How to Automatically Track Every Account You Own

DEFINITION

Plaid

A financial data infrastructure company that provides the API connections most finance apps use to link bank and investment accounts. Plaid connects with over 12,000 financial institutions. When you authenticate through a finance app's 'connect account' flow, you're typically going through Plaid.

DEFINITION

MX

A competing financial data platform (similar to Plaid) that connects apps to financial institutions. Some finance apps use MX instead of or in addition to Plaid, particularly for coverage of smaller institutions.

DEFINITION

Open Banking

A regulatory and technical framework where financial institutions provide standardized API access to account data, with user permission. In the US, open banking is primarily market-driven (Plaid, MX) rather than regulatory-mandated, unlike the UK/EU where regulation has standardized API access.

How Account Connections Actually Work

When you add an account to a finance app, you’re typically going through a third-party data aggregation service — most commonly Plaid, which connects to over 12,000 financial institutions in the US. MX is an alternative used by some apps for broader or different institutional coverage.

The connection flow looks like this:

1. You search for your bank or brokerage in the app
2. The app opens a Plaid (or MX) authentication window
3. You authenticate with your bank’s credentials within that secure window
4. Plaid creates a secure read-only token and passes your account data to the app
5. The finance app displays your account information using that token

Importantly: the finance app never sees your bank login credentials. Plaid handles authentication and returns only account data. The token is read-only — it can pull transaction and balance data, but cannot initiate transfers or make account changes.

What Connects Reliably

For most high earners, the core accounts connect automatically:

Banks: All major retail banks connect reliably — Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, US Bank, plus most online banks (Ally, Marcus, SoFi, Discover). Regional banks are hit or miss; most but not all credit unions connect.

Brokerages: Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, E*TRADE, TD Ameritrade, Robinhood, and most major brokerages connect. Investment data (holdings, balances, transactions) comes through.

Retirement accounts: Fidelity NetBenefits and Vanguard 401k connect well. Empower Retirement, Principal, TIAA, and Transamerica have varying connection quality. Some employer-specific smaller plan administrators don’t connect at all.

Credit cards: Virtually all major card issuers connect, including Amex, Chase, Citi, Capital One, Discover.

Crypto exchanges: Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, and other major exchanges connect, though data quality and transaction detail vary.

What Still Requires Manual Entry

Real estate: There’s no API for real property values. Enter Zillow or Redfin estimates as your current value and update periodically. Your mortgage servicer (Quicken Loans, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage) likely connects automatically for the liability side.

Unvested RSUs: Vested shares in your equity administration account (Fidelity, Schwab Equity Awards) connect automatically. Your unvested grant schedule — the future value locked in unvested shares — may need to be entered manually if your equity admin platform doesn’t expose it via API.

401k at a non-connecting provider: If your employer’s plan is with a smaller recordkeeper not covered by Plaid, you’ll update the balance manually from your quarterly statement.

Private assets: Any asset not held at a financial institution — private business equity, real estate held outside a fund structure, collectibles — requires manual entry.

Getting to Near-Zero Manual Entry

For most people with 5-10 standard accounts, a well-connected aggregation tool can achieve 85-95% automation. The remaining manual items are typically infrequent (quarterly or annual updates) rather than ongoing overhead.

The workflow:

1. Connect all automatable accounts in the setup process
2. Identify what didn’t connect and add manual balances
3. Set a calendar reminder to update manual entries quarterly (or when you get a statement)
4. Re-authenticate broken connections as they come up (typically 2-3 per year)

Thalvi is designed to minimize the manual entry burden by maximizing the institutional connections and clearly identifying what needs manual updates — so your financial picture stays current with minimal ongoing effort.