After this lesson
- Distinguish a recurring payment from a one-off purchase.
- Record the biller, account and next action without guessing missing information.
Start with a receipt, not a memory
The charge you remember is not always the service you need to manage. A brand name, a payment processor and a subscription can appear in different places. Your first job is to preserve what the evidence actually says.
Use the practice pack. It contains three fictional subscriptions and one one-off purchase. For each record, write the service, biller, account alias, payment frequency, commitment, next date and evidence reference. Mark an unknown as unknown. A tidy guess is still a guess.
A useful inventory has a next action
“STAY+ — $12” cannot tell you where to go. “STAY+, billed by Apple, account NORTH, monthly, next renewal 8 October, receipt R01” can.
Do not cancel anything in this first activity. First decide whether the payment belongs in the inventory at all, and whether you have enough information to find its owner. A one-off purchase belongs in a separate notes column.
A small test of understanding
Which would you check first: the app icon, the receipt, or the last time you used the service? Explain what your chosen evidence can establish, and what it cannot.
Bring a four-row inventory to the workshop. You will add the correct billing routes next week. Read the inventory brief.