More in Bookkeeping, receipts & invoices.
Fill in a bookkeeper's mystery transactions from Amazon and Gmail with Claude Cowork
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Before you start, ask me 1–3 short questions about the details below and wait for my answers. Once I've answered, confirm the plan in one line and run the whole task start to finish. Goal: Fill in the notes column of my bookkeeper's list of unidentified transactions by matching them to my orders and emails. Questions to ask me first: - Which month, and where is the bookkeeper's sheet? - Which accounts should you check (Amazon, Gmail, Venmo, others), and are you signed in? - What counts as business and what counts as personal? Inputs (fill in or confirm): - Bookkeeper's sheet: [SHEET LINK] - Month: [MONTH] - Places to look: [AMAZON / GMAIL / OTHER] - Business vs. personal rules: [RULES] Rules: - Match each transaction to an order or receipt and write a short note saying what it was. - Apply my business/personal rules, and if one order has both, count only the business part. - If you're not sure about something, flag it for me instead of guessing. - Don't buy, cancel or change anything in my accounts; only read and fill in the sheet. Checkpoint: After the first few transactions, show me your notes so I can confirm they're right before you do the rest. If you get stuck: Tell me exactly where you're stuck and what source might have the answer, then wait for me to point you to it. Verify before you finish: Check that every row has a note or a flag and that split orders show only the business amount. Output: The completed sheet plus a short list of flagged rows that need my answer. Done when: Every transaction has a note or a flag, and you've offered to save the steps so I can repeat them next month.
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Before you start, ask me 1–3 short questions about the details below and wait for my answers. Once I've answered, confirm the plan in one line and run the whole task start to finish. Goal: Fill in the notes column of my bookkeeper's list of unidentified transactions by matching them to my orders and emails. Questions to ask me first: - Which month, and where is the bookkeeper's sheet? - Which accounts should you check (Amazon, Gmail, Venmo, others), and are you signed in? - What counts as business and what counts as personal? Inputs (fill in or confirm): - Bookkeeper's sheet: [SHEET LINK] - Month: [MONTH] - Places to look: [AMAZON / GMAIL / OTHER] - Business vs. personal rules: [RULES] Rules: - Match each transaction to an order or receipt and write a short note saying what it was. - Apply my business/personal rules, and if one order has both, count only the business part. - If you're not sure about something, flag it for me instead of guessing. - Don't buy, cancel or change anything in my accounts; only read and fill in the sheet. Checkpoint: After the first few transactions, show me your notes so I can confirm they're right before you do the rest. If you get stuck: Tell me exactly where you're stuck and what source might have the answer, then wait for me to point you to it. Verify before you finish: Check that every row has a note or a flag and that split orders show only the business amount. Output: The completed sheet plus a short list of flagged rows that need my answer. Done when: Every transaction has a note or a flag, and you've offered to save the steps so I can repeat them next month.
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Here's my bookkeeper's sheet [link]. Go through my Amazon orders and my Gmail for August, figure out what these transactions were, and fill in the notes column. Groceries and vitamins are personal — shipping supplies and storage bins are business. If one order has both, only count the business part. If you're not sure about something, flag it for me instead of guessing.
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Outcome
Every month, Rachel Rofé's bookkeeper sends a spreadsheet of transactions nobody can identify, which used to mean digging through Gmail and old Amazon orders. Rofé logged into Amazon and Gmail, then gave Claude Cowork the sheet, the month and plain-English rules for business versus personal, telling it to flag anything uncertain instead of guessing. It opened each Amazon order and reconciled them one by one, then found and logged every Venmo payment in Gmail with notes. It got about 90% of the way there, told Rofé where it was stuck, and Rofé pointed it to the missing piece. Rofé then had it save the whole process as a Skill, so each month the request is just 'do the bookkeeping thing.'
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- by Rachel Rofé (personal blog)
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https://rachelrofe.com/claude-cowork-bookkeeping
Context: Rofé was signed in and could watch and stop the work on screen. Cowork needs a paid Claude plan, starting at $20 a month.
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