How to reconcile a bank statement with invoices using Claude Cowork

Finance & invoicingClaude Cowork

The problem

Matching each bank transaction to an invoice every month, cleaning vendor names and spotting missing receipts takes an afternoon.

Tools needed

• Claude Cowork
• A local folder with your bank statement and invoices
• Excel

Step-by-step recipe

1. Put the month's bank statement and the related invoices in one folder.
2. Give Cowork access to that folder.
3. In one prompt, ask it to clean vendor names, categorise expenses and match invoices to transactions.
4. Ask it to flag transactions with no invoice and produce a formatted Excel file.
5. Have it rename the invoice files to a consistent pattern.

Copyable prompt

In this folder there is a bank statement for [MONTH] and invoice files.
1. Read every transaction. Clean up vendor names (e.g. "AMZN MKTP DE*2X" becomes "Amazon").
2. Categorise each one using: [CATEGORIES].
3. Match invoices to transactions by amount, date (+/- 5 days) and vendor.
4. Create reconciliation-[MONTH].xlsx with columns: date, vendor, amount, category, matched invoice file, status (matched / missing invoice / unsure).
5. Rename matched invoices to YYYY-MM-DD_vendor_amount.pdf.
Do not delete or move any other files. List anything you were unsure about at the end.

What the builder reported

The author says it extracted everything correctly, renamed the invoices cleanly and marked every transaction without an invoice, saving her a full afternoon a month. She only tested a few invoices.

These are the source author's own claims. AgentRecipes has not tested or verified them.

Watch out for

• Start with a small, non-sensitive folder: Cowork reads your local files directly.
• Spot-check the matches before handing the file to your accountant.

Source

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