Connected and manual accounts: which to use, and how to add each

Two kinds of account

Every account in LumaLedger lives on the Accounts page, grouped under the bank that holds it. There are two ways for one to get there.

Both kinds are real accounts in your ledger. They show up in net worth, in the category picker as places money can move to, and on the page of the bank they belong to.

Connect a bank

A connected account keeps itself current. New transactions arrive and are categorized, and the balance always matches what the bank reports.

1. 1
   Open Accounts and choose Add account

   Pick Connect a bank from the menu. A secure window from Plaid, the service that links LumaLedger to banks, opens on top of the page.

2. 2
   Find your bank and sign in

   Search for your bank, sign in with your usual online banking details, and choose which accounts to share. LumaLedger never sees or stores your bank password.

3. 3
   Wait for the first import

   The bank appears on the Accounts page while its history loads. Balances come first; older transactions can take a few minutes longer.

If Plaid can't find your bank, or can't connect to it, you don't hit a dead end. A window opens with other ways in: add the bank by hand, Import from Rocket Money, Try a different bank, or Tell us which bank you need. You can open the same window yourself from Can't find your bank? at the bottom of the Add account menu.

When a connected bank changes

Each bank's menu, the three dots on its card, has Sync now to pull the latest right away. If a bank needs you to sign in again, the same menu offers Reconnect. On the bank's own page, the connection icon next to its name shows the full error and the same choices.

After you reconnect, a message says how it went. Connection repaired means new data is coming in again. If the message says your bank still isn't sending new data, the connection itself is fixed and the bank is slow to answer; this usually clears on its own.

A bank that stops updating. Sometimes a connection still works but nothing new arrives for more than two days. A task on the home page says the bank stopped updating and since when: when your bank last answered, or, for a brokerage or a card, when its positions, investment activity or due dates last came in. Choose Sync now. If only part of the data is missing, such as your investment positions or a card's due dates and minimum payments, the message after the sync names what your bank didn't send, and those figures keep their last values until it does. Signing in again won't help there, so the bank's page offers Try again rather than Reconnect. If the bank itself has stopped answering, it usually clears on its own; Reconnect is there too if it lasts.

A new account at a bank you already connected. When you open a new card or account there, your bank may tell LumaLedger. A task on the home page names the bank and says the account is missing from your totals. Choose Add accounts: your bank's window opens, you tick the new account, and its history comes in. Not every bank says so, so the same Add accounts button is always there under the connection icon on the bank's own page.

An account your bank stops sharing. If an account drops out of the connection, because it was closed or unticked at the bank, its row on the Accounts page is marked Not shared. Its balance stops updating, and hovering the mark says since when. A task on the home page offers two ways out: Share again opens your bank's window so you can tick it again, and It's closed closes the account in LumaLedger too, keeping its history.

Adding, syncing, reconnecting and sharing again need a role that can edit the ledger; viewers see balances without the buttons. Closing an account takes an owner or admin.

Add a bank by hand

If your bank isn't in the list, or you hold an account a connection doesn't return, add it yourself. A credit union card paid from a connected checking account is the typical case: until the card exists in LumaLedger, every payment to it looks like spending.

1. 1
   Open Accounts, choose Add account, then Add manually

   To add another account at a bank that is already listed, you can also open that bank's menu and choose Add an account.

2. 2
   Name the bank

   Start typing and pick your bank if it is already there, or type a new name. The form tells you which: Goes under an existing bank, or will be added as a new bank.

3. 3
   Choose the type and name the account

   Checking, savings, credit card, loan and so on. The type decides where the account sits in your net worth and whether money sent to it counts as a card payment. The name fills itself in from the bank and the type; change it if you like. The last four digits are optional and help you recognize the account later.

4. 4
   Enter the balance, if you know it

   For a checking or savings account, what it holds today. For a card or a loan, what you owe, as a positive number. Leave it empty and the account starts at zero, holding only the transfers you file to it.

The bank shows up on the Accounts page marked Added by hand, with its accounts inside, in the same list as your connected banks.

To bring in the account's history as well, download a statement from your bank's website as a CSV, OFX or QFX file. Open the account's page (click its name) and choose Import a file. If you added the account from the window that opens when Plaid can't connect your bank, LumaLedger takes you straight there with the importer open.

LumaLedger may also notice the bank for you. When your transfers keep naming a bank that isn't in your list, a Banks you haven't connected card appears at the top of the Accounts page. Next to each bank, Connect opens the same Plaid window as above, and Add by hand opens the form with the bank's name already filled in, often with the last four digits and the account type too.

File transfers between them

Money moving between two of your own accounts is neither income nor spending. When both accounts are connected, LumaLedger pairs the two sides by itself. When one side is an account you added by hand, only one side is ever imported, so you tell LumaLedger where it went.

1. 1
   Find the transaction

   Open Transactions. Payments to an account that wasn't in LumaLedger yet usually have no category, so the Needs a category filter is a good place to start.

2. 2
   Open its category and choose Transfer to

   Click the category on the row (or open the transaction and use the category there). Below income and expenses, the Transfer to group lists your accounts, each with its bank underneath. Typing the bank's name finds all of its accounts.

3. 3
   Pick the account

   The row now names the account instead of a category, and it leaves your spending totals. A payment to a credit card is recorded as a card payment.

You often don't have to find them one by one. When payments on one account name another account you already have, such as a checking account paying your Venmo or a card you added later, the Accounts page shows a Payments to your own accounts card. Each row names the account, how many payments point to it, which accounts they came from and the total. See them lists the payments first, if you want to check.

Choose File as transfers to re-file every payment on the row as a transfer to that account. They leave your spending, and new ones are filed the same way as they arrive. If the suggestion is wrong, the cross next to it stops suggesting that account, and the message that follows has Undo. The same suggestion can also show up in your tasks on the home page. Filing or dismissing needs a role that can edit the ledger; viewers see the card without the buttons.

Keep a manual balance current

A manual account sees the transfers you file to it, and nothing else. Purchases on a manual credit card, interest on a manual savings account and fees are invisible to LumaLedger, so its balance drifts until you correct it.

On the Accounts page, click the three dots on the account's row. A window opens with the account's settings. Accounts that aren't connected have an Update balance field: type what the account holds today, or what you owe on a card or loan, and choose Save. The new figure applies from today, and transfers you file for earlier dates won't pull it away from what you entered.

Once a month, when the statement arrives, is often enough. The same window has Hide account in the list and Exclude account balance switches, and, for an owner or admin, Remove account.

Remove account asks you to confirm, then closes the account: it stops syncing and leaves your totals, and its history stays in your ledger. If it is the last account from a connected bank, removing it disconnects that bank too. The closed account then appears under Closed accounts on its bank's page (Open bank in the bank's menu). A bank with no open accounts left moves to Inactive banks at the bottom of the Accounts page, where you can still open it. If it should never have been there, an owner or admin can choose Erase next to it, or Erase bank and its history for the whole bank. A preview lists what goes: the accounts, their entries and balances, and any rules that name them. Transfers with accounts you keep stay on those accounts and are sorted again. Erasing can't be undone.

Which one to use

Connect every bank you can. A connected account costs you nothing to keep accurate, and its transactions are what budgets, recurring charges and reports are built from.

Add by hand what can't be connected: a credit union Plaid doesn't reach, an account at a bank abroad, a loan from family, cash you keep track of. The trade is a minute of upkeep when you check the real balance, in exchange for a net worth and a spending total that aren't missing a piece.