Draft the monthly report from the month-end numbers
When the month is closed, Claude reads the exports, the budget and last month's report, and writes this month's: the numbers against last month and budget, and why each line that moved did.
FullFinanceWhen you need it
Set it up6 steps
Open the Claude desktop app and sign in with the Claude account you use for work. On a personal Free, Pro or Max plan, chats can be used for training unless you switch off SettingsPrivacyHelp improve Claude.
No account yet? Ask your manager.
Where things are in Claude
- CustomizeConnectors In Claude's left sidebar: connect your email and files.
- /schedule Type it in a new Cowork task to run a prompt on a schedule.
- Scheduled In Claude's left sidebar: what runs, to pause or change it.
- Once for the whole company: your Microsoft admin approves Claude's Microsoft 365 connector and turns on its write tools, so Claude can save drafts and files. If connecting asks for an admin's approval, this is still to do: send them this step.
- When the month is closed, export profit and loss, the balance sheet, sales and costs from your accounting system into a Monthly report folder inside your Finance folder, next to last month's report and the budget.
- Once, write a one-line "What to explain" note in that folder: how big a move needs a reason, for example 10 percent or a set amount.
- In Cowork, connect your Finance folder in OneDrive or SharePoint (the one synced to this computer).
- Type /schedule, paste this workflow's prompt and pick Manual. It waits under Scheduled; run it each month once the exports are in.
- Check every number it marks before the report goes out.
Set this up on your computer: the Claude desktop app runs it.
The prompt
- Read this month's exports, the budget and last month's report in the Monthly report folder inside my Finance folder.
- Write this month's report as a new Word document in the same folder:
- 1. Five lines on how the month went.
- 2. Revenue, gross margin and the main cost lines, each against last month and against budget. Then cash, money owed to us, money we owe and stock at the month's end, against last month, where the exports have them.
- 3. Every line that moved by more than the "What to explain" note in the folder allows, against last month or against budget (without the note, the five biggest moves): by how much, and why, from the rows behind it. Say whether the move came from volume, price, a one-off, or timing (a cost or a sale booked in a different month). Write "reason unknown" rather than inventing one.
- 4. What to watch next month.
- Use only numbers from the files. Mark any number that does not add up instead of correcting it.
What you get
A report draft built only from your exports, with a reason for every line that moved past your limit and every number that does not add up marked.
Get this workflow for your team
Two minutes each: everyone gets a plan of ready workflows like this one, inside your company's rules.
Your manager sees progress and hours. Never what Claude reads or writes.
FirstPrompt's workflow library adapts parts of Anthropic's knowledge-work-plugins (Apache-2.0), rewritten by FirstPrompt. Source and licence