Connect a bank or add a statement

HQ gets your bank transactions two ways, on two tabs under Ledger › Banking:

• Connect a bank (Plaid): on the Accounts tab, in the Connected Banks section. Connect your bank and HQ syncs transactions automatically. Most banks sign you in on their own website, so the page moves to your bank and comes back to HQ once you've approved the connection. TALISK_HQ never sees your banking password.

  In the desktop app this step opens in your default browser rather than inside the app window, so the password your browser has saved for your bank is available. You are not asked to sign in to HQ again: the browser only ever shows your bank's own sign-in. When you finish, the desktop app comes back to the front and picks the connection up by itself.

• Upload a statement: on the Statements tab. Drop in a CSV, OFX/QFX, or PDF statement and HQ reads the transactions from it.

How many banks you can connect

On the Free plan you can connect one bank per business. One bank connection is one sign-in at one bank, so the chequing account, savings account and credit card you hold there all come in together. Solo, Pro, Business and Partner connect as many banks as you like. The Free plan is for trying HQ on your own business; upgrading lets you connect every bank you use.

• Uploading a statement is never limited, on any plan.
• A bank you disconnect stops counting.
• Reconnecting a bank whose connection has stopped syncing is never blocked, even at the limit.

If you're at the limit, "Connect a Bank" says so and offers See plans.

Connecting a bank for someone else

A bookkeeper or accountant can connect a bank for the business whose books they keep, using the business's bank login:

• On the Partner plan, from inside the client's books.
• As a bookkeeper the owner invited, with Full access. View and Edit access cannot connect or disconnect a bank; ask the owner for Full access.

The bank lands in the business's own books, under the business's plan, so the Free limit above is the business's. The two-factor authentication asked for belongs to the person connecting it, on their own HQ account. The connection shows in the business's Ledger › Accounting › Activity naming who connected it, and either the owner or the person who connected it can disconnect it later; a bookkeeper can disconnect only a bank they connected. HQ sends the owner no notice that a bank was connected.

Two-factor authentication is required first

Before you can connect a bank, your HQ account needs two-factor authentication turned on. A bank connection brings your transactions and balances into HQ, and a password on its own is not enough to stand in front of that.

If it is not on yet, "Connect a Bank" says so and offers to set it up. It takes about a minute: you scan a code with an authenticator app on your phone and type the six digits it shows. HQ then shows your recovery codes, and brings you straight back to Banking once you have saved them.

Save those recovery codes before you carry on. They are shown once, and they are what gets you back in if you lose the phone with the authenticator app on it. Two-factor authentication and your recovery codes covers what they are, where to keep them, and how to get a new set if you never saved the first one.

You can also turn it on ahead of time under Settings › My Account, in the Two-Factor Authentication section.

This applies only to connecting a bank. Uploading a statement does not require it, and a bank you connected before this requirement existed keeps working: your transactions keep syncing, and nothing you have already set up changes. You will be asked to turn two-factor authentication on the next time you connect a new bank.

On the Free plan a connected bank brings in only the last 30 days of transactions. Moving to a paid plan brings in the rest of the history your bank shares, by itself, with nothing to reconnect.

The Accounts tab is also where each bank account's opening balance and currency live, which is why connecting a bank happens there: a connection creates the accounts that screen manages. Once transactions are in, you can match them to bills and reconcile the month.

Already uploaded statements for the same account? Connecting is safe: HQ recognizes transactions it already has and merges each new copy onto the existing row instead of booking it twice. Anything already categorized, matched, or reconciled is never altered, and the rare unclear case goes to a review list rather than being guessed at. HQ also tries to recognize the account itself, using its name and the last digits of the account number. If the bank reports a name HQ can't match, you may see a second copy of the account appear on the Accounts tab. When that happens, use "Same as an existing account?" on the new copy: pick the account you already had, and HQ moves the connection and its transactions onto it, cleans up any doubled-up rows, and archives the extra copy.

What each connected account feeds

The connection row lists every account your bank included, and names what each one feeds in HQ. The names rarely match: your bank may call it "Current Account" while your books call it "RBC Chequing", so the row spells out the destination rather than leaving you to guess from the last four digits.

Three things a line can say:

• The name of an HQ account. Transactions from that account land there.
• "No transactions yet". The account is connected and nothing has come through it. HQ creates its account with the first transaction, so there is nothing for you to do.
• "Balance only". Your bank included a savings or investment holding, such as a GIC. HQ does not run those through a bank feed, because their movements are not spending and would land in the wrong place if they were treated as cash. The holding stays in your books as the ledger account it already sits on, and it will not gain a bank feed later.

In the accounts table below, an account fed by a connection wears a purple Connected pill showing the last four digits, which is how you trace a row back to the line above.

Checking a GIC or other holding

A balance-only account still tells you what it holds, and HQ refreshes that figure on every sync. Use "Compare to a ledger account…" on the line to say which of your own accounts tracks it, for example your 1010 GIC. From then on the figure the bank reports appears beside your own under Other balances on the Accounts tab, dated, and HQ says so when the two disagree.

That is a check, not a correction. HQ never adjusts your books to the bank's number here: if they differ, the entry your books are missing is a real one and belongs in the ledger, usually as interest earned. Ask your accountant if you are not sure what the difference is.

What your bank says it holds

Every connected account reports its balance, not just a holding. In the accounts table on the Accounts tab, the line under each account's Balance compares your books with the figure your bank reported at the last sync: matches bank when they agree, or the bank's figure and the difference when they do not. Open the account's row and its Bank feed section shows both figures one above the other, In your books and Bank's balance, each with its date, and the difference between them.

