With bill syncing, Monarch can now provide statement balances and due dates for your credit cards and loans. This is done in partnership with Spinwheel, which receives this information from the credit bureau Equifax.
Once you’ve mapped each of the liability accounts detected by Spinwheel to one of your currently connected accounts in Monarch, your credit card and loan bills will appear in the new “Accounts” section on the Recurring page.
Initial bill syncing will need to be done via the web app using a desktop browser. Once you have everything connected, you can use either a browser or the mobile app to view and manage your bills.
This feature is currently not available for Canadian customers, as it depends on US credit bureau data.
Other types of bills, like utility payments and subscriptions, cannot be synced automatically. Learn more about tracking other types of expenses here: Recurring transactions.
Table of Contents
Getting started
To set up bill syncing, go to the Recurring page > click “Manage recurring” at the top right corner > choose “Manage your liability accounts”.
You will be prompted to connect your credit report via Spinwheel and will then be shown a list of the liability bills (credit cards and loans) in your name. To learn more about Spinwheel, the data they provide, and the safety and security of your information, see this page.
Note: Some cards are reported to the bureau with blinded/anonymized account numbers, which affect the last four digits displayed for mapping. These include cards from Apple, American Express, Barclays, Chime, and Navy Federal. The account can still be mapped (you may need to use the account balance to determine the right account). Please also note that only liability accounts reported to the credit bureau will show up (for example, many business cards will not show up since these types of accounts are issued by your workplace and not linked to your social security number).
Account mapping
After you've successfully connected to Spinwheel, you’ll map the accounts as detected from Spinwheel to your current connected accounts in Monarch.
If you don’t already have an existing account in Monarch for a Spinwheel-detected account, select the “Add Account” option from the dropdown in the Monarch Account column to add it. Upon successful connection, the account mapping screen will refresh, and the newly added account will be available to map.
You can return to the account mapping flow at any time by going to Recurring > Manage recurring > Manage your synced accounts.
Note: It's not possible to map multiple Spinwheel accounts to the same Monarch account.
Set payment due date
The due date shown in Monarch is what the financial institution is reporting to the credit bureau. This may not match the due date you see when you log in directly to your financial institution.
If Spinwheel did not return a due date for an account, you will need to manually select one. In order for an account to be successfully mapped and have a recurring bill associated with it, you must have a due date selected.
You can also update the default due day of the month if it pulls into Monarch incorrectly. Note, if you set a custom due date, that will be the due date reflected each month until you choose to change it.
Households with multiple members
Each person must connect to Spinwheel through their own Monarch account in order to pull information from their credit report into Monarch.
If the same credit card or loan account appears on multiple household members’ credit reports, you only need to map it to the correct account once in Monarch, the first time it’s pulled in. You will see an error if you attempt to map the same Spinwheel-detected liability account multiple times to the same Monarch-connected account.
Note: If you have invited a financial advisor to your household, they will be able to view any accounts you have connected through Spinwheel, but will not be able to connect to Spinwheel on your behalf.
Using bill sync
Once connected, you can see all recurring accounts and merchants in a single view on the Recurring page, as a list or on a calendar. Visit this page at any time to plan ahead for your expenses, manage your cash flow, and be sure you never miss a payment.
We’ll send you notifications when we receive a new statement balance for bills connected via bill syncing, and a reminder when those payments are coming up in a few days. You can manage these notifications in Settings > Notifications.
Managing synced bill details
Your statement balance will appear in the "Amount" column. To view the minimum payment due and more details on recent payments, hover over the number shown in the "Amount" column for each synced bill. On mobile, tap on the number.
If something looks incorrect about your credit card and loan bills, click the three-dot menu to the right of the account in the list view on the Recurring page to change it. Choose “Edit account details” to update the upcoming due date, default payment account, and default payment category.
If the statement balance amount received from Spinwheel looks inaccurate, choose “Edit statement amount” in the three-dot menu to edit the amount shown. Note: We only receive full dollar amounts from Spinwheel. The amount is not rounded. After editing a balance, you will see the option to “Revert back to original balance” if you’d like to undo the change.
Tracking payments
Every month, you’ll see upcoming due dates for recurring account bills, and these will show as unpaid until a payment is detected.
The bill will automatically be marked as Paid and move to the Completed section of the Recurring page when a transaction for the bill amount is detected in the mapped account in Monarch before the bill's due date. A bill can be Paid or Partially Paid. This depends on both the type of the account and the amount of the payment.
