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Oaken Financial Stops Sending Paper Statements and How to Enroll and Find Electronic Statements

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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.

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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.

How to Get T5 Tax Documents for Your Online Bank Accounts at EQ Bank, Oaken Financial, PC Financial, Tangerine, ZAG Bank

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As tax-filing time approaches, I’ve started rounding up my tax slips including my T5s for our savings and chequing bank accounts with EQ, Oaken, PC Financial, Tangerine and Zag Bank.

Use Caution Saving Electronic (and Paper) Copies of Your Tax Slips Including T5s

Be sure to keep your electronic copies in a secured location—they have valuable information such as your name, address and SIN number which could be used for identity theft!

How to Get and Print Your T5 Tax Form for Your EQ Bank Savings Account

  1. Sign in to your EQ Bank accounts.
  2. From the drop-down list under the Accounts tab, click on: Tax documents
  3. From the drop-down list under Select the tax document you want to generate, choose the T5 for the year of interest.
    For example, I selected 2016 – T5 to complete my income tax return by April 2017.
  4. Click on the Generate document button.
  5. Wait a few seconds to a minute or two.
  6. The T5 will be displayed on your screen.
  7. Click on the Print or save button.
  8. When you are finished, near the bottom of the screen, click on the Back to tax documents button.

Interesting, no where do I seem to get a choice to save the T5 to my hard drive!

According to their online chat, I can only save the T5 if I use Google Chrome. I have no intention of using that program, so I will just scan and save my hard copy printout.

How to Get Your T5 Tax Forms for Your Oaken Financial Bank Accounts

Oaken Financial mails out its tax forms. So you’ll have to check your letter mail for your T5s and other tax forms.

How to Get Your T5 Tax Forms for Your PC Financial Bank Accounts

President’s Choice Financial mails out its tax forms. So you’ll have to check your letter mail for your T5s and other tax forms.

How to Get and Print Your T5 Tax Forms for Your Tangerine Bank Accounts

  1. Sign in to your Tangerine account/s.
  2. From the list on the left side of the screen, select My documents.
  3. Click on the link Tax receipts.
  4. From the drop-down box, select the year for which you wish the documents.
    It’s probably easiest to leave the selections “All account types” and “All receipts” so that you don’t miss a slip unless you are looking for something specific.
  5. From the list of PDF files of receipts, click on the one you want to print or save first.
  6. A popup window will let you choose to Open the PDF file or to save it.
  7. If desired, select Open and then print the file; or
    If desired, select Save and choose a destination to save the file. Be sure to keep your electronic copies in a secured location—they have valuable information such as your name, address and SIN number which could be used for identity theft!

NOTE: Tangerine combines the interest from your chequing and savings accounts onto a single T5 if the amount is $50 or more. You have to manually report any interest earned below $50 even if you did not receive a tax slip.

How to Get and Print Your T5 Tax Forms for Your Zag Bank Accounts

  1. Sign in to your Zag Bank account/s.
  2. Click on the Accounts tab.
  3. Click on the Statements link.
  4. From the Document Type: drop-down list, click on Year-End Tax Forms & Statements
  5. From the Tax Year: drop-down list, select the year of interest.
  6. From the Tax Forms: drop-down list, select T5, or just click on the View button.

Hmmm. I got an error message: The system is unavailable. Please try again later.
So no luck so far!

It’s probable that an error message is displayed because I had less than $50 of interest on my account and that there is no T5 for this account. In which case, I’ll have a LONG wait….

Aren’t Income Taxes Fun?

So now I’ve found the T5s for my bank accounts that earned more than $50 last year in interest, and I’ve added up the amounts I earned in interest for accounts that earned less than $50, I am one step closer to filing my income tax return for 2016. Oh joy!

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Do you have a check list of all the T slips you need before you file your taxes? Have you ever missed a slip? Please share your tax stories with a comment.

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