Checkbook.io Meeting Prep
Aligning Payapp to Checkbook.io — use case, businesses we onboard, questions, agenda, rollout.
Payapp (payapp.one) is a self-serve business banking product for small and medium businesses that need a named USD account to receive deposits and pay out to vendors, contractors, and partners. Businesses sign up online, complete KYB, get a USD account, receive incoming deposits, and send outgoing payments — all through a single API-driven platform.
Core flows we need from Checkbook
- • Business onboarding & KYB (self-serve, no SSN sent to partner)
- • Send payouts via Instant Pay / eCheck / ACH / RTP / Printed check
- • Receive inbound deposits (recipient claims a digital check)
- • Cancel/void in-flight payments before delivery or clearance
- • Real-time status webhooks + full payment history via API
- • Pay recipients inside and outside the US
- • Tiered per-merchant volume & velocity limits
Customer profile & scale
- • SMBs: LLCs, sole proprietors, partnerships, corporations
- • USD-first; international payees via Checkbook rails
- • Tiered transfer-limit packages (daily/weekly/monthly)
- • Growing merchant base onboarded via self-serve flow
- • Per-merchant: 5–50 payouts/month, $1k–$100k each
Why Checkbook.io
We need a partner where payouts are fully enabled (Instant Pay, eCheck, ACH, RTP, printed), in-flight payments can be cancelled, full payment history is available via API, and non-US recipients can be paid. Checkbook's digital-check model also lets us replace our manual "PendingDeposit → credit" flow with webhook-driven auto-crediting when a recipient claims a check. There is no balance to sync against — our ledger stays the source of truth, so manual overrides are never clobbered.
Edit the volume figures above to reflect your actual expected monthly onboarding and payout volume before the call.
| Business type | What they use Payapp for | Volume profile |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce & Online Retailers | SMB sellers needing a named USD account to receive marketplace/sales payouts and pay suppliers/vendors. | High — recurring inbound + frequent outbound payouts |
| Freelancers & Contractors Platforms | Marketplaces that pay out to many individual contractors each cycle. | High — mass-payout / batch payout scenario |
| Digital Agencies & Service Businesses | LLCs/Sole proprietors collecting client retainers and paying media vendors, freelancers, tools. | Medium — deposit + outgoing vendor payments |
| Import/Export & Trading SMBs | Businesses that receive USD from buyers and pay overseas suppliers via wire/SWIFT. | Medium — multi-rail outbound |
| Crypto / Web3 SMBs (fiat on/off-ramp) | Businesses needing USD rails to settle fiat from crypto operations, pay fiat vendors. | Medium — settlement + payouts |
| SaaS & Subscription Companies | Recurring billing collection + contractor/staff payouts. | Medium — recurring in + scheduled out |
| Local Service Providers (consulting, logistics) | Need named account, invoice collection, contractor payouts. | Medium — steady inbound + light outbound |
- •Withdrawal/payout API returned 403 (feature disabled on partner account).
- •Virtual account history endpoint returned 403 — full transaction visibility lost.
- •No cancellation endpoint for in-flight (settling) ACH payments.
- •Balance sync overwrote manually-set balances for special accounts.
- •Static onboarding links expired, breaking KYC for users mid-flow.
- •No support for international / non-US payees on our current partner.
| Payapp (current) | Checkbook equivalent | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Static KYC link (expires) | Checkbook KYC/business verification on account creation (no expiring link) | No mid-flow breakage; verification tied to account |
| Virtual account (USD, First Premier) | Digital check / payment address; bank-verified payee & payer accounts | Receive via eCheck/Instant Pay instead of a VA number |
| Inbound deposit (manual PendingDeposit) | Recipient receives Instant Pay / eCheck; webhook on delivery & clearance | Webhook-driven auto-credit replaces manual crediting |
| Outbound payout (Paywint API 403) | Send Digital Check, Instant Pay, Printed/Mailed Check, ACH, RTP | Payouts fully enabled; multiple rails |
| Platform fee on deposit (2% + admin fee) | Margin on disbursement (fee per check / ACH) or subscription tier | Fee model shifts from deposit % to per-payout or plan |
| Transaction history (list-pw-transactions 403) | Checkbook API: list checks, payments, delivery & status history | Restore full visibility via API |
| No cancel for in-flight ACH | Cancel/void a check before it is delivered or cleared | Recover cancellation capability |
| Balance sync overwrites manual balances | Checkbook is flow-based (not a holding balance) — no balance clobber | No balance sync needed; ledger lives in our DB |
| On-hold / fraud-closure kill-switch | We gate at app layer before calling Checkbook send API | Keep our kill-switch at app layer |
| Tiered transfer limits (LimitPackage) | Map our daily/weekly/monthly tiers to Checkbook per-check limits & velocity | Confirm per-customer limits & volume tiers |
- 1Are payouts (Instant Pay, eCheck, ACH, RTP, wire) fully enabled for a business account in production — no feature gating like we hit on our previous partner?