That comparison needs a connected bank. With statements only, the line under the balance shows the latest statement's closing balance instead: a statement tells HQ what already happened, and only a live connection can say what the account holds right now.

A difference is normal and is not an error. A cheque you wrote may not have been cashed yet, or a deposit may still be in transit, and both figures are correct. What is worth acting on is a gap that keeps growing, which usually means transactions are sitting in Banking waiting to be categorized. See Your books don't match the bank.

Two cases where HQ shows the figure and holds the comparison back:

• Your connection needs attention. The figure is frozen at the last good sync, so measuring today's books against it would mislead you. Reconnect the bank and the comparison comes back.
• Several banks share one ledger account. The balance in your books is their combined total rather than this one account's, so there is nothing here to compare it against. Giving the bank its own ledger account, below, fixes that.

How HQ proves the feed is complete

A bank feed is fast but provisional: recent charges can arrive a day or two late, and occasionally one never arrives at all. HQ does not ask you to trust it. On every sync it checks the transactions it holds against your bank's own reported balance, the same way a paper statement is checked against its closing balance.

When the two agree, the account's Bank feed section says feed verified to the cent, with the date. That means every transaction since your last verified statement is provably accounted for.

When they disagree, the line says exactly how much is unaccounted for, such as feed short by $120.16. A young difference is usually a charge still on its way from the bank and clears by itself within a few days. One that stands for longer becomes a card on your books health, because at that point a transaction has likely gone missing from the feed. Check the amount against your online banking; a statement covering the period settles it definitively and fills the gap safely.

The card names the account, what the bank reports beside what the feed's lines add up to, and the day the account last verified, so the missing activity is dated after that. On a card account the likely gap is a charge; on a bank account, a withdrawal or fee. Its button opens a reconciliation of that account. When the difference runs the other way, and your books hold a charge the bank withdrew and you chose to keep, for exactly the amount, the card names that line and its button opens it, so you can check it against your online banking and remove it if the bank really did reverse it. If you have not answered the question about that withdrawn charge yet, the card says so and its button opens Ledger › Banking › Review instead.

You never need to upload anything for this. The check arms itself a few days after you connect, once the first days of activity have settled, and carries itself forward from there: each day the account verifies re-proves everything since, automatically.

If you have imported statements, HQ uses your newest verified one as the starting point instead, because it reaches further back: it also covers the history from before you connected. That is a bonus, not a requirement. A business that never uploads a statement gets the same continuous verification from the day it connects.

HQ never adjusts your books to the bank's figure. It reports what the bank said and leaves the bookkeeping to you.

A bank that still shares the pooled 1000 · Cash / Bank account can be given its own line: "Give this bank its own ledger account…" in the Ledger account column of the Accounts tab. HQ creates a ledger account just for it, so the balance sheet shows the bank on its own line and its reconciliation ties to that account alone. Before anything happens, HQ tells you exactly what it will do.

If it is your only bank, you get two ways to do it. Move its history too puts what the account has done onto the new ledger account, its opening included, so reports and drill-downs show the account from day one, as though it had always been set up that way. Amounts, dates, totals and anything you have filed do not change; the only thing that moves is which line of your books carries the cash, which is why entries in closed periods come along as well. Start fresh from today leaves the history where it is: if the bank's opening balance was already posted it is re-recorded against the new account, and the money sitting in Cash / Bank moves across with one entry.

Moving the history leaves money that hasn't reached the bank yet in Cash / Bank: a customer deposit you recorded before it was banked, a store payout not yet matched to its deposit, a customer payment you recorded by hand, or a sales tax payment recorded from the GST/HST tab. Each one leaves Cash / Bank on its own when its bank line arrives, so the bank's account counts it once. HQ lists them before you confirm.

If an entry can't be attributed to this bank, nothing moves and HQ lists each one with what to do. An entry posted to Cash / Bank with no account named after another bank started may be that bank's money. Do it in this order: remove it (or reverse it), move this bank's history, then record it again with Paid from naming the account that paid it. Paid from can't name this bank until its history has moved. An entry dated inside a locked period can't be removed, so HQ sends that one to your accountant. A transfer you marked while both accounts shared Cash / Bank recorded nothing: unmark it and mark it again. A deposit that is only partly settled needs the rest settled, or the settlement undone. A few can only be corrected by your accountant, and HQ says which.

With more than one bank sharing Cash / Bank, whose money each entry carries is something only you know, so HQ can't move the history for you: it creates the account and you move each bank's share with Move balance.

If you imported your accountant's trial balance, your chart may already hold the ledger account a bank should post through, with no bank account attached to it yet. Use "Link to an existing ledger account…" on the connected account and pick your accountant's account: from then on its transactions post there, so your balance sheet shows the bank on the line your accountant expects. The list only ever offers accounts that can actually take the link: control accounts, accounts another bank already uses, and accounts of the wrong kind aren't shown. This works while the account hasn't posted money yet. Once transactions have posted through an account's ledger account, the link is locked to protect your history: at that point, move the balance with Move balance instead of relinking.

The Set up your books wizard also reaches this from its Your bank step, which offers the same connect and statement-import routes.

Switching from other software? Import your trial balance first (Import from accountant documents), then connect the bank or upload statements: the import sets up each bank account on the ledger account your accountant already used, so a connected bank links to the account it belongs to instead of creating a second one.

Do it in that order for a second reason: post your opening balances before you connect a feed. Posting them sets your conversion date, the line between history and live activity. After that, transactions your bank sends that are dated before your start date are kept as reference and never posted twice, because those amounts are already inside your opening balances. Connect first and there's no start date to compare against, so that older activity posts as though it were new and your books count it twice.

Switch from another accounting system sets out that whole path, from the trial balance upload through to this step.