Should you connect every account, or only the ones you spend from

The accounts to connect are the ones whose figures you cannot keep right by hand, and that is most of them. Connect every account you spend from and every account whose balance moves without you, checking, cards, savings, investments, and loans; connect but keep out of the budget the accounts whose transactions are not yours to budget, such as a business account or a joint account with someone outside the household; and track by hand only what cannot connect at all. The question is not whether an account is important but whether its balance changes in ways you would not otherwise know about, and by that test a savings account that receives interest and a card that accrues a balance both belong on the connection, while a house and a car, which change only when you decide they have, are the manual ones.

The test: does the balance move without you?

A checking account moves every day. A card's balance grows with each purchase and shrinks with each payment. A savings account earns interest and receives transfers. An investment account is repriced daily. A loan's balance falls with each payment. Each of those changes whether or not you are watching, and a hand update is wrong within days. Those are the accounts to connect.

A house's value changes, but only your estimate of it does, once a year. A car's resale value drifts, slowly. Cash on hand is what you counted. Those change when you say they do, and a manual balance is right until you change it. Those are the accounts to keep by hand, alongside the ones that cannot connect; see Tracking accounts you can't connect.

Three groups, one decision each

1. Connect and include in the budget. The accounts you spend from and pay bills from: checking, the cards, the joint bills account. Their transactions are the budget's raw material.
2. Connect and leave out of the budget. Accounts whose balances belong in net worth but whose transactions do not belong in the household's budget: a business account, a joint account with a parent or a roommate, an account held for a child. Savings, investment, and loan accounts also sit here in effect, since their balances feed net worth and their activity is transfers rather than spending.
3. Track by hand. The house, the car, cash, a private loan, and any account at an institution that cannot connect, at a balance you set on a schedule.

A worked list, twelve accounts sorted

Nine connected, one deliberately not, two by hand. The household's budget reads four accounts' transactions, its net worth reads eleven balances, and the one account left out is left out because its money is not the household's; see How to help a parent manage their money for how that account is handled from the parent's side.

Why "only the ones I spend from" comes up short

Connecting only checking and the cards gives a working budget and a wrong net worth: the savings balance, the retirement account, and the loans are missing, and the number reads as the checking balance plus the card debt, which is the least flattering and least useful figure a household has. It also hides the transfers' other side, so a move to savings looks like money leaving rather than money moving. The accounts that are not spent from are the ones that show whether the household is getting richer, and they are the ones a hand update is worst at.

Why "everything" needs one exception

Connecting an account whose transactions are not yours to budget, a business account or a joint account with someone outside the household, puts its activity into the budget's totals and its balance into net worth as if both were the household's. The fix is not to leave it unconnected but to connect it and keep it out of the budget, so its balance is visible where it belongs and its transactions never reach the categories. The one case for not connecting at all is an account that is genuinely someone else's, which the household should not be reading.

Common mistakes

• Connecting only checking and the cards. The budget works and net worth is wrong by everything else.
• Leaving savings unconnected because "nothing happens there." Interest and transfers happen there, and the balance is half of net worth for many households.
• Putting a business account in the budget. Its transactions inflate the household's spending and income.
• Connecting an account that belongs to someone else. A parent's joint account is theirs to share, from their side.
• Tracking a loan by hand when it could connect. The balance is then stale by a payment or two, for no reason.
• Connecting the house. It cannot be; it is a manual estimate, updated yearly.

Common questions

Which accounts should I connect to a budgeting app? Every account whose balance changes without you: checking, cards, savings, investments, and loans. Keep in the budget the ones you spend from, keep out of the budget the ones whose transactions are not the household's to budget, and track by hand only what cannot connect or changes only when you say so, such as the house and the car.

Should I connect my savings account if I never spend from it? Yes. Its balance is part of net worth, its interest and transfers arrive without you, and connecting it lets the app see both sides of every transfer into it, so a move to savings is a movement rather than money leaving.

Should I connect my business account? Connect it and keep it out of the household's budget, so its balance counts in net worth and its transactions stay out of the categories. If the business is large enough to need its own books, it may be better in its own tool entirely.

What about an account I share with a parent or a roommate? If the money is theirs, leave it unconnected; if it is genuinely shared and part of your finances, connect it and keep it out of the budget so the other person's transactions do not become your spending.

Does connecting more accounts make the app less safe? Each connection is read-only, returns data only, and can be revoked from the bank or the app; see What read-only access to your bank means. The risk that grows with more connections is the amount of information the app holds, which is a question for its privacy policy rather than for the number of accounts.

How Zypper handles this

Zypper supports the three groups directly. Checking, savings, and credit card accounts feed transactions, the budget, and cash flow, while investment, brokerage, and loan accounts contribute their balances to net worth; any account's Include in the budget setting controls whether its balance and transactions reach the budget, and an excluded account still counts toward net worth, which is the arrangement for a business account or a joint account with someone outside the household. You pick which accounts to share when you connect an institution, and a manual account holds the house, the car, cash, or an account at an unsupported institution at a balance you set. Removing a single account, if one should not have been connected, deletes that account and its data while the rest of the bank stays connected. See Supported account types, Editing and removing accounts, and Manual accounts for the details, or get started with Zypper to sort your own list.