Plaid Integration and Bank Statement Organizers

Connect Plaid so your clients can securely link their bank accounts to Glade. Their balances and transactions come straight into the case, without anyone downloading and uploading PDFs.

Overview

Collecting bank statements is one of the slowest parts of preparing a case. Clients send the wrong months, skip accounts, or send blurry screenshots. With the Plaid integration, a client signs in to their bank once and Glade pulls in balances and transactions for every account at that bank.

There are two parts:

1. Connect Plaid (once per firm, in Settings).
2. Add a Bank Statement Organizer to your workflows, in the document collection phase.

A Bank Statement Organizer works like the document requests you already use, or like the Income Organizer for paystubs, but it's built for bank statements. Everything about the client's accounts stays in one organized place that's easy to follow and keep up to date. Check work, where Glade AI reviews the accounts and transactions, is built into every organizer.

How It Works

Step 1: Connect Plaid (one-time, firm admin)

1. Open Settings → Integrations → Plaid.
2. Review and accept pricing: a firm admin reviews the pricing and clicks Review pricing and enable Plaid. Only admins can accept. Other team members can see the pricing but can't accept it.
3. Complete the Plaid onboarding form: confirm your firm's business details. The form is pre-filled where possible.
4. Wait for approval: Plaid shows as Under review while your firm is being approved. Once it's approved, Plaid shows as connected and your clients can start linking banks.

Step 2: Add a Bank Statement Organizer to your workflow

1. Open the workflow you use for new cases, for example your Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 workflow.
2. Go to the document collection step, where you already request documents and the Income Organizer.
3. Add the Bank Statement Organizer to that step, next to your other document requests.
4. Publish the workflow. New cases on this workflow now include the organizer.

Tip: Put the Bank Statement Organizer in the same step as your document checklist and Income Organizer. Clients then handle all their financial documents together, and you review them together.

Step 3: Your client connects their bank

When a case reaches that step, the client sees a Connect Bank Account task in their portal. They can:

• Connect with Plaid: sign in to their bank through Plaid's secure window. Glade pulls in every account at that bank, including checking, savings, brokerage and retirement accounts.
• Upload statements manually: if their bank isn't available through Plaid, or they prefer to upload, they can add PDF statements to the same organizer.

Clients can connect more than one bank. When they're done, they mark the organizer complete.

Step 4: Review the organizer

Open the Bank Statement Organizer from the case. You'll see:

• The bank list: each bank with its logo, and each account listed under its bank.
• The bank panel: click a bank to see all of its accounts and their balances. Each account is labeled Pulled with Plaid or Entered manually.
• The account panel: click an account to see its details.
  • Account: balances, account owners, and how much history is available.
  • Transactions: the full transaction list.
  • Extracted data: the raw account details Glade collected. Only staff can see this view.
  • For uploaded accounts, you see the Statement PDF instead.
• Add account / Add statements: add anything the client missed, on their behalf.

Account data from Plaid also flows into the case's Case Data, so bank accounts are ready for the schedules.

Step 5: Review Check work

When a client connects a bank, Glade AI automatically reviews that bank's accounts and transactions. You don't need to do anything to start it. Results appear in the organizer's Check work tab, usually shortly after the bank's accounts show up.

Check work looks for the kinds of activity trustees ask about, such as:

• Transfers to accounts that aren't the client's, which could mean an undisclosed account or a transfer to someone else.
• Payment app activity on Venmo, Cash App and PayPal.
• Large transactions. A payee that repeats, such as payroll or rent, is grouped into a single finding so the list stays short.
• Payments worth asking about, such as storage units, rent-to-own, gambling and cryptocurrency.
• Accounts in someone else's name, where the bank lists an owner other than your client.

Uploaded bank statements are checked against the same list, so you get consistent findings whether the client connected a bank or uploaded PDFs.

Where findings appear

• A dot marks each account that has findings in the bank list.
• On flagged transactions, a dot and a short title show what was found.
• The Check work tab lists every finding. Click one to open the account it's about.

What you can rely on

• Every finding links to the exact account and transactions it's about, taken directly from the bank's data. Check work never makes up a transaction or an amount.
• Findings point out what to look into. They never change the case on their own, and you decide what matters.

Working through findings

• Resolve a finding once you've followed up with your client.
• Dismiss a finding that doesn't apply. A dismissed finding stays dismissed, even if the account is checked again.
• Reopen any finding if you need to look at it again.

Who sees findings: only your firm's staff. Clients and other collaborators on the case never see Check work.

Step 6: Keep it up to date

If time passes before filing, staff can click Request updated report — $5.99 on a bank's panel to pull fresh data. The previous data stays visible while the update is building. Clients can't request updated reports.

Key Details

• Pricing: $5.99 per report. A report covers every account at one connected bank and includes 90 days or more of history at participating banks. The charge appears on your firm's Glade invoice once the report is ready.
  • Failed reports aren't charged.
  • Each updated report you request is another $5.99, and Glade asks you to confirm before charging.
• History varies by bank. Participating banks provide 90 days or more. Some banks return less, and the account panel shows how much history the bank actually provided, for example "62 of 90 days."
• Admin acceptance is required. Clients can't link a bank until a firm admin has accepted Plaid pricing.
• What clients see: clients see their banks, accounts, balances and transactions. They never see Extracted data or Check work findings.
• Check work follows your firm's AI document findings setting. If your firm has turned document findings off, Check work is off for bank accounts too.
• Plaid pulls account data, not PDF statements. If a trustee needs the actual statement PDFs, have the client upload them to the same organizer.

FAQ

Q: Do I need to connect Plaid to use a Bank Statement Organizer?
A: Clients can always upload PDF statements to an organizer. You need Plaid connected for clients to link their bank directly and for Glade to pull balances and transactions automatically.

Q: Where in the workflow should the Bank Statement Organizer go?
A: In the document collection phase, the same step as your document checklist and Income Organizer, so the client gathers all their financial documents at once.

Q: What if my client's bank isn't available in Plaid?
A: The client can upload statements to the organizer instead. Plaid accounts and uploaded accounts appear together in the same bank list.

Q: My client connected a bank but no accounts are showing yet.
A: Building the report can take a few minutes. The organizer shows that the bank is still being pulled. If the pull fails, the organizer says so and you aren't charged.

Q: Do I need to run Check work?
A: No. It runs automatically when your client connects a bank.

Q: Does Check work change anything in the case?
A: No. Check work only flags accounts and transactions for you to review. Nothing in the case is updated automatically, and your client never sees the findings.

Q: How do I get more recent transactions before filing?
A: Open the bank in the organizer and click Request updated report. Each updated report costs $5.99, and you confirm before you're charged.