FAQs

We have collected frequently asked questions regarding the WealthTech API platform usage and the data we provide. We hope these questions and answers could be useful for you, but if you still have questions, please contact us via our Zendesk Portal. How to use the portal please check out here: BridgeFT Support Portal Guide.

(1) How can I update Account information? Which API should I use?

Answer: To update accounts information please use Update Accounts endpoint which allows bulk updates. Take note that this endpoint requires a PUT method to be used, so you must include full objects and provide all fields in the request. To update just a single account record, use Update an Account endpoint and provide the Account ID and a full account object in the request. The following account’s attributes are editable:

• payment_source
• first_billable_date
• target_allocation_id
• required_cash
• investment_model_id
• buy_securities_ids
• do_not_buy_securities_ids
• sell_securities_ids
• do_not_sell_securities_ids
• notes
• unsupervised_securities_ids
• required_cash_frequency
• acct_type
• first_performance_date
• benchmark_ids
• billing_splits_ids
• fee_structure_ids

(2) I queried list of my Accounts but I don’t see some of them have been returned in the Accounts API. Why can this happen?

Answer: By default we filter out all closed accounts from WealthTech APIs responses. But if you still need to see closed accounts data, you are able to do so using the Filter Accounts endpoint indicating status: "closed" as a query parameter.

(3) What does Accounts Statuses: Funded, Papered, Closed, Stale mean?

Answer: In BridgeFT we apply the following logic on account's statuses:

• Account is papered when it first shows up in our data feed;
• We mark account as funded when Account Balance >0;
• Account is closed in BridgeFT when Account Balance =0;
• stale status means that we haven’t received data for the previously funded account in the most recent data drop from the custodian.

(4) How can I know if an Account is taxable or not? Where can I find this information?

Answer: To see the tax related information for the account, please use Filter Accounts endpoint so you can filter out accounts by tax status. If the information was provided by the custodian, this API will return the list of accounts with particular tax status provided in the following field:

is_taxable = True when the account is taxable and False when it is not taxable; the default value is Null.

This information may or may not be provided by custodians. For example: Schwab, TIAA, Millennium Trust are sharing this data in their data feeds, while others may not provide that information.

(5) I attempted to pull data for a specific Account but did not receive any data. How can I determine if the data is missing, or the custodian has not provided data due to some reason (weekend, holiday, etc.)?

Answer: Check your data availability in BridgeFT anytime with our Source Data Status API. Provide the date you wish to check the data status for in the request, and then the API will return a list of your custodians with the appropriate data status: available or not available for each of the data types (balances, positions, lots, rgl). When the data status reflects available, that means the data for that custodian and data type is available.

(6) How can Balance History for more than 1 month be obtained for an Account?

Answer: Please use the Source Account Balances API to get an Account’s Balance History. By default you'll receive 10,000 objects per page and can paginate through the results to return the full time series. There are no limits on start, end dates or time range.

(7) In Source Account Balances API, there are two fields for the cash value: cash_value and cash_value_reported. What is the difference between these fields? Which one should I use?

Answer: The cash_value_reported returns the value which BridgeFT received from the custodians. However, sometimes this information might be missing in the custodial data. In that case we derive this data from the source positions and source lots and return it in the cash_value field. We recommend using the cash_value_reported field but if it’s empty use the cash_value field.

(8) Does Source Positions, Lots, RGL and Balances APIs provide Historical Data? What is a time period and retention for the Historical Data?

Answer: BridgeFT provides historical data as long as we have such source data from the custodian. For example, if an account has been with a custodian for 1 year and this source data has been uploaded by the custodian via our regular process to the dedicated FTP storage then all this historical data is available within our Source APIs. For more information on how to load historical data please reach out to our BridgeFT Support team using the Zendesk Portal.

(9) Why don’t I see Households within BridgeFT?

Answer: Custodians do not send us the household information tied to the accounts. We provide some basic functionality via our Households API but we fully expect you to grow out of this and build your own household logic powered by the BridgeFT Accounts data.

(10) I am receiving “502 Bad Gateway” error, why?

Answer: Please make sure you are providing all required parameters within the API request. Necessary parameters are marked as "required" in the API reference documentation. For example: Realized Gain Loss API requires the reported_date. Often times pagination parameters are also highly suggested and may cause a timeout error if they are not included. If you are still receiving any 5xx Error please contact our BridgeFT Support team using the Zendesk Portal.