Recipes / Claude Code use cases
Claude CodeRoutineMoney & bills

5-minute daily ledger reconcile

A daily routine: the agent processes yesterday's receipts and pasted bank lines into a ledger file, you check balances against the bank yourself, then commit.

From Erik Craddock · Blog · Aug 2025

Setup time1 hour
CostIncluded in plan
RunsEvery morning
NeedsClaude Code, ledger CLI, private git repo
Last updated2026-10-17

What the source did

  • Uses his ledger-starter repo as a base, kept in a private git repo.
  • Runs a /process-inbox command for scanned receipts.
  • Pastes missing transactions from bank sites with short instructions; Claude adds them as pending.
  • Verifies cleared balances with the ledger CLI and runs /format before committing.

Summary written by Agent Cookbook. See the original for the full context.

Get their template

Made and published by Erik Craddock. Start here; it is their original, not ours.

Our adapted version

Ours Our version, based on what Erik Craddock described. Not their wording. Fill in the [BRACKETS].

/process-inbox Then: here are new lines from my [ACCOUNT] statement: [PASTE]. Add each one to this year's file using the existing account mappings. Mark new items pending (!). Don't change any cleared (*) entries. Finally run: ledger cleared bal Assets Liabilities --no-pager and show the output next to the bank balance I give you: [BALANCE].

Approval rule

🛡
You compare balances against the bank yourself; the agent never logs into banks.

Set it up

  1. Clone a ledger starter repo and make it private.
  2. Write account mappings once in the repo README.
  3. Each morning: process receipts, paste missing lines, compare balances, commit.

Common failures

⚠
  • Skipping days makes reconciliation painful.
  • The agent guesses a mapping for a new merchant. Review new payees.

Variations

  • Use the hledger recipe for tagging trips.
  • Weekly instead of daily if you have few transactions.

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Get their template ↗