- 2Can a recipient receive funds WITHOUT creating a Checkbook account (guest/one-time claim), and what is the verification flow for first-time payees?
- 3Webhooks — which events fire (check.created, delivered, cleared, returned, failed, voided)? Retry policy, max latency, sandbox determinism?
- 4Cancellation — can we void an undelivered / un-cleared check? Which statuses are cancellable? Refunds on cleared payments?
- 5Returned/failed payment handling — NSF, invalid bank, stop-payment — how are these surfaced, and is there auto-retry or manual re-send?
- 6KYC/KYB — what is required to verify a business payer (EIN + formation docs, no owner SSN transmitted)? Time-to-approve? Manual review triggers?
- 7Per-customer velocity & limits — max checks/ACH per day, max amount per payment, ramp-up process for higher tiers?
- 8Fee model — per-check fee, per-ACH fee, Instant Pay fee, subscription tiers, volume discounts? Any holdback/reserve requirement?
- 9Branded/white-label — can payees see Payapp branding on the check/payment page, or is it Checkbook-branded? Email from domain?
- 10International / non-US payees — can we pay recipients outside the US (e.g. Nigeria, UK)? Which rails and what KYC?
- 11Bank account verification — does Checkbook verify the payer's bank account (micro-deposit / Plaid / instant)? Required before sending?
- 12Compliance & reporting — what KYC/AML screening is run on recipients? Are SAR/flagged-payment notifications sent to us?
- 13Sandbox access — full sandbox keys, test bank accounts, deterministic webhook delivery before we go live?
Our product & current pain
Self-serve business banking for SMBs: onboarding, USD account, deposits, payouts, tiered limits, fee-on-deposit. Gaps that forced us off our previous partner (payout 403, history 403, no cancel, balance-sync clobbering manual balances).
Checkbook model walkthrough
Digital checks (Instant Pay, eCheck, Printed), ACH/RTP, bank verification, webhooks, business vs recipient accounts.
Capability fit
Walk the alignment map; confirm payouts enabled, cancellation, returns/NSF handling, webhooks, history API.
Compliance & data
KYC/KYB for payer (no SSN transmitted), recipient verification, AML screening, international payees.
Fees & commercial
Per-check / per-ACH / Instant Pay pricing, subscription tiers, volume discounts, reserve/holdback, branded experience.
Sandbox + integration plan
Sandbox keys, webhook endpoint (paynexpay.base44.app/functions/checkbookWebhook), phased rollout, test scenarios.
Phase 0 — Sandbox
Get API keys, register webhook endpoint, send first test digital check, receive webhook events.
Phase 1 — Payer verification
Business KYC/KYB on our side, verify payer bank account, confirm no SSN transmitted.
Phase 2 — Outbound payouts
Wire Send Money → Checkbook send (Instant Pay / eCheck / ACH); void/cancel support; returns handling.
Phase 3 — Inbound via checks
Replace inbound-deposit flow with recipient-claims-check model; webhook-driven auto-credit.
Phase 4 — History & reconciliation
Transaction history API; reconcile per-merchant ledger; map our tiered limits to Checkbook velocity.
Phase 5 — Fee & branding
Per-payout fee / subscription tier; branded payment page; volume-based pricing review.
Webhook endpoint to share: https://paynexpay.base44.app/functions/checkbookWebhook