Finance & bookkeeping · Claude Code

Pull business expenses out of personal card statements into Excel

Idea + starter prompt, not run by us yet

For: Employees and freelancers who claim business costs paid on a personal card

The author gathered every personal card statement into a single folder and started Claude Code inside it. Her request was to spot charges that were probably for work, so she could claim them back. It first went over the earliest statements with her, picking up her habits and asking about anything unclear, then wrote the expenses to an Excel sheet.

Steps

1. Put your card statements in one folder, and check your employer's data rules first.
2. Open Claude Code in that folder and paste the starter prompt.
3. Answer its questions about unclear charges so it learns your patterns.
4. Check the final sheet against the statements before you claim anything.

Starter prompt

This folder holds my personal card statements for [period]. I need to find business expenses to claim back from [employer or client].

Start with the first two statements. Show me the charges you think are business and ask me about any you are unsure of. Use my answers as rules for the rest.

Then go through all statements and write the business expenses to [file name].xlsx with date, merchant, amount and reason. Do not change the statement files.

Original post: Substack · found via agentusecases.ai. Written up in our own words. We haven't run it, so test it on made-up data first.