Logging into two or three apps just to see how your total portfolio is doing gets old fast. Automatically syncing your Canadian brokerage — Wealthsimple, Questrade, Disnat, and others — to a portfolio tracker solves that problem while keeping you firmly in control. Here is exactly how it works, what data actually moves, and why read-only access means your money stays put.
The classic alternative to automatic sync is either manually entering every trade or uploading a CSV export every time you want fresh numbers. Both approaches work — and WealthWise fully supports importing your portfolio via CSV if you prefer it — but they create friction that tends to compound over time. Miss a dividend reinvestment here, forget a buy there, and your tracker quietly drifts from reality.
Automatic sync pulls your holdings, cash balances, and recent transactions directly from your broker on a regular basis. Your tracker stays accurate without any manual work, which means the analysis it produces — sector allocation, geographic exposure, benchmark comparison, dividend projections — is always grounded in what you actually hold right now.
WealthWise uses SnapTrade, a Canadian fintech infrastructure provider, to establish read-only connections to your brokerage accounts. SnapTrade acts as the secure intermediary: it authenticates you with your broker using the broker's own login flow (OAuth or equivalent), then passes a read-only credential token back to WealthWise. Your broker username and password are never stored by WealthWise.
This model is similar in principle to how budgeting apps connect to banks, but with one critical difference: the connection is explicitly read-only at the API level. SnapTrade cannot place orders, transfer funds, or make any changes to your account. Neither can WealthWise. The permissions are scoped to reading positions, balances, and transaction history — nothing more.
| Broker | Account types supported |
|---|---|
| Wealthsimple | TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, margin, and crypto accounts |
| Questrade | All account types |
| Disnat (Desjardins) | Supported |
| National Bank Direct Brokerage, CIBC Investor's Edge, BMO InvestorLine, and others | Depending on current SnapTrade availability |
| Not yet listed? | Use the CSV import fallback |
SnapTrade's coverage of Canadian brokers includes the major platforms that DIY investors rely on:
Coverage expands as SnapTrade adds new integrations. If your broker is not yet listed, the CSV import path is always available as a fallback.
| Synced | Never synced |
|---|---|
| Holdings: ticker symbols, units held, book value (average cost basis) | Personal identification information |
| Account balances: cash positions and total account value | Beneficiary designations |
| Recent transaction history: buys, sells, dividends, contributions | Margin loan details beyond the balance impact |
| Account metadata: account type (TFSA, RRSP, margin, etc.) and currency | Any data your broker does not expose through the SnapTrade API |
Understanding what gets synced — and what does not — goes a long way toward reassuring cautious users. When WealthWise connects to your account via SnapTrade, it retrieves:
What is not synced: your personal identification information, beneficiary designations, margin loan details beyond the balance impact, or any data your broker does not expose through the SnapTrade API.
The phrase "read-only" is worth unpacking because it is the core of why this kind of connection is safe.
Traditional screen-scraping tools — older portfolio aggregators that asked for your full login credentials — stored your username and password to log into your brokerage on your behalf. If that aggregator was compromised, an attacker would have everything needed to move your money. SnapTrade's OAuth-based approach is architecturally different: the connection token grants only the ability to read data, and it can be revoked at any time from within your brokerage's security settings without changing your password.
You can also disconnect from within WealthWise at any time. Disconnecting immediately removes WealthWise's ability to retrieve new data; it does not affect your brokerage account in any way.
Once your accounts are connected, WealthWise uses the live position data to power every analysis feature in the app — all of which stay on your dashboard rather than going anywhere else.
Your synced holdings feed directly into the VS S&P 500 benchmark comparison, which uses your real transaction history to calculate a Modified-Dietz time-weighted return. That is the same methodology professional portfolio managers use — not a simplified approximation — because your actual deposit and withdrawal timing matters.
The same holdings data powers the dividend suite: projected annual and monthly income, yield-on-cost for each position, the dividend calendar showing upcoming payment dates, and the DRIP simulator. For ETFs like XEQT or VEQT, WealthWise decomposes the fund into its underlying sectors and geographies rather than treating the entire ETF as a single opaque block.
Margin-aware totals are also handled automatically. If you carry a margin balance, WealthWise tracks the gross asset value and the net equity separately so your dashboard reflects your real financial position rather than an inflated gross number.
Most Canadian DIY investors hold accounts at more than one institution — a TFSA at Wealthsimple, an RRSP at Questrade, perhaps a non-registered account elsewhere. WealthWise supports connecting multiple brokers simultaneously, and each account type is tracked separately so you can see your total consolidated view alongside an account-by-account breakdown.
This matters especially for features like asset location analysis, where it is useful to know which accounts hold which assets, and for Wealthsimple users who may have investments spread across several account types within the same platform.
If your broker is not yet supported by SnapTrade, or if you simply prefer not to connect directly, manual entry and CSV import are fully supported alternatives. You can enter positions by hand, upload a transaction history export from your broker, or combine both approaches — for example, syncing your Wealthsimple account automatically while entering your Disnat holdings manually.
For brokers that offer transaction history exports (most do), the CSV import flow walks you through mapping your broker's column headers to WealthWise's expected fields. The result is the same rich analysis, just refreshed on your schedule rather than automatically.
See the dedicated guide on importing your portfolio via CSV for step-by-step instructions.
| Method | Data freshness | Setup effort | Broker requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| SnapTrade read-only sync | Near real-time / daily | Low (OAuth flow) | SnapTrade-supported broker |
| CSV import | As of export date | Medium (download + upload) | Any broker with export |
| Manual entry | As of last entry | High (ongoing) | None |
To connect your broker in WealthWise, navigate to the Accounts section and select "Connect a broker." You will be redirected through SnapTrade's secure OAuth flow for your specific broker — the process typically takes under two minutes. Once connected, your positions and recent transactions will populate automatically, and your dashboard will reflect your live portfolio.
WealthWise is free to use and works as a companion to your brokerage app rather than a replacement. Your broker remains where your money lives and where you execute trades. WealthWise is where you understand what those positions mean together — their risk profile, their income potential, and how they stack up against a benchmark. For a broader look at how this fits into a Canadian investor's toolkit, the comparison of Wealthsimple vs Questrade vs Disnat is a useful starting point.
Yes. WealthWise uses SnapTrade's read-only OAuth connection, which means your broker username and password are never stored by WealthWise. The access token granted can only read your positions and transactions — it cannot place orders or move funds. You can revoke the connection at any time from WealthWise or directly from your broker's authorized apps settings.
SnapTrade supports the major Canadian DIY brokers including Wealthsimple, Questrade, Disnat, National Bank Direct Brokerage, CIBC Investor's Edge, and BMO InvestorLine, among others. Coverage expands over time. If your broker is not yet listed, you can use the CSV import or manual entry options instead.
Disconnecting immediately stops WealthWise from retrieving new data from that broker. Your existing portfolio data in WealthWise may be retained for your reference depending on your settings, but no new syncs will occur. Your brokerage account itself is completely unaffected.
No. The SnapTrade API scope is limited to investment account data: holdings, balances, transactions, and account types. Personal identification information, beneficiary details, and banking information are not accessible.
Absolutely. WealthWise fully supports manual portfolio entry and CSV transaction imports. Most brokers offer a transaction history export that can be uploaded directly. The analysis features work identically regardless of whether data comes from a live sync or a CSV import.
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