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How often is new data added to my Tiller-powered spreadsheet
How often is new data added to my Tiller-powered spreadsheet

Review the details about how refreshes and updates are made to your Tiller spreadsheets.

Heather Phillips avatar
Written by Heather Phillips
Updated over a week ago

How it works

Your financial transactions and balances make it into your spreadsheet in two steps:

  1. Refresh - pulling data from the bank and making it available in our database

  2. Fill - filling transaction and balance data into the spreadsheet when you click the "Fill" button

The Balance and Transaction data are not connected and pull in separate from each other. That means your Transactions won't always total to your Balance amount, they are just pulled into your sheet as the data appears on the institution website at the time of refresh.

The refresh step is dependent on our 3rd party data aggregation partner, Yodlee. We partner with Yodlee because they are the trusted industry leader in bank data aggregation.

It's likely that Tiller, with the help of Yodlee, can automatically refresh many of your institutions each day.

Once Yodlee has refreshed your account and we have pulled the data from their systems it is available in our database for filling into your sheet.

However, not all accounts are eligible for automatic refreshes and may require your intervention in order for us to pull the data. Read more below.

The fill step is dependent on you. You must click the "Fill" button in order for the data to make it into your spreadsheet. If you have multiple Tiller-powered spreadsheets, they will each need to be filled with new data.

Tiller can only pull in cleared transaction data.

It can take 2-3 days for some transactions to clear at your institution before they are available. Credit card transactions usually take longer to clear.

Some accounts refresh less frequently

Tiller may refresh your loan, mortgages, and insurance accounts (and other low frequency accounts) less frequently. Some loans are known to refresh only twice a month.

Types of refreshes

Automatic Refreshes

With many institutions, Tiller can refresh your bank, card, and investment account data about once a day without your intervention and the refreshes are automatic. The logins for these institutions typically don’t have an added layer of security, use open banking, or our data provider was able to successfully learn the answers to your security questions.

In some cases you may still receive a two factor authentication code when Tiller is automatically refreshing your account. You can check the Account Summary and hover over the Last Refresh time to see if the date/time corresponds to the text message or email you received.

Manual Refreshes

Accounts where you have or are expected to have multi-factor authentication (MFA) turned on will likely require your regular intervention on the Tiller Console https://sheets.tillerhq.com/auth/login to refresh the data. 

Some accounts require a manual refresh even if you do not have multi-factor authentication (MFA) enabled because our data provider has disabled the automatic refresh at the request or requirement of the bank.

While 95% of the institutions we support offer automatic refreshes, the eligibility is dependent on your individual account.

The auto refresh status can change over time meaning that it might be disabled temporarily if the banking website is experiencing a lot of traffic or technical difficulties and then re-enabled in the future when the site health is more stable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why doesn't Tiller use other aggregators?

We're working to build integrations with additional aggregators to offer better coverage when an institution isn't working well with our primary aggregator, Yodlee.

We don't have an ETA on when that might be available broadly, but we do understand how frustrating these disconnections can be.

Why do disconnections/outages take so long to fix?

Because we don't build the direct integration to any institution, and rely on a 3rd party to bring the data in, we're totally at their mercy on the timing for the fix until we can offer a multi-aggregator solution, which is quite a ways out. Even then sometimes issues span multiple aggregators.

This is primarily because many aggregators still use screen scraping to pull the data from the institution and therefore any website layout, infrastructure, or security login requirement change can break the connection for any aggregator that uses screen scraping.

Will the connections ever get better?

As more and more institutions move to API based connections, like "open banking," the connections will become more reliable and stable.

Until the United States enforces some type of regulation to require financial institutions to use an open banking connection, the timeline for all institutions moving in that direction is likely decades, though we've seen that larger institutions have the resources to make this transition faster.

Why doesn't Tiller fill the transactions for me automatically?

We definitely aspire to automate the fills at some point in the future, but this is a big and complex technical lift for us and not a feature we are able to provide at this time. Thanks for your understanding. On the bright side, if you understand the value of using a spreadsheet to manage your money, you know that the extra click is well worth the time saved not having to deal with multiple CSV downloads.

How can I tell whether my accounts will automatically refresh?

  1. Visit the Tiller Console and scroll down to the Account Summary. 

  2. Review the Last Refresh time and Refresh buttons for each institutions.

  3. Accounts that have a white refresh button and a recent last refresh time are likely ones that refresh automatically.

Any accounts that have a blue refresh button and a last refresh timestamp of greater than 36 hours ago most likely require your intervention (possibly every day or every few days) to re-authorize and pull data. This is likely because:

  • You have multi-factor (MFA) or two-factor (2FA) authentication turned on

  • Your bank expects you to have 2FA turned on, even if you don’t

  • The auto refresh has been disabled for this site

Once you re-authenticate your accounts from the Tiller Console the account should refresh (you’ll see the gathering your data screen) and upon successful refresh on that page your data is then available for you to fill into your spreadsheets. 

How can I tell whether the auto refresh has been disabled for my bank?

If your account doesn't refresh automatically within 36 hours of the last successful refresh and you don't have two factor authentication (2FA) turned on the auto refresh is likely disabled.

What is multi-factor authentication (MFA)?

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is an added layer of security for accessing your accounts. Often it's simply security questions like “what is your mother’s maiden name?” It could also be two-factor authentication (2FA), which requires a security code sent from your bank to your email or your phone. Multi-factor authentication is great and it keeps your accounts safe. 

Why do I have to re-authenticate so frequently?

The access token or session our data provider makes with the bank may last a day or it may only last a few minutes, but expect the account to disconnect. The access window has expired for that specific code or session. (e.g. when you’re logged in directly to the bank’s website after a minute or so of inactivity the bank site will log you out automatically). The exact timing of the disconnect varies by institution.

What if I am missing transactions?

Please review our troubleshooting guide for missing transactions to walk through a few steps before reaching out to our team.

How can learn more about the refresh health of my institution?

Sometimes Yodlee has a global outage with a specific institution (check the Institution Alert Dashboard for recent outages and resolution ETAs). Technical errors are not uncommon, but typically resolve on their own in a few days.

What if it times out or I get an error while it’s gathering data?

If you get an error when trying to refresh, check this guide for next steps.

How often do I need to manually refresh?

Our data provider requires that customers manually refresh their accounts at least once every 90 days in order to be considered "active" - if you don't your account is flagged as inactive and automatic refreshes will stop. This is a security feature.

What happens if I close one of my financial accounts?

When you close an account our data provider cannot pull in the final $0 balance for the closed account so you would need to manually add a balance history entry for the account to reflect the $0 balance.

You can also hide the account in your spreadsheet using the Hide option on the Accounts sheet.

There isn't a way to change the balance to show as a $0 balance or exclude the account in the daily email at this time.

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