Bank connections
How connecting a bank works, what read-only access means, and why syncing sometimes stumbles
How connecting works
- How to see and revoke which apps are connected to your bank
- What data a budgeting app receives when you connect a bank
- What read-only access to your bank means, and what an app can't do with it
- Why your bank asks you to sign in again when you connect an app
- Is it safe to connect your bank to a budgeting app?
- What Plaid is, and why your bank shows it
Keeping accounts in sync
- How often a budgeting app syncs with your bank, and why balances lag
- What happens to your data when you close a bank account you connected
- Why a transaction shows in the app before your bank's site, or after
- Why the same purchase shows twice, and how duplicates happen
- Why bank connections break, and how reconnecting works
- Why transactions show as pending, and why amounts change
Accounts you can't connect
- How do I track gift cards and store credit in my budget?
- How do I track money I lent to a friend?
- How to track a 401(k) or pension that doesn't connect
- How to track a mortgage or car loan that doesn't connect
- How to track a small bank or credit union that isn't supported
- Should you connect every account, or only the ones you spend from
- Tracking accounts you can't connect, from property and vehicles to cash and private loans