Bank connections

How connecting works

Connecting is the first thing a fresh Finances tab offers — Connect account is the whole opening screen. Once accounts exist, the same card lives in Finances → Overview. Either way, the connection runs through Plaid — the same connection layer used across the financial industry. Your bank sign-in happens with Plaid, in Plaid’s window; PES never sees, receives, or stores your bank credentials.

Read-only, structurally

The connection can read balances and transactions. It cannot move money, pay anyone, or change anything at your bank — PES’s access is scoped read-only at the API level, not by promise. Synced transactions land in the same ledger as everything else, your category rules apply automatically, and a daily sync keeps it current, with Sync now when you can’t wait.

Disconnecting

Each connection shows when it last synced, and an Accounts panel shows exactly which bank account feeds which PES account — stop importing any of them, or import newly discovered ones, without touching the rest. Add accounts re-opens your bank’s own account picker so you can share more accounts from a bank you already connected — each one imports with its history in a single pass. If your bank needs a fresh sign-in, a plain Reconnect prompt restores the connection with nothing lost.

Disconnect deletes PES’s access credential immediately. Everything already imported stays in your ledger — it’s your record, not the connection’s. And if you reconnect the same bank later, PES re-links those same accounts (matched by their last-four) and skips any history it already holds — reconnecting never doubles your data.

Live, and still optional

Bank connections are live for real banks. Prefer to stay manual? The rest of Finances doesn’t care — file imports bring in the same history, and manual balances keep net worth honest. Connecting is a convenience, never a requirement.