Matching a nursery's bank payments to its fees sheet

I run Once, Not Twice, a small business that builds automations for other small firms. A children's nursery had to check every bank payment against its fees spreadsheet by hand each month, then type the amounts into the right rows.

I built a small tool for the nursery computer. Staff download the month's bank payments as a file and drop that file onto the tool. It matches each payment to the right child, using the name or the Tax-Free Childcare reference as it appears on the bank line. It writes the amount into the right month column on the fees spreadsheet. A dated backup is saved before any change. Amounts already on the sheet are left alone, so the same file can be run again without counting a payment twice. The spreadsheet's formulas are not changed. If a payment matches no child, or could belong to more than one, it goes on a short list for staff to check. The tool does not guess. The bank file stays on the nursery computer. The fees spreadsheet can stay in the nursery's usual shared folder.

The matcher was built and tested for a children's nursery. In a test, it matched 94 payments and listed 6 for checking. A normal month takes about five minutes of a person's time. From £150.