How to match an unknown rent deposit to a tenant with AI
Ask your assistant for the deposits not matched yet. It lists money that arrived in your bank and is not recorded as anyone's rent, with up to three suggested leases for each and the signals behind the guess: the memo, the tenant's own cents, the exact amount or a sender seen before. You review one, say yes, and it records the deposit as that lease's rent.
Why deposits arrive without a name
Tenants pay by bank transfer or Zelle straight to your account. Some write the unit in the memo. Some do not. A spouse pays from another account. A roommate sends half. The bank line says only "ZELLE FROM J SMITH 1,150.00", and you are left asking which Smith.
The general method for sorting these out by hand is in how to match rent payments to tenants. Here the assistant does the first pass and you do the confirming.
The four signals behind a suggestion
| Signal | What it means | How strong |
|---|---|---|
| Memo | The tenant's memo id, such as 12B SMITH, appears in the bank text. | Strong |
| Cents | The amount ends in the tenant's own cents, which no one else has been asked to pay. | Strong |
| Amount | It equals exactly what that tenant was asked to pay. | Possible |
| Sender | The sender name matches one seen on an earlier payment from that lease. | Possible |
Each tenant gets a memo like 12B SMITH and an exact amount with its own cents, so two payments of the same rent are easy to tell apart. When both memo and cents agree, the suggestion is usually right. When only the amount agrees, two units at the same rent can look identical, and you should look closer.
The routine, step by step
- Ask: "Which deposits are not matched yet?" Oldest come first. You can limit it to one property or one bank account.
- Read the first deposit and its suggested leases with their signals.
- Ask: "Record the first one as rent for 12B." The assistant shows who, which unit, how much goes to what is owed and how much becomes prepaid rent. Nothing is saved yet.
- Say yes. The assistant confirms and the deposit is recorded.
Example a made-up $1,150.37 arrives with the memo "rent Nov". The cents .37 belong to 12B's lease and the amount is its rent, so the assistant suggests 12B as strong. If 12B owed $1,150.37, the whole deposit pays it. If 12B owed only $900.37, it would show $900.37 against the balance and $250 as prepaid rent.
Recording the same deposit for the same lease twice changes nothing, so a repeated yes does no harm.
When the match is unclear
- Do not record it. Leave it in the list until you know.
- Ask the likely tenant, with a short message you approve before it is sent.
- Check whether it is something other than rent: a deposit refund, a security deposit, a vendor refund. Those are not recorded as rent.
- Be careful with a deposit from a name you do not know that is larger than any rent. A wrong match hides the real source. See fake bank change email fraud for why odd deposits and odd requests deserve a second look.
How DoorKeeping handles it
The list of unmatched deposits is a read-only tool, and recording a match is a two-step action that saves only after you say yes. Rent stays in your own bank account, and anything involving money waits for your approval. Recording a deposit records what already arrived in your bank. It moves nothing.
Sources
- DoorKeeping: Connect Claude or ChatGPT (steps and tools list), read Oct 30, 2026
- Model Context Protocol: Architecture overview (tools, resources, prompts), read Oct 30, 2026
Questions
- Can the assistant record deposits without asking me?
- No. It shows who, which unit and how the amount is split first, and saves only when you confirm.
- What happens to money above what the tenant owes?
- It becomes prepaid rent on the lease. The preview shows the split before you confirm.
- What if two leases have the same rent?
- The amount alone cannot tell them apart. The memo, the tenant's own cents and the sender are what separate them, which is why each tenant gets their own cents.
- Does this move any money?
- No. Tenants pay your bank directly and this only records which lease a deposit belongs to.