Your accounts

Connecting your first bank is covered in Getting started. This chapter is about what happens after: keeping connections healthy, adding more banks, adding manual accounts, renaming and hiding accounts, and cleanly disconnecting when you need to.

Most of the chapter is about staleness, because that's the thing most users eventually hit and Google about. So we start there.

When sync goes stale

Bank connections don't last forever. Eventually your bank will ask you to re-enter your password (maybe a security policy, maybe a password change, maybe a whim). When that happens, Basis Budget can't pull new transactions, and your accounts are said to be stale.

Staleness is normal. Every Plaid-based app deals with it. The important thing is that Basis Budget tells you clearly when it's happening.

What you'll see

In Settings › Manage Banks, a stale bank shows a yellow warning triangle next to its name. Tap the bank to see the details. You'll see a Sync issue card at the top with this message:

This bank is no longer syncing. This usually means your login credentials expired.

Below the message is a Reconnect [Bank Name] button. That's your fix.

How to reconnect

Tap Reconnect, and Plaid takes over. You'll see the same Plaid screen you used when you first linked the bank. Sign in again, handle any two-factor step your bank requires, and you're back. Your existing transactions and history stay in place. Only the sync pipe gets refreshed.

Once the reconnection succeeds, the yellow triangle goes away and the next sync runs automatically.

Apple Wallet staleness is different

Apple Card and Apple Savings connections (via Apple Wallet / FinanceKit) can also go stale, but for a different reason: you, or iOS, revoked the app's Finance authorization. The message you'll see:

Apple Wallet access may have been revoked. Re-enable in Settings › Privacy & Security › Finance.

Tapping Open Settings takes you right to the iOS permission toggle. Flip Basis Budget back on, and the next sync will pick things up.

On a new iPhone

FinanceKit authorization is per-device. When you set up a new iPhone and sign into Basis Budget, your Apple Card and Apple Savings accounts restore from your server backup, but they'll show as stale until you grant Finance access on the new device. Follow the same Open Settings path above. Plaid accounts don't have this quirk because Plaid permissions travel with your account, not your device.

Adding another bank

Go to Settings › Manage Banks and tap Add Another Bank. You'll see the same bank picker from onboarding: a handful of popular banks (Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Capital One, Citibank), an Apple Wallet option, and a search for everything else.

Pick your bank, sign in through Plaid, and it lands alongside your existing accounts. Transactions from the new bank import and categorize like any other.

Manual accounts

Not everything lives in Plaid. Your house doesn't have an API. Neither does your car, your Vanguard IRA (usually), your student loan, or the cash in your drawer. For those, Basis Budget lets you add manual accounts: balances you enter and update yourself.

Manual accounts don't import transactions. They just hold a balance. You update the balance whenever you want, and the rest of the app treats the account normally for net worth, reporting, and (if it's an asset or liability) budget math.

Adding a manual account

Go to Settings › Manage Banks › Add Another Bank › Track Manually. You'll get a short form with four fields:

• Account name. Whatever you want to call it. “Primary residence”, “Honda Civic”, “Cash in wallet”.
• Institution. Optional. Nice to have for things like “Vanguard” or “Federal student loans”.
• Current balance. Your best guess of what it's worth right now. For debts, the amount you owe.
• Account type. Checking, Savings, Credit Card, Cash, Investment, Loan, Asset, or Other.

Updating the balance

Manual accounts show a Current Value section when you open them. Tap, type the new number, save. That's it.

Good cadence for most assets: update quarterly for investments that change often, annually for things like your house or car. There's no penalty for being rough. Better to have an estimated house value in the app than to leave your net worth incomplete.

Mixing manual and bank-linked accounts

You can mix and match — bank-linked accounts for the things Plaid covers cleanly, manual accounts for the things it doesn't (HSAs at smaller institutions, foreign banks, manual investments, asset accounts like a home or vehicle). All account types are available manually, so you're never blocked from tracking something just because Plaid can't see it.

Renaming and hiding accounts

Open an account from the Dashboard or Manage Banks and you get an edit sheet with a few controls worth knowing about.

Rename

The Account name field lets you override whatever your bank calls the account. Banks love names like “PRIV PREM CHK XXXXXX7432”. You probably prefer “Checking”.

Renaming doesn't break anything. Transactions stay attached, sync still works, and clearing the name field reverts to the bank's original name.

Hide

Toggle Hide Account to exclude an account from net worth, budgets, and transaction lists. The account stays linked (still billed on Plaid's side), but it's dimmed on the Dashboard and doesn't contribute to any totals.

Disconnecting a bank

If you're done with a bank (closed the account, switching banks, cleaning up) you can disconnect it entirely. Settings › Manage Banks › tap the bank › scroll to the bottom and tap Disconnect [Bank Name] (in red).

A confirmation alert asks:

All accounts and transactions from [Institution] will be permanently removed.

That's not a soft delete. Read the alert before tapping confirm:

• Accounts from that bank are removed. You won't see them on the Dashboard anymore.
• Transactions from that bank are deleted. Not archived. Gone.
• Plaid billing for that bank stops. The Plaid item is removed server-side immediately.

If you re-link the same bank later, it's a fresh Plaid connection. Historical transactions don't come back. Plaid will backfill some recent history on the new connection, but not what was deleted.