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Bank connections

Maintained by Jason Ewing, founder of Tovari · Published · How we write these docs

What is a bank connection?

Section titled “What is a bank connection?”

A bank connection is a link to your bank that brings your balances and transactions into Tovari on their own, so you read your money instead of typing it. A connected account behaves like any other account afterwards — you can rename it, categorize its transactions, budget against it and reconcile it.

You sign in to your bank inside your bank’s own secure window, and you choose there which accounts to share. Tovari never sees your bank credentials.

Connecting is always optional. Accounts you keep by hand sit alongside connected ones, and you can connect a bank on the day you sign up, months later, or never.

One connection per bank

Section titled “One connection per bank”

A household has one connection per institution. If you try to connect a bank that is already connected, Tovari stops and tells you which one it is rather than creating a second connection to the same place — additional accounts at that bank are added from the connection you already have.

How much history does Tovari import?

Section titled “How much history does Tovari import?”

It depends on where you connect from — the one real difference between the platforms; see the Web and Mobile tabs below. When a connection is made, Tovari imports some of the account’s past transactions so your register does not start empty.

Two things are worth knowing whichever way you connect:

  • A short window gets you running quickly with a small, tidy register.
  • A long window gives your reports and your typical-spending figures real history to work with, but takes longer to import and brings in far more to review.

The first import runs in the background. Transactions appear in your register as they arrive rather than all at once, so an account that looks thin a minute after connecting is usually still filling.

If the account already has transactions

Section titled “If the account already has transactions”

Linking a bank to an account that already holds transactions in Tovari imports only new activity from that point forward. No past history is pulled in, so connecting cannot duplicate the rows you already have — the account keeps everything you entered, and Tovari picks up from today.

The Starting Balance entry

Section titled “The Starting Balance entry”

However much history is imported, there is always some that came before it. Tovari accounts for it with a single entry named Starting Balance, written into the account when the connection is set up — unless the imported transactions already add up to your bank’s balance. One that proves unneeded for several days running is removed, unless you edited or reconciled it.

This applies when the connection creates the account or links to one with no transactions yet. Link a bank to an account you have been keeping by hand and no Starting Balance is added — your own starting balance and the rows you entered already cover everything before the connection. Link an empty account that carries an opening balance you typed, and that figure is replaced by the Starting Balance worked out from your bank.

It stands in for everything before the imported window: without it, an account holding ninety days of transactions would show only ninety days’ worth of money.

Three things follow:

  • It is a real entry in your register, not a hidden adjustment, and it explains a balance that would otherwise look unaccounted for.
  • It is neither income nor spending. It sits in its own Starting Balance category, which your budget, reports and Safe to Spend leave out. Editing its memo or status keeps it there.
  • It does not promise the two figures always match afterwards. Your bank’s balance and Tovari’s both move as activity lands, and can differ for a while — an authorized card swipe may reach your register later. That is ordinary; reconciling against a statement is how you confirm a period is square.

What happens to a transaction you already entered?

Section titled “What happens to a transaction you already entered?”

If a payment arrives from your bank that you had already typed in yourself on the same account, Tovari updates your row rather than adding a second one — your category, your payee and your note stay exactly as you wrote them. Matching is only ever done within a single account, so a row on one account is never quietly attached to activity on another. The full explanation of how a bank row moves from pending to cleared is on the Transactions page.

Keeping a connection healthy

Section titled “Keeping a connection healthy”

Banks periodically require you to sign in again, and connections can hit trouble at the bank’s end. Tovari shows a connection’s state on the account it belongs to:

State What it means What to do
Connected Working normally, with the time of the last sync Nothing
Action needed Your bank wants you to sign in again Reconnect
Sync issue Tovari is having trouble syncing this account Reconnect
Disconnected The connection has been removed Reconnect if you want it back

Reconnecting repairs the connection you already have — you do not lose the account, its history, or anything you edited.

Disconnecting is not deleting. Everything already imported stays in your register; new activity simply stops arriving. The account remains, and you can go on using it by hand.

Connecting a bank you disconnected before

Section titled “Connecting a bank you disconnected before”

If you fully disconnected a bank and later connect it again from scratch — rather than pressing Reconnect on a connection that still exists — Tovari checks whether the accounts your bank offers this time match ones you already have from that same bank and previously disconnected. An account it recognizes (same last-four digits and account type) is reconnected, not duplicated: it keeps its existing history, and only new activity is imported from here on. Anything it does not recognize is added as a new account, same as any other connection. You will see this choice called out on the confirmation dialog when it applies.

Reconnecting to share an investment balance

Section titled “Reconnecting to share an investment balance”

Before a brokerage will share what an account is worth it needs your permission specifically for that, and a bank you connected before Tovari offered investment balances was never asked.

When that permission is missing the account shows Reconnect to see this balance. Use that button rather than adding the bank again: it repairs the connection you already have, keeps every account and edit, and asks for the extra permission on the way through. Adding the bank a second time would leave you with two connections to the same place.

An account merely waiting for its first value shows a dash instead and needs nothing from you — see Investment accounts linked to a brokerage.

If a connection that already delivered a value later needs attention, Tovari keeps the value on screen rather than hiding it — see If the connection breaks after a value has arrived.

Connecting a bank

Section titled “Connecting a bank”
  1. On Accounts, press Add Account and choose Connect a bank. Setup offers the same choice.
  2. Your bank’s secure window opens. Sign in and choose which accounts to share there.
  3. Back in Tovari, a dialog lists the accounts you chose so you can confirm them. Anything already connected is marked Already added and left out, so it cannot be added twice.
  4. Press the confirm button to finish.

Choosing how much history to import

Section titled “Choosing how much history to import”

The same dialog carries an Import history dropdown — this is where the window is chosen:

Option What it imports
None (start fresh) No past activity — only transactions from now on
15 days The last two weeks or so
30 days About a month
60 days About two months
90 days About three months — the option Tovari preselects
120 days About four months
All available transactions All the history your bank makes available

The dropdown is not offered when the account you are linking already holds transactions; in that case Tovari says so on the spot and imports new activity only.

Managing a connection later

Section titled “Managing a connection later”

Open the account and look at its bank-connection block. It shows the bank’s name, the connection’s state, and when it last synced, along with Disconnect — and, when the connection needs attention, Reconnect.

On a phone browser

Section titled “On a phone browser”

Opening the web app on a phone, Connect a bank leads the Add account sheet, then the same Import history dialog as on a PC or Mac appears.

Manage a connection from the account’s Edit account sheet: Reconnect when it needs attention, and Unlink, which names every account on the connection first. Adding accounts from a bank already connected, or linking a manual account to a bank, is done on a PC or Mac.
Section titled “Related pages”

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