Plaid Account Linking

Plaid Account Linking lets you securely connect your bank accounts to TrendingBudget. Once linked, transactions are automatically synced and categorized — powering budgets, bills, income tracking, and intelligence alerts.

The integration uses Plaid's Link drop-in module for the connection flow and the Transactions Sync endpoint for ongoing data retrieval.

Click Add Bank Account on the Accounts page. You'll see two options:

Connect Bank Account (via Plaid)

1. A secure Plaid window opens — select your bank and log in with your bank credentials.
2. Choose which accounts to link (checking, savings, credit card, etc.).
3. After linking, a sync dialog appears to pull in your recent transactions.

Add Account Manually

1. Enter the institution name (e.g. Chase, Wells Fargo).
2. Optionally set an account name, type, and starting balance.
3. Manual accounts don't sync automatically — you'll enter transactions by hand or via Quick Entry.

After linking, transactions are fetched using Plaid's cursor-based sync. This handles added, modified, and removed transactions incrementally.

Sync Triggers

• Manual — Trigger a sync from the Accounts page per-account.
• Post-link — Automatically runs after linking a new account.
• Scheduled — A background cron job syncs all accounts periodically.

Data Synced

Each transaction includes: amount, date, merchant name, category, pending status, and a unique ID for deduplication.

• View all accounts (Plaid-linked and manual) with balance, institution, and type.
• Toggle between card and list views.
• Unlink Plaid accounts at any time — this removes the connection and associated data.
• Manual accounts can be edited or removed independently.

• Your bank credentials are never stored — they go directly to Plaid.
• Access tokens are encrypted in the database and never exposed to the browser.
• All Plaid API calls happen server-side only.
• Each user can only access their own linked accounts.