Inventory recurring charges across statement files

Proposed inputs

1. Name

   Minimized statement copies

   Owner

   Account owner

   Minimum scope

   A chosen set of statement periods with transaction date, merchant, amount, currency and an account alias.

   Quality check

   Remove unnecessary identifiers; check missing months, duplicate exports and debit/credit signs.

2. Name

   Owner status notes

   Owner

   Account owner

   Minimum scope

   Known merchant aliases and any confirmed cancellation or renewal details.

   Quality check

   Keep the evidence date and distinguish a cancellation request from provider confirmation.

Access and setup — proposed or unknown

Proposed minimum

1. Tools to check: Claude Cowork, authorized statement copies and an XLSX viewer. Verify format support and the processing destination; begin with minimized copies in a separate review folder.

2. Reconcile the input periods, propose recurrence groups with supporting rows, then have the owner resolve ambiguous merchants and statuses before relying on totals.

Compatibility unknowns

1. Unknown: actual file limits, OCR accuracy, current storage/retention settings and workbook formula behavior.

External actions requiring approval

1. Uploading statements to an external destination, connecting bank accounts, contacting providers or changing subscriptions.

Why use this

1. A repeated charge is a clue, not proof that a subscription remains active. Refunds, annual renewals and installment plans can distort a simple monthly scan.

2. A reviewable inventory helps the owner decide what to investigate without automatically cancelling services or presenting hypothetical savings as money already recovered.

Why an agent / simpler alternative

Useful judgment

Connect plausible merchant-name variants while preserving uncertainty and explain why a pattern may be recurring rather than routine shopping.

Simpler alternative

Use the bank’s recurring-payment view or a spreadsheet grouping rule when merchant descriptions and billing intervals are consistent.

Unsuitable when

Statement coverage is too short or incomplete to support recurrence, account ownership is unclear, or the desired outcome requires financial advice rather than record organization.

Expected deliverable and review checks

Proposed artifact

A draft register with merchant candidate, account alias, supporting row identifiers, observed intervals, currency, status evidence and an owner decision column.

Critical checks

1. Every proposed recurring group links back to source rows; duplicates are not counted twice.

2. Currencies stay separate unless an explicitly dated conversion basis is supplied.

3. Frequent groceries or transfers are not automatically treated as subscriptions.

4. Cancellation and savings fields remain unconfirmed without supporting owner evidence; missing months are visible.

Missing output evidence

The article supplies a recipe and illustrative screenshots; this research did not validate a produced workbook.

First check — proposed, unexecuted

Status

proposed_unexecuted

Synthetic fixture

Use invented rows for three months: one monthly service with a spelling variation, weekly groceries, a refund, duplicate exported rows and one missing account month. No real statements are used.

Acceptance checks

1. Identify the service as a candidate with evidence, exclude ordinary shopping and avoid double-counting.

2. Flag the missing month and keep cancellation and realized savings unconfirmed.

Stop conditions

1. Sensitive originals need an unapproved upload, transaction identity is ambiguous or a provider action becomes necessary.

Failure signals and proposed responses

1. Signal

   Two similar merchant labels are combined across unrelated charges.

   Why it matters

   The inventory can exaggerate a commitment or conceal a second service.

   Proposed response

   Split the group, show its supporting rows and ask the owner to resolve the identity.

2. Signal

   A missing monthly charge is marked cancelled.

   Why it matters

   A gap, pause or different billing interval can look like cancellation.

   Proposed response

   Return the status to unknown and request evidence rather than calculating savings.

3. Signal

   A credit is included as another subscription debit.

   Why it matters

   The recurring total misstates the observed cash flow.

   Proposed response

   Reconcile transaction signs and link the credit to its original charge when supported.

Effort and cost — unknown

Setup work

1. Choose complete periods, minimize sensitive fields and supply known status evidence.

Ongoing review

1. Review uncertain groups and changes without treating every repeated purchase as a new obligation.

Unknowns

1. Unknown: review time, extraction failure rate, actual contract state and any achievable savings.

Limits

1. This is a proposed records review, not a determination of legal obligations, a spending recommendation or a claim of savings. The source recipe has not been executed here.