Bank Feeds
Setting up a Bank Feeds workflow with Rutter
Introduction
Bank reconciliation is a critical accounting procedure that involves matching bank and credit card transactions with accounting records. This process ensures accuracy in financial records.
Bank feeds automate the import of bank data into accounting systems, eliminating the need for manual downloads and uploads of transactions from the bank or credit card platforms.
Bank Feed APIs for accounting platforms like QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct are restricted to certified financial institutions with established partnerships. Rutter, a certified partner of Intuit and Sage, simplifies this process.
With Rutter’s Bank Feeds API, corporate card providers, expense management providers, payments services, and neobanks can integrate with a single API to enable bank feed connections for their end users across multiple accounting platforms.
Workflow Overview
Rutter’s Bank Feed APIs enable you to automate these steps:
Step 1. Set up a Bank Feed for the business to connect an account with a corresponding bank account.
Step 2. Continuously sync transaction data into the accounting instance to enable reconciliation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Can I pull banking data with this like I would with Plaid?
A. Plaid allows you to pull your customers' banking data from other financial institutions into your product, effectively acting as a bridge between external banks and your application. In contrast, Rutter's bank feeds are designed for banks and financial institutions that are the record-keepers for that source of truth banking data. Rutter enables these institutions to directly send their bank or card transactions into their customers' accounting platforms. This direct integration ensures a higher level of accuracy and reliability in financial data synchronization, which is crucial for tasks like reconciliation and financial reporting.
Q. Why would someone integrate with Rutter's bank feeds vs integrating into a data aggregator such as Yodlee or Plaid?
A. A Yodlee integration can be built side-by-side with a Rutter bank feeds integration to offer the most comprehensive coverage for your customers. Integrating with Rutter’s bank feeds is the fastest and most direct way to provide your customers with access to their transaction data inside popular accounting platforms like QuickBooks, Sage, and NetSuite. Data aggregators like Yodlee provide banking data to a longer-tail of accounting systems that may be valuable if you serve customers in specific verticals or other geographies.
Q. How do my customers connect to my bank feed in QuickBooks?
A. Connecting to your bank feed in QuickBooks through Rutter is a straightforward process. Once you have integrated Rutter’s Bank Feeds API into your platform, your customers can easily sync their bank or card transactions by searching for your company from the QuickBooks interface. They will need to authenticate their account, after which the transactions will automatically flow into QuickBooks, ensuring real-time updates and accurate financial records.
Q. I already sync my customers’ transactions by creating expenses, bills, invoices, and so on in their accounting systems through Rutter’s accounting automation API. Why do we need bank feeds?
A. While syncing transactions as expenses through Rutter’s accounting automation API provides a solid baseline level of integration, bank feeds offer critical source of truth data that accountants can feel confident is accurate and not modified in any way. Bank feeds also ensure that all transactions, including deposits and withdrawals, are accurately reflected in the accounting system. This holistic view is essential for proper reconciliation and financial reporting. Additionally, bank feeds automate the matching of transactions, reducing manual effort and the risk of errors, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency and accuracy of your financial processes.
The benefit of syncing transactions through Rutter’s accounting automation API is being able to include a higher level of detail than bank feeds data can offer.
Therefore, bank feeds and accounting automation functionality can be offered side-by-side for the most comprehensive automated accounting solutions possible. Accounting systems will automatically match bank feed transactions with entities like expenses or bills that are created and synced through Rutter. This provides your customers with the most complete and accurate view of their data possible.
Q. Why would someone integrate with Rutter’s bank feeds vs build in-house?
A. Building bank feeds in-house requires significant investment in time, resources, and technical expertise. By integrating with Rutter’s bank feeds, you can leverage our extensive experience and existing partnerships with major accounting platforms. This not only speeds up the time to market but also ensures a robust, reliable, and compliant solution. Rutter handles the complexities of integration, allowing you to focus on delivering core value to your customers without the burden of maintaining and updating the bank feed infrastructure.
Additionally, some platforms, such as Intuit’s QuickBooks and Sage, do not expose bank feed APIs publicly. Forming partnerships with Intuit and Sage is a time-consuming process and gated to restrict availability only to major companies. Therefore, partnering with a company like Rutter is required to gain access to these APIs.
Q. Can my company be listed as a financial institution in accounting software like QuickBooks even though we’re not technically a bank?
A. Yes, you can be listed as a financial institution in accounting software like QuickBooks even if you are not a traditional bank. Rutter's Bank Feeds API allows fintech companies, neobanks, and corporate card providers to integrate their financial products into QuickBooks as if they were a traditional bank. This ensures that your customers can seamlessly sync their transactions, benefiting from the same level of integration and functionality that traditional banks offer. As long as you have access to source of truth data from customer transactions, you can be listed as a financial institution.
See our specific platform guides for more information on integrating with Bank Feeds.
