Canadian data residency AWS Canada (ca-central-1). Canadian customer data stays in Canada.
  • SOC 2-aligned controls Encrypted at rest, role-based access, immutable audit logs.
  • Trusted in production County of Renfrew, Silvera for Seniors, and Cable Bahamas. Built for 50 to 5,000 employees.

In the product

How Direct deposit runs on Workzoom.

Direct deposit is part of the Workzoom Payroll Suite. Workzoom runs HR, workforce, and talent on a single employee record across ten countries: Canada, the United States, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, and the United Kingdom. Full gross-to-net payroll runs live in Canada, the United States, and the Bahamas. Pricing starts at $4 per employee per suite per month.

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Related terms.

Questions about Direct deposit

Direct deposit pays employees by electronic transfer straight into a bank account instead of a paper cheque, clearing through the national banking system on a set lead time before payday. It removes the cost of printing, distributing, and reissuing lost cheques. Workzoom Payroll runs direct deposit natively across Canadian, US, and Bahamian banks, with multi-account splits configured per employee.
Direct deposit moves net pay electronically into an employee bank account through the national clearing system, on a file submitted ahead of the pay date. Every country sets its own file format, lead time, and recall rules, and that lead time is what constrains the payroll calendar. Once a file is submitted, fixing an error usually means a reversal request rather than an edit.
The most common failure is accepting a bank detail change after the file cut-off, so pay lands in an account the employee already closed.
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