Connecting a bank
Four ways a statement gets in — signing in at the bank, an aggregator, a direct download, or a file — and what happens to the lines afterwards.
A bank account in TRANXACT is a record like any other. What varies is how the transactions reach it, and there are four routes. They are not alternatives in a philosophical sense — most companies end up using more than one, because banks differ.
| Route | What it is | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Sign in at your bank | You are redirected to the bank own page, sign in there with their own multi-factor step, and a token comes back. TRANXACT never sees the password. | The best option where the bank offers it. |
| An aggregator | A service your company subscribes to, which holds the connections to thousands of banks. Your own keys go in under Platform → Bank Aggregators. | Where you already have a subscription, or need many small banks. |
| Direct connect | The bank publishes a download endpoint and issues your company a credential for it. Not the website password — a separate one, usually with its own expiry. | Corporate accounts at larger banks. |
| A statement file | OFX, QFX, CSV or a camt file, uploaded or read off a connected drive. | Always available, and the fallback when any of the above is down. |
What happens to a line
An arriving line is a bank transaction, not a journal. It is matched against what the ledger already knows: an invoice you raised, a payment you made, a fee. What matches is reconciled; what does not is offered for a decision, and the account it is posted to is remembered so the next one of the same shape is easier.
Topping a feed up from a statement file after an outage is a normal thing to do, and the duplicate check is not automatic across routes. Two routes can legitimately deliver the same day. Compare on date and amount before importing a file that overlaps a feed you already have.
Credentials
Every credential on this path is encrypted and never shown back, including to the administrator who entered it. A connection health is a status on its own screen, so a feed that has quietly stopped authenticating is something you can see rather than a reconciliation that mysteriously runs short.
Is the sign-in still working?
Accounting → Banks & Accounts → Bank Connections has a Sign-in column that says, in words, whether the bank still accepts the connection, and a Why column with the reason:
| Sign-in | What it means |
|---|---|
| Working | The bank accepts the connection. Nothing to do. |
| Lapses soon | The bank’s consent or certificate runs out shortly. Reconnect before it does. |
| Sign in again | The bank wants the account holder to sign in once more. |
| Security code needed | The bank is asking for a one-time code or another security step. |
| Refused by the bank | The bank turned the credentials down. |
| Locked by the bank | The bank has locked access, usually after failed attempts. It may have to be unlocked at the bank first. |
| Not working | The connection fails for another reason, given in Why. |
Reconnect: repairing a broken connection
A connection that is not working offers Reconnect on its row. Reconnect repairs the same connection — it does not make a new one — so the connection keeps its bank accounts, their mapping to the ledger and all its history.
- On Bank Connections, press Reconnect on the connection’s row.
- Sign in the way that connection was made: through the aggregator’s own window, at the bank’s own sign-in page, or, for Direct Connect, by storing the new credential the bank issued.
- When the Sign-in column reads Working again, press Pull from bank. Lines that had already arrived are recognized, so nothing is added twice.
Linking a bank that is already connected does not create a second connection: you are pointed to Reconnect on the one you have. Two connections to the same account would bring every line in twice.
A sandbox bank ships with the product so the whole redirect can be rehearsed — the sign-in, the consent, the token coming back — before a real bank is contracted. Use it to prove your side of the chain works.