Frequently asked questions

SpendSmart™ is a consumer financial tool that helps you gain a deeper understanding of your overall spending habits by: 1) consolidating your linked spending accounts (consumer credit card and consumer checking accounts), 2) automatically showing how much you’re spending in what categories (e.g., entertainment, utilities) each month, and 3) displaying your spending history so you can track your progress and start spending smarter. 

SpendSmart™ is only available to Card Members with a U.S. Basic Consumer Card issued by American Express National Bank and Rewards Checking Customers. 

If you are not one of the types of customers listed above, learn more about eligible American Express^® Cards.

SpendSmart™ is included with your American Express Membership or your Rewards Checking account benefits. There is no fee to use SpendSmart™.

SpendSmart™ will automatically connect your U.S. American Express Consumer Card(s) and American Express^® Rewards Checking account to track your spending. You can choose to include or exclude specific accounts from SpendSmart™ at any time in your SpendSmart™ Settings. 

You can link an external consumer credit card or consumer checking account to SpendSmart™ in your SpendSmart™ Settings at any time. SpendSmart™ uses Plaid, a third-party service, to link and display your consumer credit card or checking account information from external banks or financial institutions. If you want Plaid to share your financial information with SpendSmart™, you must agree to the Plaid End-User Privacy Policy, in addition to the SpendSmart™ Data Connection Terms and Conditions. You will also need to provide Plaid with your login credentials for your accounts. Plaid will use your login credentials, in keeping with its data use and protection practices, to retrieve your linked account data and provide it to SpendSmart™. American Express will not receive your login credentials.

American Express will be provided with access to the data from your linked external financial account(s) starting twelve months prior to the date of linking and continuing until you unenroll or toggle off your linked account(s). 

For more information, please see the SpendSmart™ Data Connection Terms and Conditions.

Currently savings accounts and non-spending accounts (401k, CDs, etc.) are not eligible for SpendSmart™.

SpendSmart™ uses Plaid, a third-party financial services company, to pull in information from external banks or financial institutions in keeping with Plaid's encryption protocols and security standards. At American Express, we are committed to safeguarding your privacy. Learn more at our Privacy Center.

You can hide an account by navigating to the Settings page in your SpendSmart^® account and toggling the account off. Hiding an account means that the selected account’s information will no longer be considered in your SpendSmart^® totals or transactions, but the account will not be deleted. When you hide an account, any transaction customizations you've made will not be saved. 

Please note that once you hide an account, we may continue to process your information in accordance with the Terms & Conditions, the Amex Privacy Center, and the SpendSmart™ Data Connection Terms & Conditions. 

You can unhide an account at any time by toggling it back on, but it may take a few minutes to start syncing your account again. 

If you would like to stop sharing your external account data with SpendSmart^®, please review the steps in the “How can I revoke access to the external account(s) that I linked to my SpendSmart^® account?” FAQ.

You can stop sharing your external account data linked to SpendSmart® at any time. Please note that if you choose to revoke access, all historical transactions from your delinked account(s) will no longer be reflected in your SpendSmart® account.

To revoke access, you must:

1. Go to the Plaid Portal and log in. If you don’t have an existing Plaid Portal account, you must create one by selecting “Sign up”.
2. Once logged in, select “Disconnect American Express Financial Tools”.
3. Select the accounts for which you’d like to revoke access.
4. Click “Stop Sharing”.

Once you elect to stop sharing, SpendSmart® and Plaid will no longer receive data from your external account(s). Please note that it may take a few minutes for the revoked access to reflect in your SpendSmart® account.

If at any point you’d like to reconnect your account(s), you can do so by going to the Settings page in your SpendSmart® account, then selecting “Agree & Link Account” under the section titled “Link your external financial accounts”.

If you would like to keep your external account(s) linked, but don’t want to include the transactions in your account totals, you can hide individual accounts by going to the Settings page in your SpendSmart® account and toggling them off. For more information, please see the “How do I hide an account from SpendSmart®?” 

SpendSmart™ adds up the transactions in the accounts you have included within SpendSmart™ (including both American Express and external accounts) and averages the total out over the last 12 full months. For category-specific average monthly spending amounts, SpendSmart™ only considers transactions in that specific category. 

Averages do not include transactions with frequencies you've set to "ignore" and transactions with the types marked as "transfer" or "income." 

You can visit your Settings to toggle an account off and hide it from your SpendSmart™ calculations. 

SpendSmart™ calculates your left over amount by subtracting your current spending for the month from your Target Monthly Spending amount or the total budget for tracked categories. 

You can expect to receive a welcome email after you enroll. If you have set a Target Monthly Spending amount and/or budget categories, you can also choose to receive monthly summary emails and email alerts for each spending category. You can visit the SpendSmart™ Settings page to adjust your email alert preferences at any time.

SpendSmart™ defines close to overspending as reaching 75% of a set amount and overspending as surpassing 100% of a set amount. Your set amounts apply to any categories, subcategories, or Target Monthly Spending amount you have chosen to track. 

All account information (American Express and external accounts) is updated at least once per day.

Your American Express accounts in SpendSmart™ will be updated automatically. However, your external accounts will need to be reconnected via Plaid depending on your financial institution's security requirements. 

To update your email in SpendSmart™, log into your American Express online account and visit "Overview" or "Account Services." Select "Manage Profile" or "Profile" to view and edit your current email. Once you select "Edit," enter your new email in the fields provided and hit "Submit." 

If your numbers look inaccurate, try adjusting your transaction categories or reviewing transactions that need attention. Some transactions may need categorization or are miscategorized. 

Additional considerations:

• Pending transactions are not displayed in SpendSmart™. All transactions will be taken into account once they are no longer pending.
• Totals and averages do not include transactions with frequencies you've set to "ignore" and transactions with types marked as "transfer" or "income."
  
• Averages do not include transactions with frequencies you've set to "one-time."

To recategorize a transaction from your linked accounts, go to the "Transactions" tab, then click on the "Edit" icon for the transaction you would like to recategorize. 

The "Transaction Details" section will allow you to update the name, category, source, or frequency of a single transaction. You can also create a rule to apply changes to all similar transactions in the future. 

You have three types of transactions: "expense," "income," and "transfer." SpendSmart™ automatically assigns a type to each of your transactions based on the category. You can change the transaction's type by changing its category.

Changing a transaction to the type "transfer" will automatically remove it from your average monthly spending and total spending calculations.

Transactions automatically assigned the type "transfer" include Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers and transfers to investment and savings accounts. Credit card payments will also be automatically assigned the type "transfer" if both your checking account and credit card account are linked to SpendSmart™.

"Transfers In" is the total dollar amount of transactions with the "transfer" type coming into your connected accounts. "Transfers Out" is the total dollar amount of transactions with the "transfer" type going out of your connected accounts. Connected accounts include both American Express and external accounts.

You can create a budget for any category or subcategory with the type "expense." You can also choose to set a target for your monthly spending.

You can unenroll from SpendSmart™ in your Settings. When you unenroll, you will no longer be able to access SpendSmart™, your categories, transaction customizations, and all related history. Unenrolling removes all your accounts from SpendSmart™ as well. If you decide to reenroll, you will need to begin as a new user. Unenrolling will not affect any other relationships you have with American Express. 

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