For loans, if the amount of the payment is equal to or greater than the bill amount, then it's marked as paid. If it's less than the bill amount, then it's marked as partially paid.
For credit cards, if the amount of the payment is equal to or more than the bill amount, then it's marked as paid. If it's less than the bill amount, but more than the minimum amount due, then it's marked as partially paid. If you make payments for less than the minimum amount due, the bill will become partially paid once the sum of those payments is equal to or greater than the minimum amount due.
If a transaction is not automatically detected, you can manually mark the bill as Paid. You can choose a default payment account to track this for yourself.
Once you’ve made the payment, choose “Mark as paid” in the three-dot menu for the account in the list view on the Recurring page. This will move the recurring bill from the “Upcoming” section to the “Complete” section.
Deciding between recurring transactions or bill sync
If you’ve been tracking your recurring credit card bills and loan payments as recurring transactions, then you’ll most likely want to switch to using the automated bill syncing feature to keep track of those bills moving forward. To ensure you don’t lose any history, you can go into each recurring merchant in the list and click on “Edit merchant details,” then switch the Recurring status from Active to Canceled.
FAQs
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- Not all of my accounts are showing as options. Why not?
- What if my credit is frozen?
- Will debt or credit information from my credit report be shared in any way?
- Will I be able to access my credit score through Monarch?
- Will connecting via Spinwheel affect my credit score in any way?
- When I connect to Spinwheel, how much information does Monarch get? Can Monarch see my full credit report?
- The last four digits on my card don't match the last four digits shown by Spinwheel.
- The balance shown by Spinwheel doesn't match the actual balance of my card.
- What does "awaiting balance" mean?
- My personal information was wrong during the verification process.
- I received a fraud flag while trying to connect. Is this real? What should I do?
- Does Spinwheel work with Canadian institutions?
- For additional FAQs related to the Spinwheel connection, click here.
Not all of my accounts are showing as options. Why not?
Only liability accounts reported to the credit bureau are included in the accounts that can be linked to Spinwheel and bill sync. For example, business cards are not reported back to credit bureaus, so these types of cards will not show up.
What if my credit is frozen?
Spinwheel does a soft pull of your credit report in order to obtain statement balances. Spinwheel’s ability to complete that process depends on the level of your credit freeze, whether the freeze is implemented to block all pulls, and whether the freeze is in effect with all bureaus.
Will debt or credit information from my credit report be shared in any way?
No. Monarch will not share any information about your credit or liability related bills.
Will I be able to access my credit score through Monarch?
Yes! You can view your credit scores in Monarch as well.
Will connecting via Spinwheel affect my credit score in any way?
No. Because Spinwheel does a soft pull of your credit report to obtain statement balances, it will not affect your credit in any way.
When I connect to Spinwheel, how much information does Monarch get? Can Monarch see my full credit report?
Monarch gets information on the account type, whether the account is active, the current balance, the statement date, statement balance, statement due date and the minimum amount due. We don’t receive your full credit report.
The last four digits on my card don't match the last four digits shown by Spinwheel.
Some cards are reported to the bureau with blinded/anonymized account numbers, which affect the last four digits referenced for mapping. These include cards from Apple, American Express, Barclays, Chime and Navy Federal. The account can still be mapped (you may need to use the account balance to determine the right account).
The balance shown by Spinwheel does not match the actual balance of my card.
The amount shown by Spinwheel is the account balance at the time of the last statement date and is not a real-time balance. It is updated once a month. It's not meant to be a live statement balance but rather a hint to help you match accounts.
What does "awaiting balance" mean?
The message "awaiting balance" is displayed when we have not yet received a statement balance from your financial institution.
My personal information was wrong during the verification process.
This information comes from Equifax, so we recommend reaching out to Equifax as the first step. Please note that the address listed is typically the most recent address; however, the interface may also surface an older address rather than the most current one. If you recognize the address (even if it is a previous address) you can safely proceed.
I received a fraud flag when trying to connect. Is this real? What should I do?
Fraud flags are passed to Spinwheel directly from Equifax. We recommend reaching out to Equifax and letting them know you were trying to connect with Spinwheel and received a fraud flag so they can research. This could occur due to a number of reasons, ranging from true fraud to a recent change in name or address.
Does Spinwheel work with Canadian institutions?
Not at this time, though we are looking at this as a future enhancement.