Fifty Unclear Transactions Per Client: What to Categorize, What to Ask
Not every unclear transaction deserves a WhatsApp message to the client. A simple way to decide which ones you handle and which ones you ask about.
A typical client statement has a hundred or more lines. Your rules recognise the salary, the insurance premium and the SIP. That still leaves fifty lines a month that need a decision: a ₹1,840 UPI payment to a pharmacy, a ₹4,500 cash withdrawal, a ₹38,000 card bill.
You can’t ask the client about all fifty. You also can’t guess.
Three kinds of unclear
Most unclear transactions fall into one of three groups, and each deserves a different response.
Routine, but new. A monthly Netflix charge, a weekly BigBasket order. Once you know what it is, it will be the same every month. Don’t categorize these one at a time; write a rule once, and next month they arrive done.
Likely, but worth a glance. A payment to Apollo Pharmacy is almost certainly medical. An IRCTC payment is almost certainly travel. You can decide these quickly, but they still deserve a look: one in twenty will be something else.
Only the client knows. A ₹25,000 transfer to a person’s name. A cash withdrawal. A payment that could be personal or business. No amount of experience will tell you, and a wrong guess here is the kind that surfaces in an assessment.
The rule of thumb
- Routine: write a rule, never ask.
- Likely: decide quickly, but keep a person in the loop. A suggestion is fine; an unchecked assumption isn’t.
- Only the client knows: ask, and make asking cheap. Batch the questions, and let the client answer in one sitting rather than over fifty messages.
The aim is to spend your attention, and your client’s, only where it changes the books.
Where Lekhavo fits
Lekhavo covers all three groups. Rules match keywords in the bank’s narration and fill in payee and category on every future statement. For the likely group, AI suggestions propose one of the client’s own categories with a confidence figure, and say nothing when they can’t tell. Nothing is applied until you accept it, and identifiers such as account numbers, phone numbers and UPI handles are masked before anything is sent. For the rest, your client signs in to their own portal and fills in what only they know.
There’s a one-minute example of each: rules, AI suggestions and the client portal.
Sign up free and see how much of your fifty disappears.