Synced Accounts

A synced account imports your transactions and balances in the background. Instead of typing every purchase in yourself, the transaction list stays current through the day, and balances refresh on each sync so your net worth and cash flow stay accurate.

The rest of Cadence lights up around it: budgets track actual spend, recurring detection spots new subscriptions, and your dashboard reflects the real state of things rather than a snapshot you maintain by hand.

Bank syncing is the only thing that differs between plans; every other feature is on every plan. If you upgrade later, all your existing manual accounts and history stay in place - you simply add bank connections alongside them.

Cadence Lifetime is a one-time purchase and does not include syncing, because syncing carries an ongoing cost. The Bank Sync add-on is a small monthly subscription that switches it on without changing your plan. It comes in two versions: up to three institutions, or unlimited.

You will find it wherever you would normally connect a bank: the Connected Banks section of Settings shows an Add bank syncing button instead of the usual link flow. Once active, the same button becomes Manage bank syncing, which is also where you cancel.

It is purchased on the web rather than in the mobile apps. If you cancel, syncing stops at the end of the period you have paid for and your connections are removed about two weeks later. Your transaction history stays exactly where it is.

Linking takes about a minute. The flow is handled by Plaid, the same connection layer used by most major personal finance apps.

1. Open Settings → Connected Banks and tap Connect a Bank. You can also start from the Net Worth page with Add Asset → Synced Bank.
2. Search for your bank or financial institution by name.
3. Sign in securely with your bank credentials inside the Plaid window.
4. Approve any multi-factor authentication your bank requires.
5. Select which accounts you would like to sync.

Two consequences surprise people often enough to state plainly:

• Investment positions are not downloaded. A synced brokerage account brings its balance, not the securities inside it. You record those yourself - see Holdings & Investments.
• Loan and card terms are not downloaded. No minimum payment, interest rate, statement date, due date or amortisation schedule. You can record those on a manually added Credit/Loan - see Credit Cards & Loans.

Linking your everyday chequing account, your main credit card and a savings account covers most people’s daily flow without overwhelming the dashboard.

New transactions appear throughout the day as your bank posts them, typically within a few hours of being charged. Cadence does not sync on a fixed schedule and does not sync when you open the app; your bank pushes updates as it has them.

Two things let you sync on demand:

• Pull to refresh on a phone or tablet, which syncs every connected bank.
• Force Refresh from a bank’s overflow menu in Settings → Connected Banks, which syncs just that institution.

Balances refresh on each sync but are rate-limited to roughly twice a day, so a Force Refresh may return the same balance with newer transactions. Pending transactions are included as soon as your bank publishes them, then reconciled when they post - there is nothing to clean up by hand.

Banks periodically require you to re-confirm a connection. Cadence shows a prompt next to the affected account, and the flow is the same as the initial link: a quick sign-in inside the Plaid window.

A Reconnect Banks widget also appears on your dashboard when something needs attention, so you are not relying on noticing it in Settings. If a connection has been broken for more than a few days, see Troubleshooting Connections.

Cadence supports CAD, USD and GBP accounts side by side, though only Canadian and US accounts can be linked to a bank - the rest you track manually. Each account keeps its native currency on its own page so the figures match what your bank shows.

On dashboard-level totals like net worth and cash flow, foreign balances are converted into your primary currency using daily rates. The original currency is preserved on every transaction. See Multi-Currency.

Your bank credentials are never stored by Cadence. The sign-in happens entirely inside Plaid’s window, and what comes back is a read-only access token that fetches transactions and balances.

• Cadence cannot move money.
• Cadence cannot change your bank settings.
• Cadence never sees your bank login.

You can revoke any connection from inside Cadence at any time, which removes the access token both here and at Plaid.

Synced transactions are yours to refine. Categories, budget assignments, notes and merchant names can all be edited without affecting the underlying bank record, and category learning picks up the pattern so future transactions arrive pre-cleaned.

The amount, the date and the account belong to the bank and cannot be changed here. See Transactions.