Setting up the Plaid Bank Integration

To set up the Plaid Bank Integration, you must complete the following tasks:

  • Set up the remote site settings
  • In Custom Settings, specify the maximum number of line items for the statement import process
  • Customize the Bank Account Connections page layout
  • Customize the Bank Account page layout
  • Create a dedicated Plaid Integration user
  • Specify recipients of Import Statements Schedule notification emails
  • Specify the supported countries

You must be signed in with administrator permissions to perform these tasks.

Note:
The following instructions refer to setting up your production environment. If you want to configure a sandbox environment, see Setting up the Plaid Bank Integration.

Prerequisites

The following protected custom settings must be configured by Certinia Support.

  • Plaid Configuration Settings
  • Plaid Environment Settings
  • Plaid Integrations Settings

These settings control your access to Plaid and your environments.

Remote Site Settings

The remote site setting is included in the package to allow the Plaid URL. It must be set to:

  • For production environments: https://production.plaid.com. This is the default value in the released package.
  • For sandbox environments: https://sandbox.plaid.com.

Check that the remote site setting required for the Plaid Integration has been set up correctly during installation. To do this:

  1. Click Setup | Remote Site Settings.
  2. Locate the Plaid Environment remote site setting and check that the Remote Site URL is set to:
    • For production environments: https://production.plaid.com
    • For sandbox environments: https://sandbox.plaid.com

If the Plaid Environment remote site has not been created, you can create it manually. Ensure that you set the Remote Site URL to https://production.plaid.com for production environments. For more information, see "Configuring Remote Site Settings" in the Salesforce Help.

Custom Settings

The statement import process is controlled by a custom setting to ensure the volume of bank statement line items does not exceed the number that can be displayed on the bank statement reconciliation page. If the maximum value is exceeded then multiple statements are created and the statement reference will have a numerical suffix applied. These must be reconciled in sequence starting with the lowest number.

As Plaid supports more countries, you can enable these in your org using a custom setting field. For more information about the countries supported by the Plaid bank integration, see Plaid's website.

To configure custom settings for the Plaid integration:

  1. Go to Setup | Develop | Custom Settings.
  2. Click Manage next to Accounting Settings, then click Edit.
  3. Set the Maximum Bank Reconciliation Transactions value to the number of lines you want to include in a statement.
  4. [Optional] In the Supported Plaid Country Codes setting, add a country's two character code prefixed with a comma. Country codes can be found by visiting Plaid's website. For example, to enable United States and Canada, enter US,CA.
  5. Click Save.

Customizing the Bank Account Connections Page Layout

You must add the Currency field to the page layout for the Bank Account Connection custom object. Validation will ensure you enter a valid currency for any bank account you connect to through Plaid.

  1. From Setup, click Object Manager.
  2. Click Bank Account Connection.
  3. Click Page Layouts and select Bank Account Connection Layout.
  4. Drag the Currency field to the Connected Bank Account section of the page layout.
  5. Click Save.

Customizing the Bank Account Page Layout

You must add the Import Statements button to the layout for the Bank Account custom object.

  1. From Setup, click Object Manager.
  2. Click Bank Account.
  3. Click Page Layouts and select Bank Layout.
  4. Click Mobile & Lightning Actions.
  5. Drag the Import Statements button from the Mobile & Lightning Actions section of the palette and drop it in the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section of the page layout.
  6. Click Save.

Setting up Users

You must create a dedicated Plaid Integration user with an Accounting license and access to all companies. This user is required to connect to bank accounts through Plaid and must not be used for anything else. You must also assign additional permission sets to the Accounting users who need to use the functionality made available by the  Plaid bank integration.

To create a dedicated Plaid Integration user:

  1. Create a user record for the Plaid Integration user. This must be a standard Salesforce user.
  2. Assign the following permission sets to the new user:
    • Accounting - Bank Connections - Manage Connections
    • Accounting - Bank Connections - Create Logs
    • Accounting - Bank Statement - Read Access
    • FDN AsyncAPI - Process

Assign the following permission sets to any Accounting users who need access to bank accounts connected through Plaid, or need to import statements via the Plaid bank integration,

To set up standard Accounting users:

  1. Log in as the administrator.
  2. Assign the following permission sets to the standard users:
    • Accounting - Bank Connections - Link Bank Account
    • Accounting - Bank Statement - Import
    • Accounting - Bank Account - Read Access
Note:

The existing Accounting - Bank Statement - Import permission set has been updated to include Read access to the Bank Account Connection object. If you have cloned this permission set, you will need to update your cloned version to include this additional permission.

Specifying Recipients of Import Statements Schedule Notification Emails

You must specify the email addresses for the recipients who will receive Import Statements Schedule notification emails.

To specify the email addresses for the notification emails:

  1. Go to Setup | Develop | Custom Settings.
  2. Click Manage next to Accounting Settings, then click Edit.
  3. In the Import Statements Email Recipients field, specify the email addresses for the recipients who will receive Import Statements Schedule notification emails, separated by either commas or semicolons.
  4. Click Save.

For more information, seeAccounting Settings.

Specifying the Supported Countries

You can specify the countries that the Plaid bank integration supports.

To specify the supported countries:

  1. Go to Setup | Develop | Custom Settings.
  2. Click Manage next to Accounting Settings, then click Edit.
  3. In the Supported Plaid Country Codes field, specify the countries that you want, separated by commas. For example: CA,US,DE,GB,FR,ES,IE,NL.
  4. Click Save.

For more information, seeAccounting Settings.

For more information about the supported countries, see the Plaid Help.

Additional Considerations for Sandbox Environments

If you want to configure a sandbox environment for testing you must ensure that the following are correctly configured:

  • Protected Custom Settings
  • Remote Site Setting

Protected Custom Settings

The following settings must be configured by Certinia Support for your sandbox environment:

  • Plaid Configuration Settings
  • Plaid Environment Settings

Remote Site Setting

The remote site setting is included in the package to allow the Plaid URL. For sandbox environments it must be set to https://sandbox.plaid.com.