A bank feed connection can break silently, without any obvious alert, leaving a growing gap of unrecorded transactions that nobody notices until it is time to reconcile and the numbers simply do not add up. Catching this quickly, and fixing it correctly, protects a client’s books from a much larger cleanup problem.
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Why Bank Feeds Break
Feed connections can break for several reasons, an expired login credential, a bank-side security update that invalidates the existing connection, or the bank changing its data-sharing agreement with the software platform entirely. None of these typically come with clear advance warning to the firm relying on the feed.
The Risk of a Silent, Unnoticed Break
Without a regular, specific check for feed health, a broken connection can go unnoticed for weeks or even longer, silently leaving a growing gap of unrecorded transactions that eventually has to be caught up all at once, under much more time pressure than if the break had been caught immediately.
Building a Regular Feed Health Check
A simple, periodic check specifically confirming that transactions are still flowing in as expected, rather than assuming a feed that worked last month is still working now, catches breaks quickly, while the gap is still small and easy to fill in accurately.
Reconnecting the Feed Correctly
Reconnecting a broken feed sometimes requires re-authenticating with new credentials, and it is worth confirming that the reconnected feed actually starts pulling in transactions from where the gap began, rather than only going forward from the reconnection date and leaving the gap period permanently unrecorded.
Filling In the Gap Period Accurately
Once a gap is identified, manually importing or re-entering the missing transactions for the affected period, using bank statements as the source of truth, restores completeness. This work needs to be done carefully, since it involves reconstructing a period that automated categorization never had the chance to process the first time around.
Reconciling After the Gap Is Closed
After filling in missing transactions, a full reconciliation for the affected period confirms the gap has genuinely been closed completely, rather than assuming the manual catch-up was accurate without actually verifying it against the bank’s own records.
Communicating the Issue to the Client
Clients generally appreciate being told directly when a technical issue like a broken feed occurred and how it was resolved, rather than having the gap silently patched with no explanation, especially if the client happened to notice something looked off in their own review of recent activity.
Preventing Recurrence Where Possible
Some feed disconnections are preventable, an expiring credential that could have been renewed proactively, for example. Building awareness of common disconnection causes and addressing them before they cause an actual break reduces how often this problem recurs for a given client.
Tracking Feed Reliability by Bank Over Time
Some banks maintain more reliable feed connections than others, and tracking which institutions tend to cause repeated disconnections gives a firm useful information, both for setting client expectations and for occasionally recommending a more reliable banking relationship if disconnections become a persistent, recurring problem.
Setting Up Notifications for Feed Interruptions
Some platforms offer built-in notifications when a feed connection fails, and enabling these, rather than relying entirely on manual periodic checks, catches a break the moment it happens instead of waiting for the next scheduled review to discover it has already been down for some time.
Keeping a Log of Past Disconnection Incidents
A simple record of when feeds have broken in the past, and how each incident was resolved, helps a firm spot patterns, like a particular bank or platform combination that disconnects unusually often, that would be much harder to notice without any historical record to look back on when evaluating whether a change is actually warranted.
What Outsourcing Adds
An outsourced bookkeeping partner who monitors feed health proactively and has a tested process for closing any gaps accurately catches disconnections quickly and resolves them cleanly, giving the CPA confidence that a client’s transaction record stays complete even when a technical connection issue inevitably happens.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do bank feeds disconnect in the first place?
Bank feeds break for several reasons, an expired login credential, a bank-side security update, or the bank changing its data-sharing agreement with the software platform, and the connection can drop without any obvious warning.
How long can a broken feed go unnoticed?
Without a regular check specifically for feed health, a broken connection can go unnoticed for weeks, silently leaving a growing gap of unrecorded transactions that eventually has to be caught up all at once.
How should a gap in transaction data be handled once discovered?
Manually importing or re-entering the missing transactions for the affected period, then carefully reconciling to confirm the gap has been fully closed, restores accuracy without leaving lingering discrepancies.
For business owners and CPAs comparing options, our guide on outsourcing back-office work walks through what to hand off first and what to keep in-house.