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ClickRuntime

Automate Plaid

Plaid gives you balances and transactions from the bank accounts you have linked as Items. Use it to get a morning email of yesterday's transactions, a warning when an account runs low, an alert on large charges, a monthly breakdown of spending by category, and notice when a bank link needs you to log in again. Once your assistant has the request and you have approved its plan, the checks continue on their own.

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Try asking

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every day at 7am, email me the current balance of each Plaid-linked account and all new transactions since yesterday, with date, merchant and amount.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Ideas

What you can automate in Plaid

Daily balance and transaction emails, low-balance and large-transaction alerts, a monthly spending breakdown and early notice of broken bank links. These are ready-made starting points. Anything else you can describe works too.
Daily

Get a morning email of balances and new transactions

Each day starts with every linked account's balance and the transactions that posted since the last email.

See how it works
Every 6 hours

Get warned when an account balance runs low

If a linked account drops under your floor, you get one Slack message, not a repeat every check.

See how it works
The moment it happens

Get alerted about transactions over $1,000

Large charges and deposits show up in Slack as soon as Plaid has them.

See how it works
The moment it happens

Know when a bank link needs you to log in again

You hear about an expiring or broken bank connection before your balances and transactions stop updating.

See how it works
Monthly

Get last month's spending by category

On the 1st you get totals per spending category and your top merchants, with transfers and card payments left out.

See how it works Your own logic

Any other automation you can describe in words

Your own rules, schedule and AI steps with Plaid, plus any other app. Describe it and your assistant builds it.

See how to build your own

Build your own

Build any Plaid automation you can describe

The ideas above are ready-made starting points, not a fixed list. Describe what Plaid should do in your own words, with your conditions, other apps or an AI step, and your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

For example, ask your assistant

Every morning, pull yesterday's bank transactions through Plaid, have AI categorize them, and alert me to anything over $500 or from a new merchant.

Every day, add new Plaid transactions to my Google Sheet budget with date, merchant, amount and category.

Every Sunday, pull the week's Plaid transactions, update my budget in Google Sheets, and send me a Telegram message with spending per category against my limits.

Beyond chat

Have Plaid work when you're not in the chat

Connecting Plaid to ChatGPT or Claude lets you ask about it while you chat. ClickRuntime handles the part that should happen on its own: checks on a schedule and actions on each new event, set up from the same chat and running after you close it.

Setup

Connect Plaid

Plaid uses the client_id and secret from your own Plaid Dashboard. Each bank account also has to be linked once through Plaid Link to get an `access_token` for that Item.

Plaid

Banking data

  1. Sign up at dashboard.plaid.com and accept Plaid's terms.
  2. Under Developers, then Keys, copy your client_id and secret.
  3. Request Production access in the Plaid Dashboard so you can link real bank accounts.
  4. In the ClickRuntime dashboard, open Connections & secrets and save the client_id and secret, plus the access_token for each linked Item.

Good to know

Plaid limits that affect automations

  • An API key alone is not enough: every bank account must first be linked through Plaid Link, which produces the Item access_token the automations use.
  • Sandbox and Production are separate. Items created in Sandbox can't be moved to Production, so link real accounts in Production.
  • Plaid bills per product, and Balance checks are charged per request, so a frequent balance check costs more than a daily one.
  • When a bank needs you to log in again, the fix happens in Plaid Link update mode. ClickRuntime can alert you, but it can't repair the link for you.

FAQ

Questions about automating Plaid

What can ClickRuntime see through Plaid?
Balances and transactions for the Items you linked and gave it an `access_token` for, limited to the Plaid products enabled on your account. It reads data; it does not move money.
Can I test with Sandbox first?
Yes, with Sandbox keys and Sandbox Items. Those Items stay in Sandbox, so you will link your real accounts again once Production access is approved.
Are large-transaction alerts instant?
They can be. Plaid sends a `SYNC_UPDATES_AVAILABLE` webhook when new transactions are ready, and the automation pulls them then; a scheduled sync works too if you prefer.
What happens when my bank connection breaks?
Plaid reports the Item as needing a login or about to disconnect. ClickRuntime emails you once per state so you can reconnect in Plaid Link before data stops updating.
Does the monthly spending summary need AI?
No. It groups transactions by Plaid's own `personal_finance_category`, totals them and ranks merchants. If you want a written comment on the month, the AI included with your plan covers it without a key of your own.
Is this a Plaid connector for ChatGPT or Claude?
Not for chatting with Plaid data. A chat connector lets your assistant read and change Plaid while you're in the conversation. ClickRuntime is for the work that should happen without you: you set up an automation from the chat once, and it keeps running on a schedule or on each Plaid event.

Related pages

Keep exploring

Tell your assistant what Plaid should do

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