October 2023

Because of a banking irregularity when I opened my first business checking account (Oct. 2004), I use the many resources banks and services like Intuit offer to ensure these institutions see my banking activity in real time- across the board.

Some of the online banking resources I use, include:

• Bank of America (personal checking & savings accounts) allows aggregators to access all of my linked accounts providing current account balances and transaction activity for each account.
• Intuit's Mint also uses aggregators to access each linked account which provides the linked account balances and transactions.
• In total, I have 5 different banks for checking and savings accounts. Only one is used for business banking. All of these banks are linked so that I can easily transfer funds to open a new CD or an existing account.
• I also have credit cards with Chase, Amazon (store card, Synchrony), and CitiBank and link my personal and business checking accounts to the banks that provide the cards- for easy online payments.

I love online banking, and have convinced those who I help to manage their assets, that it is the way to go. That said, my influence insofar as others and their finances- does not extend to services like Intuit's Mint. In general they seem to feel their financial data is not Mint's business.

In my case, I have to worry about the business side of finance as well as my personal finance, however because I am a sole proprietor prefer to maintain tax related finances under the same category (I do not use a business EIN).

That said, I do maintain separate checking and savings (Wells Fargo) accounts for my business finances. All of my other bank accounts are with other banks and are all personal accounts.

I am a good record keeper, in that I like all accounts accurate at all times. I spend about 20 minutes daily checking and updating, online accounts, Excel spreadsheets and two Microsoft Money files. In total, I have 17 bank accounts and manage well over thirty.

So how do I keep up with financial accounting activities? Online banking, Mint, Excel and two versions of an old software package called Microsoft Money. If even a penny is missing, I have to reconcile the books.

The first illustration below, provides payments made to several of my interest bearing accounts for September 2023 as reported by Microsoft Money, Bank of America, and Mint. In total, I had $212.44 deposited as interest payments to various accounts. Each reporting instrument agrees with this total.

The second illustration, shows the 'to date' interest payments made to my accounts for the month of October 2023. I am expecting an additional $42 (or so) in interest payments for the month of October.

I like knowing my financial well being is known by all. I do not mind the transparency. I never really understood what happened with my first business checking account, however I did contact the legal authorities on the issue.