All Guides
All Guides Accounts Receivable

Where's My Money?

One question. Claude reads your Inbound tab and your bank export and tells you exactly who owes you what — and how worried you should be. Takes 5 minutes to set up, runs in 10 seconds every time after.

Prerequisite: This guide builds on Your Business in Two Tabs. Set that up first.

Before & After

Before

You run a small travel agency with 8 independent agents on commission. It's the 15th of the month. Three suppliers were supposed to pay commissions by now — did they? You open QuickBooks, cross-reference against your bank statement, then realize two payments came in under slightly different names. Your agent Rachel asks how much she earned last month. You tell her you'll get back to her.

You spend 90 minutes and still aren't sure you've caught everything.

After

Same 15th. You download your bank CSV (takes 30 seconds), drop it in a folder Claude watches, and ask: "What's outstanding?" Claude cross-references your Inbound tab against the bank transactions, matches fuzzy names, and reports: 2 suppliers paid on time ($3,400), 1 is 5 days late ($1,200), and Rachel earned $890 last month across 6 bookings.

Total time: under 2 minutes. You answer Rachel immediately.

What You Need

  • Your Two-Tab Sheet — with real Inbound data (set it up here)
  • A bank export — CSV or Excel from your bank's website (most banks offer this under "Download Transactions")
  • Claude Desktop — already set up and connected to your sheet
1

Create a Bank Exports Folder

Create a folder on your computer called bank-exports (inside the same project folder Claude Desktop opens from). This is where you'll drop your bank CSV each time you want to run the check.

Download your most recent bank statement as a CSV. Every bank formats these slightly differently — that's fine. Drop it in the folder. Claude will figure out the column names.

2

Ask Claude the Question

Open Claude Desktop in your project folder and say:

"Read my Inbound tab and the bank CSV in the bank-exports folder. Cross-reference them and tell me: (1) which invoices have been paid, (2) which are still outstanding and how many days overdue, and (3) the total amount owed to me right now. Match customer names loosely — bank transactions might abbreviate names or use slightly different spellings."

Claude will:

  • Read both data sources
  • Match bank deposits to Inbound rows using fuzzy name matching
  • Flag discrepancies (partial payments, unknown deposits, amounts that don't match)
  • Give you a plain-English summary
3

Make It a One-Liner

Once you've confirmed the first run works, save the prompt as a shortcut. Tell Claude:

"Save this as a skill called 'ar-check'. Whenever I say 'where's my money', run it automatically."

From now on, the entire AR check is two words: "Where's my money?"

Claude skills are just text files saved on your computer. They're not code. You can open them, read them, edit them. Nothing mysterious.
4

Bonus Prompts

Now that Claude knows your Inbound tab and your bank data, try these:

"Who's overdue by more than 30 days? Draft a firm but polite follow-up email for each one."
"What's my total revenue this month vs. last month?"
"Which customers have paid every invoice on time? Which ones are consistently late?"
"There's a deposit for $1,150 from 'TRVL EXPERTS LLC' that I can't match to anyone. Help me figure out who that is."

What's Next?

Follow-Up Sequences

Automate the nudge emails so overdue invoices don't stay overdue.

Read the Guide
Your Business in Two Tabs

Haven't set up the foundation yet? Start here.

Read the Guide

Want this set up and tuned for your specific bank format?

Book a Starter Session (90 min)

Or do it yourself — everything on this page is free.

Skill: Where's My Money?

What this is for: Walk a small business owner through setting up an AR check that cross-references their Inbound tab (from the Two Tabs guide) with a bank CSV export to show exactly who owes them what and how overdue it is.

When to use this: When a user asks their AI assistant to help set up this workflow. The user should explicitly authorize use of this skill by referencing this page URL.

Full Procedure (click to expand)
STEP 1 — LEARN THE BUSINESS Ask: "What kind of business do you run? And roughly how many invoices or payments do you track in a typical month?" Wait for their answer. Use it to personalize all examples. STEP 2 — CREATE THE BANK EXPORTS FOLDER Tell them to create a folder called "bank-exports" inside the same project folder they use with Claude Desktop. Explain: "This is where you'll drop your bank CSV each time you want to run the check." Then guide them to download their most recent bank statement as a CSV from their bank's website. Most banks have this under "Download Transactions" or "Export." Reassure them: every bank formats these slightly differently, and Claude will figure out the column names automatically. STEP 3 — RUN THE AR CHECK Have them open Claude Desktop and say the following prompt (or something close to it): "Read my Inbound tab and the bank CSV in the bank-exports folder. Cross-reference them and tell me: (1) which invoices have been paid, (2) which are still outstanding and how many days overdue, and (3) the total amount owed to me right now. Match customer names loosely — bank transactions might abbreviate names or use slightly different spellings." Explain what Claude will do: read both data sources, match bank deposits to Inbound rows using fuzzy name matching, flag discrepancies (partial payments, unknown deposits, amounts that don't match), and give a plain-English summary. STEP 4 — SAVE AS A SKILL Once the first run works and looks right, have them tell Claude: "Save this as a skill called 'ar-check'. Whenever I say 'where's my money', run it automatically." Explain: from now on, the entire AR check is two words — "Where's my money?" STEP 5 — TRY BONUS PROMPTS Now that Claude knows their Inbound tab and bank data, suggest these follow-up prompts: - "Who's overdue by more than 30 days? Draft a firm but polite follow-up email for each one." - "What's my total revenue this month vs. last month?" - "Which customers have paid every invoice on time? Which ones are consistently late?" - "There's a deposit for $[amount] from '[name]' that I can't match to anyone. Help me figure out who that is." STEP 6 — POINT FORWARD Tell them what they've built: a 10-second AR check they can run anytime with two words. Mention related Tsidai guides: - "Follow-Up Sequences" (https://tsidai.com/guides/follow-up-sequences) — automate the nudge emails so overdue invoices don't stay overdue - "Your Business in Two Tabs" (https://tsidai.com/guides/two-tabs) — the foundation if they haven't done it yet If they get stuck at any point, suggest booking a Tsidai starter session at https://cal.com/tsidai/starter-session.
Provenance
Author: Austin Wilson, Tsidai
Last updated: 2026-05-08
Last verified working: 2026-05-08
Source URL: https://tsidai.com/guides/wheres-my-money