When a client initiates an ACH payment on or before an invoice’s due date—including through auto-pay—HighLevel places the invoice in “Payment Processing” while the ACH transaction settles. Because ACH payments commonly require several business days to clear, HighLevel continues treating the invoice as unpaid and may apply a late fee even though the client authorized and submitted the payment on time.

This unfairly penalizes clients for ACH settlement delays that are outside their control. It can also leave an unnecessary late-fee balance on an invoice, create confusing notifications, and potentially result in an additional charge after the client has already authorized payment.

Expected behavior:

Once an ACH payment is successfully initiated on or before the due date or grace-period deadline, HighLevel should pause the late-fee clock and any overdue-payment automations while the payment status is “Payment Processing.”

If the ACH payment settles successfully, the invoice should be marked paid without a late fee.

If the ACH payment fails or is returned, the invoice can return to unpaid status and the applicable late-fee policy can resume.

A late fee caused solely by ACH processing time should not be added to the invoice or automatically debited from the client’s account.

This protection should apply to manual ACH payments and ACH auto-payments on recurring invoices.