Accounts & connections
Accounts are the foundation of Finance — every balance, holding, and net-worth figure starts here. You can connect your banks and brokerages so they sync automatically, enter accounts by hand, or mix both freely. This page covers adding accounts, linking institutions, and keeping everything fresh.
Accounts
Click Add account to create one. Pick a type — Brokerage (stocks), 401k / IRA / Retirement, HSA, Checking / Cash, Savings, Credit card, or Loan / Mortgage — and a name. Most types take a balance you enter (for a credit card or a loan, enter the amount you currently owe — it shows as a red negative and counts toward debt); a brokerage account’s balance is computed from its holdings × current prices, so you add holdings instead of a balance.
When you pick Loan / Mortgage or Credit card, the form opens a few optional loan terms — the loan type (mortgage, auto, student, or other loan; a credit card is always a card), its interest rate or APR, your monthly payment, the original amount, and the start date. Fill them in and OrientME projects a payoff date and an amortization schedule on the account’s card; leave them blank and it stays a simple balance that still counts toward your debt. You can add or change these terms anytime by editing the account. (More on this in Assets & debt.)
The Add debt button is just a shortcut — it opens this same account form already set to a loan, so loans, mortgages, and credit cards all share one add flow with the rest of your accounts.
Each account card shows its balance, a source tag (Linked for accounts that sync automatically, or Manual for ones you enter yourself), and — for linked accounts — a chip showing when it next refreshes (e.g. Available now, Next in 5 days, or Syncs on open; a red Sync failed if its last sync hit a problem) plus how recently it synced. For investment accounts you may see two separate times: Synced is when your balances and holdings were last pulled from your bank or brokerage, while Prices is when the stock prices were last refreshed. Stock prices update on their own faster schedule (daily) than account syncing, so keeping them apart means a routine price update never makes a week-old balance look freshly pulled. Credit cards and loans show their balance as a red negative and count toward debt — a linked mortgage or loan comes in as its own Loan account with the amount you owe, separate from your credit cards.
For a linked loan, mortgage, or credit card, tap Get loan details on the account card to pull in the extras: its interest rate, next payment (amount and due date), minimum payment, and payoff date. It's a one-tap, opt-in pull — the balance already counts toward your net worth on its own, so you only fetch the finer detail when you want it.
For brokerage, retirement, and HSA accounts you add holdings rather than a balance — see Investments for the holdings table, allocation donut, and live prices.
Connect an account
Open the Connections menu in the header and choose Connect an account to link your accounts so balances and holdings import automatically. One step covers everything — sign in to an institution once and OrientME brings in whatever it holds: checking and savings, credit cards, brokerages, retirement accounts, and loans or mortgages, each sorted into the right place. When the institution holds investments, your holdings (your positions) import automatically alongside the balance.
An institution counts as one connection no matter how many account types it carries, so a bank that also holds your brokerage and your mortgage shows up as a single link you can manage in one place.
You sign in through your own account login, so OrientME never sees your banking password, and the connection is read-only — it can show your balances but can't move money. For how those connections are secured, see Security & data handling.
Before your first link
The first time you connect an account, a short Connect your account securely notice appears before you sign in. It lays out what linking does in plain language — that the connection is read-only (OrientME can see balances and transactions to show your finances, but can never move money), that your connection credentials are encrypted, and that it's yours to revoke (you can disconnect any connection from your Finance page at any time) — with links to our Privacy Policy and the connection provider's end-user privacy policy. Press Continue to go on to sign-in, or Cancel to back out. You only see this once; later connections and reconnects skip it.
Each connected bank in the Connections menu shows how many accounts it has and when it last synced, so you can tell similar connections apart at a glance.
Connected accounts and imported holdings are read-only in OrientME — you manage them by syncing or disconnecting rather than editing by hand. Each connected account refreshes automatically on its schedule (adjustable in Refresh → Sync settings) and flags itself stale once its data is more than a day old.
When a connection needs attention
Banks occasionally need a little maintenance — a login expires, your bank asks you to re-verify, a connection is about to age out, or new accounts show up that you haven't pulled in yet. When that happens OrientME tells you in two places: a banner across the top of Finance (above every tab) and a flag next to the bank in the Connections menu. Each comes with the exact button to fix it, so you never have to dig for the right action:
| What you'll see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Reconnect needed | The bank asked you to sign in again before it can keep syncing. | Click Reconnect and sign in — OrientME updates the existing connection in place, so you won't end up with a duplicate set of accounts. |
| Reconnect soon — expiring | The connection is approaching the point where your bank requires a refresh. | Click Reconnect and sign in to head off any interruption to your balances. |
| New accounts available | The bank has accounts you haven't added to OrientME yet. | Click Add accounts, pick which ones to include, and they join your balances and net worth. |
| Access revoked | The connection was turned off at the bank. | Click Reconnect to link the bank again and restore your balances. |
For a plain Reconnect needed or expiring bank, signing in again updates the same connection. A revoked connection is reconnected the same way you added it the first time — by linking the bank fresh — and OrientME slots the restored accounts back into place rather than leaving you with a duplicate. Once a connection is healthy again, its flag and banner clear automatically.
OrientME also emails you when a linked bank needs reconnecting or is about to expire, so you don't have to be in the app to know. These nudges are spaced out — at most one every few days per bank — and a "new accounts available" prompt is only ever a banner, never an email.
Reconnecting and adding accounts are done on the web app. On mobile you'll see the matching flag (Reconnect needed, Reconnect soon, New accounts, or Access revoked) next to the bank in Connections, along with an Open on the web link — open OrientME in your browser to take care of it.
Connection options depend on your OrientME setup. If you don’t see a connect button, keep tracking the account manually — everything works the same, you just enter the numbers yourself.
Keeping data fresh
Open the header Refresh menu to update your data on demand. Refresh prices pulls the latest prices for every holding at once; Refresh balances re-pulls your bank and brokerage balances; and Refresh transactions updates the Cash Flow feed — each runs on its own so you always know exactly what was updated.
OrientME also refreshes this data on its own when you open Finance, on a sensible schedule per data type — bank balances and holdings about weekly, transactions about monthly, and stock prices daily — so your numbers are current without you thinking about it. Clicking a Refresh item always runs right away, no matter the schedule.
Open Refresh → Sync settings to change how often each kind of data refreshes automatically, or to turn off automatic account syncing entirely and only update when you click. Your manual Refresh buttons always work regardless.
Stock prices are handled separately: they come from free public market data and cover every holding, manual or linked — so they keep updating to stay current even if you turn off automatic account syncing.
Snapshots
Each time you refresh your balances or prices from the header Refresh menu, OrientME records a point-in-time net-worth snapshot (one per day). That history is what powers the net-worth trend chart on the Overview tab.