Connecting your bank

Connecting a bank is optional, part of the paid tier, and built so that we never see the one thing you would most regret sharing: your bank login.

Who can connect

Bank connections are part of the paid plan. While the plan is not yet open for purchase, access comes two ways: accounts from before the plan existed keep it permanently, and invite codes open it for people we bring on board directly. If you have a code, redeem it in Settings under Bank accounts. If not, the same screen has a waitlist, and joining it is the strongest signal you can send us to hurry up.

What connecting actually does

The connection is made through Plaid, the same service used by most major financial apps in the United States. The flow matters:

You first see a consent screen from us describing exactly what will be shared. Nothing happens until you agree, and the agreement is recorded so it can also be withdrawn.
Plaid then opens your bank's own sign-in. Your username and password go to your bank through Plaid, and never touch our servers. We could not store your bank login if we wanted to, and we do not want to.
What we receive afterwards: account names and types, the last few digits of account numbers, balances, and transaction records with amounts, dates, and merchant names.

The recurring import

Once connected, Atom Budget reads your statements for things that repeat: subscriptions, utilities, paychecks, loan payments. The import screen then offers each one as a budget item with its name, amount, and schedule already filled in from the evidence. You stay in charge of every row:

Open any row to see the actual past charges behind it before you decide, including how much the amount moves for bills that vary.
Rename anything. Banks call Battle.net "Battle" and your gym something unrecognisable in uppercase. The raw statement text stays visible under the name so you always know what a row really is.
If something is already in your budget by hand, link the row to it instead of importing a duplicate, and it will not be offered again.
Import everything at once, or work through the list one confirmed row at a time. Rows you dismiss are never offered again.

What it costs you to leave

Nothing, which is by design. Disconnecting in Settings revokes our access at Plaid, deletes the stored accounts and balances, and closes the consent record. Deleting your account does all of that automatically before the account itself is removed. Either way, the connection at your bank dies with it. Reconnecting later means going through the consent and bank sign-in again, exactly as it should.

The full accounting of what is collected, why, and who else sees it lives in the privacy policy. It is written to be read, not scrolled past.