Connecting Bank Accounts

Connecting your business bank accounts lets AI Finance Team import transactions automatically. Once connected, new transactions appear daily without any manual export or upload.

Before You Start

  • You must have a client role in the workspace (client owner or client member). Accountant-role users can view connected accounts but cannot connect new ones.
  • You will need to authenticate directly with your bank through their secure online banking portal. AI Finance Team never sees your banking credentials.
  • Bank connections are powered by GoCardless Bank Account Data, which supports banks across the EU and UK.

Connecting a Bank

  1. From the workspace sidebar, click Master data, then Bank accounts.
  2. Click Connect a bank.
  3. Select your country and search for your bank by name.
  4. Click Continue. You will be redirected to your bank's secure consent page.
  5. Log in to your bank and authorise read access to your accounts. This grants AI Finance Team read-only access — it cannot initiate payments.
  6. After authorising, your browser returns automatically to AI Finance Team.

Choosing Which Accounts to Track

After returning from your bank, a dialog shows the accounts available under your consent:

  • Check the box next to each account you want to import transactions for. Uncheck any accounts you don't need.
  • Assign an entity to each included account from the dropdown. This links the account to the correct legal entity in your workspace so that transactions are attributed correctly.
  • Click Confirm and start importing.

AI Finance Team immediately begins importing your transaction history. The initial import typically takes a few minutes, depending on how many transactions your bank returns.

Note: If you do not see the expected accounts, or see placeholder account names, it may be due to a temporary bank API limit. You can still connect — assign entities and confirm. You can rename accounts afterwards from the bank accounts page.

What Happens After Connection

Once an account is connected and active:

  • Transactions are synced daily — new transactions flow in automatically, usually within a few hours of them appearing in your bank.
  • The AI categorises each transaction — it assigns a transaction category and attempts to match each transaction to an invoice or partner entity in your workspace.
  • Exceptions are surfaced for review — transactions the AI cannot categorise with high confidence appear in the exceptions queue for manual review.

Connection Expiry

Bank connections authorised through open banking expire after 90 days. This is a regulatory requirement — your bank must re-confirm your consent periodically.

When a connection is approaching expiry, a warning appears on the bank accounts page. You will need to go through the consent flow again to re-authorise. Your existing transactions and their categorisations are preserved.

Manual Sync

If you need transactions to appear immediately — for example, after recording a payment that just cleared — you can trigger a manual sync:

  1. On the Bank accounts page, find the account card.
  2. Click Sync now.

Manual syncs are limited to 2 per day per account. The button is disabled once the limit is reached, and shows when it resets.

Disconnecting an Account

To stop importing transactions from an account:

  1. On the Bank accounts page, find the account card.
  2. Click Disconnect.

Disconnected accounts stop syncing. Existing transactions remain in your workspace and are not deleted. You can reconnect the account at any time by going through the connection flow again.

Once all accounts under a connection are disconnected, the connection card can be removed from the page using Remove from view.

Troubleshooting

I see "Your bank was unable to complete the connection." This means your bank returned an error during the consent flow. It is usually a temporary issue on the bank's side. Wait a few minutes and try again. If it persists, check whether your bank's online banking portal is accessible directly.

I connected my bank but no transactions are appearing. The initial import can take a few minutes. Refresh the transactions page after 5 minutes. If transactions still do not appear, check the account card for a sync error indicator and try a manual sync.

The account shows a placeholder name like "Account (…ab1234)". This means AI Finance Team could not retrieve your account details from the bank at the time of connection, usually due to a temporary API rate limit. The account is still connected and transactions will sync normally. To update the name, click the account name on the bank accounts page and edit it.

The "Connect a bank" button is not visible. This button is only shown to users with a client role. If you are an accountant managing a client workspace, ask the client to connect their accounts, or check with your workspace administrator about your role.