The disclosed embodiments provide a system that manages access to an online user account. During operation, the system uses stored authentication credentials for a user to access the online user account of the user. Next, the system aggregates financial data for the user from the online user account. Upon detecting an error associated with aggregating the financial data, the system obtains error information describing the error from a web page associated with the error. Next, when the user subsequently accesses the aggregated financial data, the system displays the error information to the user to facilitate resolution of the error by the user.