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Integrations

Connect Plaid

How to connect your bank accounts via Plaid so Doow can track software-related card transactions and direct debits.

Connecting Plaid lets Doow pull transaction data from your business bank accounts and credit cards to automatically identify software spend, subscriptions, and recurring charges. Doow uses Plaid's open-banking infrastructure and requests read-only access to transaction data. Doow never initiates payments or transfers.

What Doow reads via Plaid

When you connect a bank account through Plaid, Doow pulls:

  • Transaction history — descriptions, amounts, dates, and categories for each transaction
  • Account details — account name, type (chequing, savings, credit card), and current balance
  • Merchant metadata — enriched merchant names and categories from Plaid's recognition engine

Doow does not read: account numbers, routing numbers (these stay with Plaid and are never shared with Doow), available balance history, or personal accounts linked to the same login.

Before you start

You need:

  • Online banking credentials for the business bank account or credit card you want to connect
  • Admin access in Doow to add integrations
  • If your bank requires additional authorisation (approval via mobile app, hardware token), have that ready

Step 1 — Connect Plaid from Doow

  1. In Doow, go to Settings → Integrations.
  2. Click Connect integration and select Plaid.
  3. You are redirected to the Plaid Link flow — an interface hosted by Plaid.
  4. Select your country and financial institution from the list. Plaid supports thousands of banks and credit card providers across the US, Canada, UK, and Europe.
  5. Enter your online banking credentials. These are sent directly to Plaid over an encrypted connection — Doow never sees them.
  6. If your bank requires multi-factor authentication (SMS code, security question, app approval), complete those steps.
  7. Select the accounts you want to share. Choose the accounts that contain software-related transactions — typically your main business chequing account and any corporate credit cards.
  8. Click Connect.

You are redirected back to Doow. The integration card shows the connected accounts and the initial sync begins.

Step 2 — Initial transaction sync

The first sync pulls the last 90 days of transactions by default. This typically takes 1–3 minutes. Doow then processes the transactions through its vendor-recognition engine to identify software spend.

Step 3 — Verify the data

After the sync completes, go to the Expenses page. You should see transactions from Plaid with a bank badge. Check:

  • Are the transaction amounts correct?
  • Are software-related transactions tagged with the right application?
  • Are there unmatched transactions that should be linked to an app?

For unmatched transactions, use the matching flow described in Tracking expenses. Once matched, future transactions from the same merchant are automatically assigned.

Adding multiple accounts

You can connect multiple bank accounts through Plaid — for example, your main business account and a corporate credit card. Each connection is independent:

  1. Go to Settings → Integrations.
  2. Click Connect integration and select Plaid again.
  3. Go through the Plaid Link flow and select the additional account.
  4. Each connected account appears as a separate card on the Integrations page.

Data refresh

Plaid syncs transactions once every 24 hours by default. New transactions typically appear in Doow 1–2 days after they clear your bank account (banks do not make pending transactions available via Plaid).

To force an immediate sync, go to Settings → Integrations → [account name] and click Sync now.

Connection issues

"Your bank requires re-authentication"

Banks periodically require you to re-verify your identity for security reasons. When this happens:

  1. You see a Reauthorisation required badge on the integration card.
  2. Click Reconnect to re-open the Plaid Link flow.
  3. Re-enter your credentials or complete the MFA challenge.
  4. The connection resumes without losing any historical data.

"Item login required" or "Account disconnected"

This means Plaid can no longer access your account — usually because your banking password changed or your bank revoked the connection. Click Reconnect and go through the full Plaid Link flow again. Historical transaction data already synced is preserved.

Disconnecting Plaid

  1. Go to Settings → Integrations.
  2. Find the Plaid account card and click the menu (three dots).
  3. Select Disconnect and confirm.

Historical transaction data already synced is preserved. New transactions from that account are no longer imported. Doow instructs Plaid to delete the access token — Plaid no longer has access to your account.

Security and data handling

  • Your banking credentials are handled entirely by Plaid and are never sent to or stored by Doow.
  • Doow receives only transaction data (descriptions, amounts, dates) and enriched merchant metadata.
  • Account and routing numbers are never shared with Doow.
  • Plaid is SOC 2 Type II compliant and used by thousands of fintech applications including Venmo, Coinbase, and Betterment.