Here’s how to assess your digital earnest money solution, with a few notes on how Earnnest stacks up:

Does your tool offer sufficient funds verification?

Make sure your earnest money tool runs a preliminary check for sufficient funds in the homebuyer’s account of choice before completing the digital earnest money payment. For instance, when the Earnnest system detects an account doesn’t have the proper amount of funds to complete the transaction, the buyer is immediately prompted to add an alternate payment account—avoiding the pitfalls and delays of insufficient funds. Tools that don’t offer a sufficient funds review lead to a less than ideal experience for your homebuyer as they could run into failed attempts to pay.

Does your tool provide good funds?

Good funds are funds that are valid, available and usable. An earnest money service should prevent chargebacks and pullbacks by the homebuyer. Chargebacks and pullbacks have been the long-standing fault of traditional consumer ACH transfers, which allow for chargebacks and pullbacks for up to 60 days. The system you go with should not only be considered good funds, but should also be fully compliant, meeting the needs of existing NACHA guidelines for homebuyer protection. Earnnest, the largest digital earnest service in the U.S., has proprietary ACH technology that is considered “good funds” because it prevents chargebacks and pullbacks by the homebuyer.

Will you receive real-time notification on the status of every transaction?

Earnnest provides agents and homebuyers with simple yet secure earnest money payments that allow both parties to know exactly how the payment is progressing—in real time. At each step of the transaction, email notifications will be sent to all parties involved, and automatic digital receipts will be conveniently auto-generated, ready to be filed and organized for quick, easy record keeping and reconciliation.

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