What is an account disconnection?
An account disconnection happens when Sequence can’t refresh balance or transaction data from your institution. This may occur due to expired credentials or technical issues between the provider and Sequence.
Even when this happens, in most cases you can still send transfers — but with two important caveats:
Funds can’t be pulled out of a disconnected external account.
Since we don’t have an updated balance, we won’t attempt withdrawals.
Rules that depend on the external account’s balance won’t run.
For example, if you’ve set up a “top up” rule or any condition tied to that balance, it will pause until the account is reconnected.
Additionally, credits (transfers TO the disconnected account) will usually still work, while debits (transfers FROM the disconnected account) will not be processed until the connection is restored.
This means you can usually keep pushing money into the account, but anything requiring balance visibility will wait until the connection is restored.
Credits to the disconnected account can still process as scheduled, while debits require reconnection to succeed.
How to reconnect
To reconnect a disconnected account:
Click into the account in your map.
Look for the Reconnect prompt (usually shown at the top of the account panel).
Follow the steps to log back in through the provider (Plaid, Finicity, Method, or Spinwheel).
Reconnection often takes less just a second.
Tip: Turn on account disconnection alerts for your phone. This way, you’ll get a notification as soon as an account disconnects, and can reconnect before the connection becomes too stale.
Common reasons for disconnections
Credit unions: These institutions often have weak integrations with larger data providers due to their size and capabilities.
Expired credentials: If your bank requires a password reset or added MFA, the connection may drop.
Provider changes: Sometimes Plaid, Finicity, Method, or Spinwheel update their systems and accounts need to be reauthenticated.
Designing your map to minimize disruption
You can set up your Money Map in ways that make disconnections less impactful:
Use Sequence accounts as the source whenever possible.
Since Sequence accounts update in real-time and never disconnect, they’re a reliable “hub” for your flows.
Push funds instead of pulling.
Transfers into disconnected accounts usually still work. Pulls require balance data, so they’ll fail until reconnection.
Avoid making rules depend on external balances unless absolutely necessary.
For example, instead of topping up directly from an external account, send funds through a Sequence Pod first.
Create buffer Pods.
Route money through a Pod before it moves to a liability or destination account. This way, if a connection drops, the Pod can still hold and allocate funds.
Connections may occasionally fail, but with a quick reconnection or reference to our institution-specific guides, you’ll be back on track.
If rules are deactivated after a transfer is scheduled, those pending transfers will still complete, but no new transfers will initiate from the deactivated rule.