Most banks connect to Cake Budget through Plaid in under a minute. A few don’t. Some Canadian banks in particular, RBC and Desjardins among them, fail or drop their Plaid connection every few days. SimpleFIN is a second way in for exactly those banks.

SimpleFIN Bridge is a small, independent service that connects to your bank on your behalf and hands read-only account data to apps you approve. You pay SimpleFIN directly, $1.50 a month or $15 a year, and Cake Budget reads from it. Your bank login never touches Cake Budget.

When to use SimpleFIN

Your bank isn’t listed when you search in Plaid.
Your bank connects through Plaid but keeps disconnecting or shows no accounts.
You already use SimpleFIN with another budgeting app and want the same feed here.

If Plaid works for your bank, keep using Plaid. It’s free to you, syncs within seconds of a transaction posting, and needs no extra account.

What to expect

	Plaid	SimpleFIN
Cost to you	Included in your plan	$1.50 a month, paid to SimpleFIN
Coverage	US and Canada	US and Canada
How fast transactions appear	Within seconds of posting	Once a day, plus a Sync now button once an hour
Pending transactions	Shown as pending	Not shown until they post
Counts toward your plan’s bank connections	Yes	No
Works during the free trial	Yes	Yes

Everything else is the same. Transactions from a SimpleFIN bank land in the same list, match the same rules, fund the same slices through funding schedules, and appear in AI chat and insights.

Prerequisites

A Cake Budget account on any plan, including the free trial.
A SimpleFIN Bridge account at beta-bridge.simplefin.org. The 7-day trial there is enough to test your bank before paying.

Step 1: Connect your bank to SimpleFIN

Sign in to SimpleFIN Bridge and choose Add a connection.
Search for your bank and sign in with your online banking credentials. This happens on SimpleFIN’s site, not on Cake Budget.
Wait for SimpleFIN to show your accounts. It can take a minute for the first pull.

Step 2: Generate a setup token

In SimpleFIN Bridge, open Apps (or Setup tokens) and create a new token.
Copy the long string it shows. A setup token works exactly once and expires if unused, so generate it right before you paste it.

Step 3: Paste the token into Cake Budget

During onboarding, on the Connect Your Bank step, choose Bank not working with Plaid? Connect with SimpleFIN instead. under the Plaid button.

After onboarding, go to Settings, scroll to Accounts, and choose Connect with SimpleFIN.

Either way:

Paste the setup token and choose Continue.
Cake Budget lists the accounts SimpleFIN reports, grouped by bank. Untick any you don’t want.
Pick a type for each account you keep: Checking, Savings, Cash, or Credit card. SimpleFIN doesn’t tell us the account type, and it matters: checking and cash count toward Safe to Spend, and credit cards are treated as money owed.
Choose Add accounts.

Your last 90 days import in about a minute. Imported history is treated as history: it doesn’t trigger rules, funding schedules, or emails, the same as a new Plaid connection. From then on, new transactions follow your rules like any others.

During onboarding, the step waits for that first import so the automatic analysis has something to work with, then continues.

Where SimpleFIN accounts show up

In Settings, SimpleFIN accounts appear inside the Accounts card under a SimpleFIN heading, with the time of the last sync, a Sync now button, and Disconnect. Everywhere else in the app they look and behave like any connected account.

Syncing

SimpleFIN itself refreshes from your bank about once a day, so Cake Budget syncs once a day too. Sync now pulls whatever SimpleFIN has right now and can be used once an hour. Only posted transactions come through. Balances update on every sync.

If SimpleFIN reports a problem

If your bank asks SimpleFIN to sign in again, the message appears on the SimpleFIN group in Settings. Fix it on SimpleFIN’s site and the next sync picks it up.

If you disable the token on SimpleFIN’s side, or it stops working, Cake Budget marks the connection as needing a new token, sends you one email, and shows a Reconnect button. Generate a fresh setup token in SimpleFIN and paste it there. Your accounts are matched back up automatically, nothing is duplicated.

Adding an account you skipped

If SimpleFIN reports an account you didn’t add, the SimpleFIN group in Settings shows 1 account not added. Choose it, pick a type, and it comes in with its own 90-day history.

Disconnecting

Disconnect stops the feed and forgets the token. Nothing is deleted. Your accounts stay as manual accounts with every transaction, balance, and slice assignment intact. Reconnecting later with a new token picks the same accounts back up.

Common questions

Q: Does a SimpleFIN connection use one of my plan’s bank connections? A: No. Starter, Budget Pro, and Family limits apply to Plaid banks only.

Q: Can I use Plaid for one bank and SimpleFIN for another? A: Yes. Many people use Plaid for everything except the one bank that won’t cooperate.

Q: Can I connect the same bank through both? A: You can, but you’ll get every transaction twice. Pick one per bank.

Q: Does Cake Budget see my bank password? A: No. You sign in to your bank on SimpleFIN’s site. Cake Budget only receives a read-only feed, and stores the SimpleFIN access key encrypted.

Q: What about banks outside the US and Canada? A: Not through SimpleFIN, which covers the US and Canada only. Banks in the UK, Europe, New Zealand, Brazil, and parts of Asia connect through Lunch Flow, whose token goes into the same box.

Q: My balance shows in dollars but my account is in Canadian dollars. A: Amounts are stored in your account’s currency and shown with a dollar sign. A CAD account shows CAD amounts. Mixing USD and CAD accounts in one budget isn’t handled specially yet.

Need more help?

Email support@trycakebudget.com and tell us which bank you’re trying to connect. If it’s a Canadian bank, say so, we’re tracking which ones work best through which route.