A bank feed is a secure, read-only connection that regularly brings transaction information from a bank account into another tool.
Instead of downloading a CSV file and importing it by hand, a feed keeps the information in the place where you do your work—such as a spreadsheet, accounting system, dashboard or internal app—up to date on a schedule.
Think of it as a delivery service for financial information. Your bank remains the source of truth. The feed carries selected account data to the destination you choose.
What information does a bank feed include?
The exact information depends on the financial institution, the connection method and the permission you grant. A typical feed may include:
- Account names and masked account details
- Current or available balances
- Transaction date, amount, description and currency
- Merchant or category information when available
- Investment holdings or trades for supported investment connections
Some feeds include past history when you first connect; how far back that history goes is set by the bank or provider. A feed can also take time to reflect a newly made payment, a pending card transaction or an institution outage.
How does a bank feed work?
You authorise the connection, select the accounts you want to share, and choose where the data should go. The feed then collects the permitted information in the background and sends it to that destination on the schedule you configure.
For many modern bank connections, sign-in and consent happen directly with the bank or through an approved connection flow. You should be able to see what access you are granting and revoke it when you no longer want the feed active.
From account activity to your tools
Connect
Choose a supported institution and sign in or authorise the connection.
Select
Choose the accounts and data access you want to share.
Deliver
The feed retrieves permitted updates and sends them to your chosen destination on schedule.
Use
Your spreadsheet, app, dashboard or workflow uses the new transactions and balances.
Control
You can change the destination, disable the feed or revoke the connection when needed.
Bank feeds versus CSV imports
Both methods get transaction data into another system. The difference is maintenance.
A CSV import is a snapshot: you download a file, choose the date range, upload it and repeat the process later. It can be useful for one-off history or when a feed is unavailable.
A bank feed is a continuing connection. Once it is set up, new authorised data can arrive in the destination without someone exporting and importing files each time. That makes it useful for work that is ongoing: cash-flow tracking, bookkeeping preparation, reconciliations, budget spreadsheets, financial reporting and internal operations.
Where can a bank feed go?
The destination is not always accounting software. With BankSync, supported bank data can go to Google Sheets, Excel, Notion, Airtable, REST APIs, MCP-compatible assistants, CLI workflows and other connected systems.
That matters because many people already have a spreadsheet, database or internal tool they trust. A bank feed can supply the data without asking them to abandon the workflow they have built.
What a bank feed cannot guarantee
A feed is helpful, but it is not magic:
- Coverage varies. Not every institution, account type, region or data field is always available.
- Freshness varies. A bank may post, settle or make data available on its own timetable.
- Context still matters. A transaction description alone may not explain why money moved; review and categorisation rules remain useful.
- A destination has its own logic. Your spreadsheet or app still needs sensible handling for duplicates, transfers, refunds and changed transactions.
The right expectation is simple: a bank feed reduces repetitive data entry. It does not replace review, judgement or the bank’s own records.
Common questions about bank feeds
The short version
A bank feed is a controlled way to keep authorised bank data moving into the tools you already use. It replaces routine file exports with a scheduled, read-only delivery of transaction and balance information—while the bank remains the source of truth and you retain control over the connection.