I’ve been a happy customer of Oaken Financial for several years. We keep part of our emergency fund in GICs at Oaken. Each GIC has a one-year term, but we have 12 of them. One matures each month because if we needed to live off our emergency fund we know we’ll need income steadily each month to pay the bills. Oaken allows us to buy our GICs online very quickly and easily making renewals simple. (I don’t like automatic renewals because I never know if my plans for this money may change.) Recently, in the spring of 2018, Oaken announced they will be stopping mailing paper statements and transaction receipts so I signed in to find out what, if anything, I need to do.

Do I Need Paper Bank Statements and If So for How Long?

According to the CRA you have to keep records of your income for 7 years for tax purposes. We get a T5 for our interest income from Oaken Financial for our bank account and our GICs each spring. To be on the safe side, though, I prefer to keep our account statements for 7 years too. So I will be keeping the electronic copy of our bank statements on a secure removable device just in case of an audit.

How to Find My Oaken Financial Statements and Transactions Online

Here’s how I found my electronic versions of my account and GIC information.
Sign in to Oaken Financial.

Across the top of the screen is a set of tabs:

• Home
• Account Management
• Transfer
• Service Centre
• Open New Account
• Documents & Statements

Reviewing, Printing and Saving Your Oaken Financial Monthly Bank Statement

1. Click on the tab Documents & Statements.
   A new row of tabs is displayed:
   Statements
   Confirmations
   Tax Slips
   Preferences
   The default selection is Statements and under that tab the default choice is Monthly Savings Account Statements.
2. From the Account drop-down list, select the bank account you are interested in reviewing.
   When I selected our Savings Account, a list of links to our 2018 monthly statements was provided. There is also a tab to look at our 2017 statements.
3. Click on the link for the monthly statement you wish to review.
   A PDF version of the same monthly statement we used to receive in the mail is displayed.
   You can use the usual print and download icons to print or electronically save your statement to a computer or storage device.
4. When you are finished, click to close the browser window with the PDF document.
5. If you are finished banking, click to Log Out of Oaken Financial.
6. For increased security, clear your browser history and cache and close your browser session, if desired.

How Far Back Do Oaken Financial Online Bank Statements Go?

My online statements go back to July 2017. We had an account before that so not all of our statements are archived online.

What Is Shown on the Oaken Annual Financial Portfolio Statement?

We only have GICs and a savings account at Oaken, so I’m not sure what all of their statements may look like.

Ours shows the same information they used to mail us each year:

For each GIC, it shows the issuer, account number, principal amount, issue date, maturity date, interest rate, interest paid and current balance. This can be useful for understanding the interest stated on our T5 slip.

Will I Still Get a Paper Slip Confirming my GIC Purchase from Oaken Financial In the Mail?

Maybe for a while. But soon you may need to check online for your confirmations.

1. Sign in to Oaken Financial.
2. From the tab near the top, select Documents & Statements.
3. From the new list, click on the tab Confirmations.
4. Click on the name of the GIC for which you wish to print or electronically save the confirmation notice.
5. The document will open as a PDF file. You can use the print or download icons to save the document.
6. When you are finished, click to close the browser window with the PDF document.
7. If you are finished banking, click to Log Out of Oaken Financial.
8. For increased security, clear your browser history and cache and close your browser session, if desired.

How Do I Set Up Receiving Paper Statements, Confirmations and Tax Slips If I Want Them from Oaken Financial?

If you are willing to pay for them, at a rate in June 2018 of $2 for EACH piece of paper mailed to you, you can still select to receive paper documents.

Actually, I may be premature. It looks like there is only a $2 charge for Savings Account Statements at this stage. However, since you can opt out of receiving paper versions of other documents, I suspect they may implement charges for them in the future. Anyway, to select whether or not you want to receive paper versions:

1. Sign in to Oaken Financial.
2. From the tab near the top, select Documents & Statements.
3. From the new list, click on the tab Preferences.
   There are two sections.Under General Documents, you can check a box to receive the following items electronically and / or on paper in the mail:
   Confirmation of Investments
   Portfolio Statements
   Tax Slips
   Maturity NoticeUnder Savings Account Statements, I expected that you could check a box to receive your statement in the mail, if you agree to pay a $2 charge once each month for each statement you request.

   However, when I checked today on June 18, there is no box to select! I suspect they will add the box in July after they stop mailing out statements. You can always phone them to manage this as their customer support team is very good, in my experience.

4. Click to select or de-select any checked boxes, as desired.
5. Click on the Save button.
6. To confirm the changes, click on the Change button.
7. Click on the Done button.
8. If you are finished banking, click to Log Out of Oaken Financial.
9. For increased security, clear your browser history and cache and close your browser session, if desired.

Related Reading

• How to Set Up Online Banking with Oaken Financial
• How to Set Up Security Warning Alerts for Your Online Bank Accounts

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Do you keep your bank statements in case of an audit? Do you wish there were a faster way to download and archive them all? Please share your views with a comment.