I'm having trouble connecting an external account—what should I do?

While most customers find the instant connection process frictionless, there are instances where additional troubleshooting is required. In most cases, the connection can be fixed by you, without additional support needed from our side. For this reason, we suggest taking the following actions first:

  1. Open a second browser window and test your external account username and password credentials by logging into your current now. If the login is successful, proceed.
  2. Take note of the URL you see when you are on your firm’s login page.
  3. Switch back to your Betterment account and from "Home", select the “Connect accounts” button.
  4. Begin typing the name of your current firm into the search bar. (Even if you see your firm listed in one of the pre-populated circles.) You will see a list of possible firms populate in a drop-down window.
  5. Review the listed options and select the specific firm option that has a URL that most closely matches the one you see when you go to your current firm’s login page.
    • Tip: if you didn’t follow steps 1 and 2, actually go to your firm’s login page now to confirm.
  6. Follow the in-app prompts to finalize the instant connection.

Note: It can take up to 24 hours for some institution's data to fully pull through, so if the connection is not immediately successful, it’s worth it to wait to contact us.

If after 24 hours the connection is still not successful, please contact us via email with completed answers to the following questions. We must have complete answers to the three questions below to proceed.

1) What is the login URL you usually use to access your current account information?

    • This helps ensure we are targeting the correct brokerage.

2) What types of account(s) are you looking to connect?

    • For example: 401(k) or other employer-sponsored account, IRA (Roth or traditional), standard taxable brokerage account, or banking (checking/savings/mortgage).

3) Upon login, do you usually answer security question or need to send a PIN to your phone/email?