Using Akahu with Prosaic
What Is Akahu?
Akahu is a registered financial services provider in New Zealand, part owned by Westpac, and trusted by tens of thousands of Kiwis. It provides secure and seamless access to your banking data, enabling Prosaic to sync transactions and identify eligible business deductions. You can learn more about Akahu on their consumer website.
If You Already Use Akahu
You may already be a customer of Akahu if you use services like Pocketsmith, Paysauce, or other providers in New Zealand. This makes the setup with Prosaic very simple.
When you are prompted to connect with Akahu, we will redirect you to their website. Sign in using your email address and choose the accounts that you wish to connect.
By default, we will prompt you to sign into Akahu using the email address you used to sign up for Prosaic. However, if you use a different email with an existing Akahu account, you can use this to sign in and connect Akahu to Prosaic.
Just choose 'Use A Different Email Address" at the login screen
If those accounts are already loaded, select them, authorise them to work with Prosaic, and we’ll redirect you back to our application to begin syncing transactions.
If You Are New to Akahu
If you are not already using Akahu, the setup process is straightforward. When prompted to connect with Akahu, follow these steps:
- Redirect to Akahu: We will redirect you to the Akahu website for the connection process.
- Create an Akahu Account: If you don’t have an Akahu account, sign up using your email address.
- Connect Your Accounts: Follow the prompts to link your bank accounts. You’ll be able to choose which accounts to connect to Prosaic.
- Authorise the Connection: Authorise Prosaic to access your chosen accounts. Once authorised, we’ll redirect you back to our application to begin syncing transactions.
By using Akahu, Prosaic can securely access your banking data, ensuring that we can identify and categorise your business-related transactions accurately and efficiently.
Connecting Business Bank Accounts
Prosaic is designed to detect business expenses in personal bank accounts.
We do also support connecting business accounts, read more about how this works here.
If your accountant has asked you to connect any business accounts too, you may need to follow these extra steps
- For most major bank in New Zealand (Westpac, ANZ etc) provided you can view your business accounts in your mobile banking app, then you should be able to authorise and connect those accounts following the steps above.
- If you bank with ASB or BNZ, you may first need to call your bank, and ask them to enable you to view business accounts in you mobile or online banking app.
Common Questions
How do I know my data is secure?
Akahu adheres to stringent security standards to ensure your data is protected. All data is encrypted and securely transmitted between your bank and Prosaic. For more information, visit Akahu’s consumer and safety page.
Can I revoke bank account access or delete transactions?
Yes, at any time you can revoke account access, or delete accounts and transactions entirely.
There's a couple of ways to do this
- Revoke account access in Prosaic: navigate to your connected accounts page and select any account to disconnect or remove it completely.
- Disconnecting a bank account with stop syncing live feeds, but retain historical bank transactions in Prosaic
- Deleting a bank account will remove the account entirely, and delete any historical transactions
- Revoke account access in Akahu: sign into Akahu using your email address, where you can manage any connected bank account and application, and revoke access or delete accounts
Why am I being asked to enter my password?
Akahu allows you to securely authorise access to your bank accounts using your login credentials. This is securely stored and encrypted and only used for account sync.
As part of the roadmap for Open Banking in New Zealand, local banks are being regulated to offer new authorisation standards for account access, for example oAuth 2 (similar to how you authorise access to your Google Calendar, or Xero account), which will only continue improve the consumer experience. In the meantime, all banks using the Akahu platform have provided accredited approval to share data using the current method.
Can I check and verify with my bank?
Yes, you can always check with your bank to verify the security and legitimacy of Akahu’s services. Most major banks in New Zealand recognise and support Akahu as a secure and trusted service provider. Akahu Limited is part owned by Westpac bank.