{"id":"concept:bank-account","kind":"concept","label":"Bank Account","synonyms":["connected bank account"],"definition":"In BalanceMCP, a bank account is both the real checking, savings, or credit card account connected to a book and the dedicated ledger account it's automatically allocated its own code under.","summary":"Two things at once: the real account at a real institution, and the chart-of-accounts entry it gets automatically. The first checking account connected takes the seeded 1010 code; a second one gets its own child code, like 1011, so a transfer between the two stays visible instead of vanishing.","explanation":["A bank account in BalanceMCP is the pairing between something real — a checking account, a savings account, a credit card at an actual institution — and a dedicated ledger account it's given automatically in the chart of accounts. Every connected bank account gets its own code, never sharing one with another connected account of the same type.","New bank accounts of a given type are allocated as child codes under the relevant parent block in the starter chart: the first checking account beyond the seeded 1010 lands at 1011, the next at 1012, and so on, with each type's block holding room for several. Credit cards work the same way under 2100. This isn't an implementation detail worth ignoring — it's exactly what keeps a transfer between two of a user's own accounts visible on the books instead of netting to zero and vanishing.","A bank account connects through importing a statement, not through any live, automatic feed — there's no Plaid-style connection pulling transactions in on its own today. Every bank transaction arrives because a statement was uploaded and extracted, whether by a person or an AI assistant working from a PDF or CSV.","Archiving a bank account's underlying ledger account doesn't erase its history — it stops new postings while keeping every past transaction and entry fully intact, the same as archiving any other account, since the journal that posted against it is append-only and needs that code to keep meaning something."],"commonMistakes":["Assuming two connected accounts of the same type share one ledger code — each gets its own, specifically to keep transfers between them visible.","Expecting transactions to arrive automatically — every one comes through a manual statement import, since there's no live bank feed yet.","Assuming an archived bank account's history disappears — it stays fully intact; archiving only stops new activity."],"category":"accounts","questions":[{"question":"Do I need to manually create a chart account for a new bank connection?","answer":"No — BalanceMCP creates one automatically the first time a statement is imported from a given bank account or card, allocating it its own code."},{"question":"Does BalanceMCP sync my bank transactions automatically?","answer":"Not yet — there's no live bank-feed connection. Every transaction arrives through a manual statement import."}],"url":"/glossary/bank-account","relatedTo":[{"id":"concept:chart-of-accounts","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Achart-of-accounts"},{"id":"concept:bank-feed","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Abank-feed"},{"id":"concept:statement-import","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Astatement-import"},{"id":"concept:transfer","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Atransfer"},{"id":"concept:bank-transaction","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Abank-transaction"},{"id":"concept:credit-card-account","relationship":"related","weight":0.9,"api":"/api/knowledge/concept%3Acredit-card-account"},{"id":"account:1010-checking","relationship":"references","weight":0.7,"api":"/api/knowledge/account%3A1010-checking"},{"id":"tool:import_statement","relationship":"references","weight":0.7,"api":"/api/knowledge/tool%3Aimport_statement"}],"referencedBy":[{"id":"concept:chart-of-accounts","label":"Chart of Accounts","url":"/glossary/chart-of-accounts"},{"id":"concept:transfer","label":"Transfer","url":"/glossary/transfer"},{"id":"concept:opening-balance","label":"Opening Balance","url":"/glossary/opening-balance"},{"id":"concept:asset","label":"Asset","url":"/glossary/asset"},{"id":"concept:credit-card-account","label":"Credit Card Account","url":"/glossary/credit-card-account"},{"id":"concept:bank-feed","label":"Bank Feed","url":"/glossary/bank-feed"},{"id":"concept:cash-position","label":"Cash Position","url":"/glossary/cash-position"}],"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","attribution":"BalanceMCP — https://balancemcp.com"}