Dec '25 (edited) • Business & Strategy 🧠
Built Bank Reconciliation Workflow After Client Missed Fraud 🔥
Client called me Monday morning. Frustrated tone in voice.
"We keep missing problems in our bank statements. Just discovered $7,500 unauthorized transaction from 4 weeks ago. Bank's fraud protection window? Only 10 business days. We're too late to dispute now."
Lost the money completely.
Their reconciliation process: accountant downloads PDF monthly from bank, types every single transaction into Excel manually one by one, looks for anomalies whenever has time available.
Problem: "when has time" meant 3-4 weeks after statement actually arrived each month.
THE AUTOMATED WORKFLOW
Built n8n workflow eliminating manual work completely.
New statement uploaded to Google Drive folder? Workflow triggers automatically. Downloads file. Extracts all transaction data. Categorizes using keyword rules. Flags anomalies instantly. Logs summary to Google Sheets. Sends Slack alert if issues found.
THE EXTRACTION
Pulls complete data from PDF:
Account number and statement period
Opening and closing balances
All transactions: dates, descriptions, debits, credits, running balances
Transaction totals
Complete structured dataset
THE ANALYSIS
Categorization rules:
Payroll: salary, payroll, wages
Utilities: electric, gas, water, internet
Food: restaurant, grocery, food
Transportation: uber, gas station, parking
Uncategorized: manual review needed
Anomaly detection:
Large transactions: over $5,000
Negative balances: any occurrence
Balance mismatches: validation errors
All flagged with details
THE RESULTS
Before automation:
4 hours monthly manual data entry
3-4 weeks processing delay
Inconsistent categorization
Fraud found too late
After automation:
30 seconds automated processing
Same-day processing when uploaded
100% consistent categories
Immediate fraud alerts
First month deployed:
Statement with 312 transactions processed in 30 seconds
Flagged $4,800 charge immediately
Team contacted vendor same day
Discovered legitimate but unusual purchase
Verified and approved within hours
Second month:
Caught $2,100 duplicate payment
Contacted vendor immediately
Refund processed within fraud window
Money recovered completely
Client feedback: "This automation already paid for itself by catching that duplicate. The $7,500 loss motivated us to finally automate. Won't happen again."
THE WORKFLOW
Complete n8n workflow JSON. Import to instance. Connect Google Drive folder for statements. Connect Google Sheets for tracking. Connect Slack for alerts. Customize categorization keywords and anomaly thresholds. Test with historical statement. Deploy to production.
Setup: 20 minutes. Maintenance: minimal keyword updates.
What fraud detection are you doing too slowly?
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Built Bank Reconciliation Workflow After Client Missed Fraud 🔥
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