How to add your accounts

A step-by-step guide to adding savings, current accounts, ISAs, pensions, Premium Bonds and loans to Oinkly — and what each field means.

Adding an account is how Oinkly starts tracking a piece of your money. It takes about a minute, and the form only ever asks for the details that your chosen account type actually needs.

The steps

From the dashboard or the Accounts page, choose Add account.
Pick the account type. This is the most important choice on the form — it decides what comes next. A savings account asks about interest; an ISA asks about your allowance and provider; a pension asks about access age; a loan asks whether you owe it or are owed it.
Choose the bank or provider. Oinkly uses this to check your FSCS protection, because the protection limit is set per banking licence, not per brand.
Give the account a name you'll recognise — "Emergency fund" or "House deposit" beats an account number.
Enter the balance, and for savings the interest rate.
Save.

The fields, in plain English

Interest rate and rate type. Enter the rate as your provider shows it, and tell Oinkly whether it's AER (the yearly rate including compounding), gross (before tax) or net (after basic-rate tax). AER is the one that lets you compare accounts fairly.
Interest frequency. How often interest is added — daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or all at once at maturity. This lets Oinkly forecast your interest accurately.
Maturity or rate-change date. For fixed bonds and fixed-rate deals, this is when the rate ends. Oinkly reminds you before it does, so a bonus rate dropping never catches you out.
Managed on a platform. Turn this on if you reach the account through a platform like Raisin or Chip rather than the bank directly, because it changes how FSCS protection applies — your money is protected via the bank that actually holds it, not the platform.

Handling money that's locked away

Fixed-term bonds, notice accounts and the like are all supported. Set the term length and maturity date and Oinkly treats the money correctly — for example, showing it as locked rather than instantly available in the Interest Deep Dive. If a bond pays a little interest before it matures, turn on interim payments so those show up too.

Good to know

If you're not certain of a figure — a rate, say — put in your best estimate and refine it later; it only affects the interest forecast, not your balance. Only the last few digits of any account number are shown once you've saved it.