Plaid
Keep Plaid in step with your orders, invoices and payments without re-keying, with the right person approving what changes.
13 ways to read, 1 way to write, each write switched on by you.
Quality checks
Built and tested with example responses.
- Ready to connect: doneEvery listed action is built in.
- Built and tested with example responses: doneEach action is built from the provider’s published API and tested against example responses, errors, rate limits and paging.
Connected, approved, proven.
The things teams do most with Plaid, an example flow with a person in the loop, and what Nexra keeps as proof.
Top actions
- Create Link token
link_tokens.createApproval by rule - Get real-time balances
balances.listRead
Example flow
- Plaid · Get real-time balances
balances.listDone - Plaid · Create Link token
link_tokens.createMaker-checker - Nexra · Record the decision and result in the evidence chainProven
Example workflow. Routine runs go through on their own. Only a change your rules flag, such as one over a limit you set, waits for the right person, who sees the exact change and the rule before it reaches Plaid.
What gets logged
- Whether it ran on its own or who approved it, and under which rule
- A fingerprint of the exact request sent to Plaid
- Plaid's reply: what it created or changed
- One entry in the evidence chain, linked to the one before
Try this in the sandbox
Run the whole flow with test data in your sandbox, then connect a Plaid test account before you go live.
For developers
Technical detail
Plaid: accounts, real-time balances, transactions and sync, investments, liabilities, identity, masked Auth, Item status, institutions and Link token setup.
Plaid API docs- Source actions
- 13
- Destination actions
- 1
- Data types
- 12
What you can map
Reads are always available. Writes are off until you switch them on for a connection, and governed writes follow your policies.
accounts1
- List linked Item accountsSource
Read account IDs, names, types, masks and cached balances; full account numbers and owner identity are omitted.
auth numbers1
- List Auth account metadata (masked)Source
Confirm which accounts have ACH, EFT, international or BACS numbers at Plaid. Only masks are mapped; full account and routing numbers never leave this operation.
balances1
- Get real-time balancesSource
Fetch real-time balances from the institution. Plaid bills each successful call.
identities1
- List account owner identitySource
Read account holder names, primary email, phone and address as held by the bank, for KYC and payee matching.
institutions3
- Get institutionSource
Read one institution with its products and current health status.
- List institutionsSource
Read institutions Plaid supports in the given countries.
- Search institutionsSource
Find institutions by name.
investment holdings1
- List investment holdingsSource
Read holdings with quantity, value and cost basis, joined to their security.
investment transactions1
- List investment transactionsSource
Read buys, sells, dividends, fees and transfers in a date range.
items1
- Get ItemSource
Read the linked Item's institution, products, consent expiry and error state.
liabilities1
- List liabilitiesSource
Read credit card, mortgage and student loan details; loan account numbers and servicer addresses are omitted.
link tokens1
- Create Link tokenDestinationNot retried automaticallyApproval before production
Create a short-lived Link token to start Plaid Link in your app. Setup only: it links no account and is not billed.
transaction sync1
- Sync transactionsSourceIncremental
Incremental transaction updates since a stored cursor: added, modified and removed transactions.
transactions1
- List Item transactionsSource
Read transactions in a specified date range; signed amounts follow Plaid's convention.
Access and limits
- Authentication
- Plaid client credentials and authorised Item access token
- Plans and access
- A Plaid account with client ID and secret, production access for the products you use, and an Item access token from Plaid Link. Each product must be enabled for your team and initialised on the Item. Balance is billed per request; Auth and Identity carry a one-time fee per Item; Transactions, Investments and Liabilities are billed monthly per Item.
- Test environment
- Use sandbox.plaid.com with sandbox secrets and test Items.
- Rate limits
- Plaid applies per-Item and per-client limits and returns RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED (HTTP 429); Nexra honours Retry-After with bounded retries. Billable balance calls are never retried.
- Pagination
- Transactions and investment transactions use count and offset with a reported total; transaction sync follows next_cursor while has_more is true; institutions use count and offset.
- Provider events
- Plaid sends SYNC_UPDATES_AVAILABLE, HOLDINGS and ITEM webhooks to the URL set on the Item or Link token. Flows can start the moment something happens: when new or changed transactions are ready; when the bank connection needs attention; when the bank consent is about to expire; when the account holder revokes access.
Before you build a flow
- Intentional exclusions: Transfer, Payment Initiation, Signal, Identity Match, transactions and investments refresh (billed per call), public token exchange, Item removal, Asset Reports and Income.
- Full account, routing, IBAN and sort code numbers from Auth are never mapped; only masks and availability flags are returned.
- Consent and linking happen in Plaid Link inside your app; each connection uses one Item access token.
- Identity returns personal data of account holders; map it only where you have a lawful basis.
- Transaction sync emits a final cursor record (changeType cursor) so a flow can store the cursor for the next run.
Developer reference
- Create the Plaid credentials described above with the narrowest permissions your flows need.
- In Nexra, open Connect, then Connections, then New connection, choose Plaid, enter its settings and credentials, and tick only the write actions you need. Connection guide
- Test the connection, then use its actions as flow sources and destinations. Flow guide
Machine-readable detail: GET /api/public/connect/connectors/plaid and the Connections API.