How it works
A bank feed connects a financial account, such as a business checking account or a corporate card, to a ledger like QuickBooks Online or Xero. The feed provider creates a feed account in the ledger and pushes transactions on a schedule: date, amount, description, merchant and a unique id. The ledger shows them in a review queue, where each one is matched to an existing entry or categorized as a new one.
Example
A corporate card issuer sends each settled card transaction to its customers' Xero files every morning. The finance team opens Xero, sees the transactions waiting, and matches them to receipts instead of importing a CSV.
In integrations
The Unify Bank Feeds API is designed to create feed accounts and push transactions into supported ledgers with idempotent transaction ids, so a retried push never double-posts. Some ledgers run partner programs for feed providers; the Unify Technology Center can help with those steps. A bank feed is different from bank account data, which reads balances from banks rather than writing into a ledger. Feeds matter to card issuers, neobanks and spend platforms because customers judge them at month-end. A feed that misses days, duplicates lines or sends cryptic descriptions creates work for accountants, and that work shows up as churn.