Creating an ACH file in php

[mattjtayl]

Ok I just started a brand new job today. First programming job ever.  The  first thing my boss wants me to do is to use php to generate an ACH file. I am lost I have no clue. Heck I tried doing some research, but I still am lost on what an ACH file actually is! Something to do with routing and checking numbers used in automatic deposits at banks? Is that right? If someone could please give me a sample of how to do this in php or point me in the right direction it would be eternally grateful !

[The Little Guy]

maybe this will be some help:

 

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aach&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

[dbo]

My first question would be who is your employer? Are you working for a bank and you had a non-techie person tell you that you need to write a PHP interface for ACH, or is it a technical person of some sort who told you to do this? What is the problem you are trying to accomplish...

[mattjtayl]

yes this was my boss, a senior programmer who told me to do this. Yes doing contract work for a bank. They want to creat an automatic deposit system online I think with the ACH file.

[cooldude832]

that seems very strange that you write bank software in php as it can be accomplished with a much more robust script, and secondly to give a new guy this sorta script seems even odder

[dbo]

What does the process look like. You have to have the process clearly defined before you can try to write any code. Do you have a clear set of requirements and a design?

[mattjtayl]

He just gave me a workstation and had me sift through 100+ pages of php of code for a program he wrote 2 years ago with hundreds of user defines functions and told me tommorrow i would be expected to start working on a way to generate an ach file in php for the bank. 

 

I have used php in personal homepages and in an internship for a few months at school for a small webpage, but that was miniscule to the grandiose of this thing. I had a very difficulty time trying to piece together all the code, I have never worked on anything this large before. I hope by tommorrow I can somehow fiqure out how all this code ties together, but now I am cluessless. Sure I knew all the commands, but I didn't know many of the subroutines or user made functions, or what these did.

[dbo]

I'm a student studying Info Tech (MIS/CS) and have been doing development for about 8 years now. Additionally, I've worked for various companies doing development and currently for a consulting firm. What I can say is that your boss' expectations are unrealistic. He might be a good developer, but if he acts in the manner you described hes clearly a poor mentor and a worse manager.

 

From my experience the best advice I can give you is to make sure you fully understand the problem first. You can't really expect to be able to write code if you can't first work through the problem logically. I'd really try to lock down the end to end process that you're trying to accomplish, document it all, come up with a list of anything you need to do additional research on, do the research, document any potential problem areas, and then try to think of a solution. Only after you have gone through this exercise should you be worrying about writing code in any language. How can you possibly automate anything ACH related if you don't understand what it entails?

 

Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that there is probably some sort of API or at least a process for integrating with the current banking system to pull of what you want to do. There is certainly more to it than slamming in some code and viola.