Connect a Brokerage

Connect an investment or retirement brokerage to Forbidden Finance for read-only holdings, activity, and cost-basis tracking pulled directly from the brokerage. Available on Pro and Premium.

Overview

Brokerages & Investments is one of the three connection rails on the add-account screen. It links your investment and retirement brokerages directly, so your holdings, activity, and cost basis flow into Forbidden Finance without manual entry. This rail is read-only — Forbidden Finance can never place trades, move money, or change anything at your brokerage. It only reads.

Brokerage connections are available on the Pro and Premium tiers. In a household on Pro or Premium, every seat can connect brokerages.

Brokerage connections are separate from the standard Bank & Account Connections rail. Use that rail for checking, savings, credit cards, loans, and many retirement balances. Use this rail when you want holdings-level detail — individual positions, activity, and cost basis — straight from the brokerage.

What You Get

Holdings — every position in the account, with quantity, price, and market value.
Activity — buys, sells, dividends, and transfers as they happen at the brokerage.
Cost basis — what you paid, pulled from the brokerage where the brokerage provides it (see Cost Basis Methods).
Tax lots — the individual purchase lots behind each holding, at supported brokerages (per-lot detail is a Premium feature).
Net worth — investment balances roll into your Investable net worth view automatically.

How to Connect a Brokerage

Open the add-account screen

Go to the Accounts tab and tap Add Account or the + button. You see the three connection rails.

Choose Brokerages & Investments

Tap Brokerages & Investments. This rail is available on Pro and Premium.

Find your brokerage

Search for your brokerage by name. If it does not appear, it may not be reachable on this rail yet — you can still track those holdings with a manual investment.

Authenticate in the secure portal

You are handed off to a secure connection portal. Your brokerage credentials go directly to the brokerage — Forbidden Finance never sees or stores them. Complete any multi-factor prompt the brokerage requires.

Confirm the connection

Once authenticated, Forbidden Finance imports your holdings and recent activity. The account appears under your Investments and feeds your net worth.

Read-Only, Always

The brokerage rail can only read. There is no path — in the app or behind it — for Forbidden Finance to place a trade, withdraw funds, or move money at your brokerage. Connecting is a one-way street: data comes in, nothing goes out.

Credentials never touch our servers. You authenticate in the brokerage's own secure portal. Forbidden Finance receives read access, not your login.
Powered by SnapTrade. The secure brokerage connection is provided by SnapTrade, our brokerage-data partner. This is disclosed in the app when you connect.
Disconnect anytime. Remove a brokerage connection whenever you like from the account's detail screen. Removing it stops the read access and keeps your existing history as a read-only record.

Tax Lots and Cost Basis

Where your data comes from depends on the brokerage:

Broker-provided lots. At E*TRADE, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, and Robinhood, individual tax lots come straight from the brokerage — each purchase with its own acquired date and cost per unit.
Derived lots. At other brokerages, Forbidden Finance builds lots from the account's activity history instead. These are a best-effort reconstruction and may not match the brokerage's own lot accounting exactly.

Per-lot detail and tax-lot CSV export are Premium features. On Pro, you see holdings, activity, and aggregate cost basis; Premium unlocks the individual lots and the export. See Cost Basis Methods and Tax-Lot Export.

Cost-basis and tax-lot data from a brokerage is a starting point, not a filing document. Brokerages issue corrections, wash-sale adjustments, and 1099-B forms that can differ from what a live connection shows. Always reconcile against your brokerage's official 1099 before you file.

Keeping Holdings Current

Your holdings and prices refresh automatically on a regular schedule. When you want the latest right away — for example, right after a trade posts — use the manual refresh button on the account's detail screen. Manual refresh is rate-limited to protect the connection, so it may be briefly unavailable if you have just used it.

Every value carries an "as of" timestamp so you always know how fresh it is.

Tips

If the same institution shows up on both the bank rail and the brokerage rail — some firms offer cash and investment accounts — connect the brokerage rail for the holdings you care about and use the overlap advisor to hide the duplicate copy.

Retirement accounts like a workplace 401(k) recordkeeper that is not a full brokerage may not appear on this rail. Check whether it connects on the standard bank rail, or reach for a Premium Connection slot.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Forbidden Finance trade or move my money?

No. The brokerage rail is strictly read-only. There is no mechanism for Forbidden Finance to place trades, transfer funds, or take any action on your brokerage account. It reads holdings and activity, nothing more.

Which tier do I need?

Pro or Premium. On Pro you get holdings, activity, and aggregate cost basis. Premium adds per-lot tax-lot detail and CSV export. Every seat in a Pro or Premium household can connect brokerages.

No. You authenticate in a secure portal, and your credentials go directly to the brokerage. Forbidden Finance is granted read access and never sees your username or password.

My brokerage is not listed. What can I do?

If your brokerage is not reachable on this rail yet, add your holdings as manual investments and update their values yourself. Manual holdings still count toward your net worth.

Where do my tax lots come from?

At E*TRADE, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, and Robinhood, lots are provided by the brokerage. Elsewhere, they are derived from your account activity. Per-lot detail and export are Premium features.

How do I disconnect?

Open the brokerage account's detail screen and choose to remove the connection. Read access is revoked and your existing holdings become a read-only record.

Connect Your Bank

The standard bank rail for checking, savings, credit, and loans.

Premium Connections

Limited slots for HSAs, 529s, and workplace retirement recordkeepers.

Cost Basis Methods

How Forbidden Finance tracks what you paid.

Tax-Lot Export

Export your lot history for your accountant (Premium).

Need more help? Contact us at [email protected].

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