Connecting Your Bank Accounts for Accounting Journal Entries

Background

You can connect your bank account to Patriot Accounting so that your bank account or credit card transactions will automatically be imported, so you can post them as journal entries in your general ledger. Patriot uses Plaid, Inc., which is a third party financial service, to securely connect your bank account activity with your accounting software. 

After you connect your bank, you can review your imported transactions.  For details, see Managing Your Imported Bank Transactions.

You can also manually import your bank or credit card transactions from a downloaded file from your bank software.  For more details, see Manually Importing Your Bank Transactions.

How to Connect and Manage Your Bank Accounts

Settings > Accounting Settings > General Settings > Connect Bank Accounts

In Accounting, Patriot will be importing transactions that occur after you have connected your bank account.  You can connect up to four different financial institutions, with no limit to actual accounts.  The Plaid integration can go back up to two years after the bank account is connected, depending on your bank’s time limits.

If you are a Full-Service Payroll customer, and have already connected your bank account, your accounts will already display.  You can select to import transactions from these accounts, add a new bank to import other accounts, or not import any at all.

Connect a new bank

Click “Connect New Bank”

Select your bank from the list or search by bank name.   The majority of banks can be connected. If you do not find your bank or credit union, you won’t be able to import your bank activity at this time.  

Enter your bank login credentials.  This will only be used once, and neither Patriot Software nor Plaid will access or store your credentials. Depending on your bank, you may need to enter an additional verification code sent to you by your bank.

Accounting Basic customers may connect up to four different banking institutions.  Accounting Premium customers may connect up to ten different banking institutions. You can then connect an unlimited number of accounts within those institutions.

Select Your Accounts

After you enter your valid bank login, you will be prompted to select the accounts you want to import transactions.  You can import both bank accounts and credit card accounts associated with your financial institution login.

Choose the Account from Your Chart of Account

For each bank account or credit card you have selected, choose the corresponding account from your Chart of Accounts in Patriot Accounting software you want to associate with each account.  You can add an optional Account Nickname.

You can repeat the above steps to connect up to four different financial institutions.

Note about Credit Cards and Liability Accounts:  If you are choosing a Patriot Account for your credit card, and want to choose a liability account, you will need to make sure your accounting basis is set to Modified Cash or Accrual in your Transaction Settings.  Cash basis will not allow you to use liability accounts.  Liability accounts with the Sub Account Type of Credit Card, Current Liabilities, and Long Term Liabilities will appear in the Patriot Software Account list for you to pick from.  If needed, you can create a new liability account.

Choose Beginning Import Date

For each bank you have connected, you can choose a date to begin importing transactions, up to two years in the past. If you have a large number of transactions to import, Patriot will email you after the import process has been completed.

Receive Notifications of Transactions

When you connect your account for the first time, transactions will be imported back to the date you selected. You will begin receiving notifications of your transactions in your Accounting software on the Accounting Home page. You will then reconcile these transactions by accepting or dismissing them from being posted.  

See Managing Your Imported Bank Transactions for more details.

There are time-saving features available for managing your imported transactions. Be sure to check out our help articles, Setting up Imported Transaction Rules, and Split Imported Bank Transactions.

Edit Your Bank Accounts

To change which connected accounts you want to import, go to Settings > Accounting Settings > General Settings > Connect Bank Accounts > Manage Connected Accounts.

To change the corresponding Patriot asset/liability accounts for each connected bank account, go to Settings > Accounting Settings > General Settings > Connect Bank Accounts > Edit (click the icon in the row or the link at the top of the page).

Pausing the Import

If you want to temporarily stop importing transactions from a particular bank account or credit card, go to Settings > Accounting Settings > General Settings > Connect Bank Accounts.  For each account you want to pause importing transactions, click “Pause.”  No transactions as of the date you paused will be brought into the software. Click “Resume” to restart importing transactions. 

Disconnecting Your Bank Accounts

To permanently stop importing transactions from a particular financial institution:

• Go to Settings > Accounting Settings > General Settings > Connect Bank Accounts > Manage Connected Accounts.
• Click “Disconnect” at the top.
• Click “Yes” to the “Are you sure?” question.

Note:  If you reconnect your bank account, all transactions from the past 7 days will be imported, including ones you may have already accepted or dismissed when your account was connected.  If you notice any duplicates, you can dismiss them again or void them if you have accidentally accepted them.

Your bank account will be automatically disconnected if there is no activity after 45 days, but you can reconnect and select to go back to any date for up to two years (depending on the bank).