For the online budget tool CalendarBudget, the short answer is kind of, but not automated, at least not yet. But some tools do… in a dangerous way.

“But lots of tools import automatically from my bank, what’s wrong with that?”

Good question. Your bank has a security policy which probably reads like this one from my bank:

Protect your Scotia OnLine Password.

Your Scotia OnLine password is confidential and must never be shared with any outside person or company, including:

  • Account aggregation services that consolidate and display all of your financial information in one place.
  • Software that records your password so that you don’t need to enter it the next time you access a website.
  • Services that collect your card number and password, or any other confidential information, to perform transactions on your behalf or to collect payment from you.
  • Any other agreements you may make or services you accept which include your consent to having your Internet activity monitored.

In divulging your password, you contravene the terms of your ScotiaCard Cardholder Agreement and you will be fully liable for any unauthorized access to your accounts and all associated losses arising from these disclosures.

An online budget tool created to protect user-information

Our development team has decided that your protection is paramount. While other tools do connect to your bank account for you, this clearly breaks the security policy from your bank and puts you at risk. If a security breach occurred in one of these other tools, you are liable for any real losses or damages. It’s a scary thought.

We have begun designing this feature in a safe way; here’s what we’re thinking so far.

The best way to handle this, while still maintaining the convenience of importing data from your online bank is for the tool to not automatically sign into your online banking, rather it is for you to export your transactions from your online bank account, say in Quickbook format, and then have CalendarBudget import this file. This is a no-risk situation since CalendarBudget doesn’t directly touch your bank account and it automates the importing of your bank transactions.

Bank-level security should be the minimum standard for any personal finance app. Use the CalendarBudget online budget tool and learn how to budget.