Canada is one of only two countries where Finthy can keep a bank up to date on its own. That gives you two routes, and both end in the same place: a bank in Finthy with accounts inside it.
- Connect automatically, through our provider Plaid. Transactions and balances arrive on their own. This needs a paid plan.
- Pick your bank and add its accounts by hand. Free on every plan. You enter transactions yourself or import a statement.
Starting free is not a dead end. If you later connect the same bank automatically, Finthy offers to Move accounts, and your existing history moves across.
Open the flow
On the web, go to Banks and choose Add Bank. The first question is Where is your bank located?. Choose Canada, whose row reads “Sync automatically, or add accounts manually”.
That leads to the screen of choices, Select Bank.
Route 1: connect automatically
At the top of that screen is a card, Connect automatically, with the note “Accounts and transactions sync on their own through Plaid. Included in paid plans.”
Choose it and Plaid’s own window opens, where you sign in to your bank and pick the accounts to bring in. Finthy never sees your bank password. It goes to Plaid, not to us. After that Finthy shows a syncing screen while it pulls in your accounts and their history, and from then on the connection refreshes by itself.
On the free plan that card carries a padlock, and choosing it takes you to the upgrade screen instead of your bank. The free route below is still open to you.
Route 2: add your bank by hand, free
Under the card is the line “Or pick your bank and add its accounts manually, free on every plan”, then a search box and the list of banks.
- Search for your bank and choose it. In Canada the list is Plaid’s own, so the big banks and a long tail of credit unions and caisses are in it.
- Fill in the account: a name, the account type, the currency and the balance you are starting from, in the Add Account window.
- Add transactions by importing a CSV or PDF statement, by forwarding statements to your import address, or by entering them yourself.
Nothing about this route is second class. Budgets, the calendar, reports, exports and Finthy AI treat a manual account exactly like a synced one.
If your bank is not in the list
Choose Bank not listed? Add it by hand and type its name. It is created for your space only and you can carry straight on adding accounts. Separately, Request a bank sends the name to us so it joins the shared list for everyone. Doing both is sensible.
Good to know
- One connection is one bank, with its accounts inside. The free plan allows 2 bank connections and 4 visible accounts.
- Accounts in US dollars are fine. Multi-currency is free on every plan, and your totals convert into your display currency.
- Connecting the same bank twice is worth avoiding; Finthy warns you, because two connections to one bank produce duplicate transactions.
- If automatic sync later breaks and you would rather not reconnect, Keep manually turns the bank into a manual one without losing any of its accounts or history.
- Finthy runs in a browser, on a desktop and on a phone. The native iOS and Android apps are on our roadmap.
The United States works the same way. Every other country Finthy supports is manual only, and the article on which countries and banks Finthy supports lists them.