Match the bank statements to the books every week
Every Monday Claude matches each bank account's statement, line by line, to the bank entries in your books. It lists what is in the bank but not in the books, and the other way round, with what each one most likely is.
FullFinanceEvery week
Set it up5 steps
Open the Claude desktop app and sign in with the Claude account you use for work. On a personal Free, Pro or Max plan, chats can be used for training unless you switch off SettingsPrivacyHelp improve Claude.
No account yet? Ask your manager.
Where things are in Claude
- CustomizeConnectors In Claude's left sidebar: connect your email and files.
- /schedule Type it in a new Cowork task to run a prompt on a schedule.
- Scheduled In Claude's left sidebar: what runs, to pause or change it.
- Each Monday before 9:00, 5 minutes: download last week's statement for each bank account from your internet banking, as Excel or CSV, into a Bank folder inside your Finance folder. Add the ledger extract for those accounts that your accountant sends.
- Connect Google Drive under CustomizeConnectors. Keep this workflow's files in one Drive folder called Finance.
- Type /schedule, paste this workflow's prompt and pick Weekly, Monday at 9:00.
- Go through the open lines with whoever keeps the books, and correct the books yourself. Claude changes nothing in them.
- It runs while your computer is on and Claude is open. A Monday it was off is skipped, not queued.
Set this up on your computer: the Claude desktop app runs it.
The prompt
- Every Monday at 9:00, match last week's bank statements to our books, from the newest files in the Bank folder inside my Finance folder.
- 1. For each bank account, read the statement and the ledger extract for that account that our accountant sent. Check that the opening and closing balances agree, and if not, by how much they differ.
- 2. Match each statement line to an entry in the books by amount, date (up to 3 days apart) and reference or description. Mark each line "matched", "probably matched" (say why) or "open".
- 3. In the bank but not in the books: each line with its date, amount and description, and what it most likely is (a bank fee, interest, a customer payment, a direct debit, a card payment), marked as your reading.
- 4. In the books but not in the bank: each entry, and what it most likely is (a cheque not yet cleared, a transfer on its way, an entry in the wrong account, a duplicate).
- 5. Carry last week's open lines forward from the "Bank matching" sheet in the same folder, and say which ones cleared this week. Lines open for more than 2 weeks go at the top.
- 6. If a customer or supplier has sent a statement of their account with us, and it is in the folder, compare it with their account in our books the same way and list each difference.
- Save the result in the "Bank matching" sheet (create it on the first run), one tab per account. Do not post, change or delete any entry in the books. Mark any line you could not read.
What you get
A matching sheet per account: balances compared, every line matched or open, open lines carried from week to week, and the oldest ones at the top.
Get this workflow for your team
Two minutes each: everyone gets a plan of ready workflows like this one, inside your company's rules.
Your manager sees progress and hours. Never what Claude reads or writes.
FirstPrompt's workflow library adapts parts of Anthropic's knowledge-work-plugins (Apache-2.0), rewritten by FirstPrompt. Source and licence