Importing a month of card activity
Give Claude the statement — a CSV, a PDF, or a paste — and name the account: “Here’s the March Amex statement. Plan credit card charges against Amex Platinum, coding them the way we did in February.” Claude reads your saved coding rules and last month’s postings, codes what it recognises, and asks about what it doesn’t. Answer, then read the table and approve. Give it a real reference for each line — the statement’s own transaction id, or the file name. That reference is what makes a re-run safe if something interrupts it.Entering a stack of bills
Point Claude at a folder: “Enter the bills in this folder against the right vendors. Terms are net 30 unless the bill says otherwise.” It reads each one, resolves the vendor against your name list, and blocks anything it can’t match rather than creating a new vendor. Use the vendor’s own bill number as the reference so a bill can’t be entered twice. For the vendors that really are new, ask it to create the names the plan is waiting on. You see the list first, it creates them in one step, and the blocked entries come back ready.Fixing a miscoded quarter
“Everything from Ridgeline Supply Co since January went to Office Supplies. It should be Building Materials. Show me what’s affected.” Claude finds the transactions and shows you the list before changing anything. Approve, and it posts the corrections as a batch — reversible like any other run.Teaching it a coding rule
When you correct a coding decision, make it stick: “Remember that AMZN MKTP always goes to Shop Supplies for this company.” That saves a rule scoped to this company file. It fills in coding that was left empty on future batches, and never overrides a value Claude worked out from an actual receipt. Rules don’t cross company files. Charts of accounts differ between clients, and a rule that crossed files would post to a plausibly-named wrong account in the other file. Review rules on the console’s Coding rules page, or ask Claude to list them. Forget one with “stop coding AMZN MKTP automatically.”Telling it something a rule can’t hold
Rules handle “this descriptor means that account”. Anything needing judgement goes to knowledge: “Remember that Coastal Supply invoices two months behind — a March bill is usually January work.” That’s saved against the client and comes back on its own the next time Coastal Supply appears in a batch. It starts as a draft and does nothing until you confirm it, on the console’s Knowledge page or by asking Claude.Writing down a procedure
“Write this up as our month-end close for this client, with the statement date as a slot.” The steps are saved, and running the playbook later returns them filled in for Claude to carry out with the ordinary tools. Postings still go through plan and approve. Confirm it once someone has read it — a draft playbook can’t be run.Running a report
“Run a P&L for Q1 against the same quarter last year.”qb_report runs QuickBooks’ own report engine — P&L, balance sheet, trial balance, agings, job profitability — so the numbers match what the client sees in QuickBooks. See asking questions.
Tracing an entry back
Six weeks later, someone asks why a transaction is there: “Explain transaction 8A1-1741039201.” Claude answers with the batch that posted it, who approved that batch, when, and the source document reference it carried. From the other direction, the console’s Runs page lists every batch with its entries and their QuickBooks ids. The Work log page answers what the journal can’t: not what posted, but why, and what was still open when whoever did it stopped for the day.Undoing a batch
“Reverse run-20260803-152233-77bc.” Each transaction the run posted is voided, keeping it in the register with a zero amount so the audit trail survives. Funds transfers can’t be voided through the QuickBooks SDK. They’re reported back for you to remove by hand — see what it can’t do.Checking a bank statement against the books
“Here’s the operating account statement for March. What’s in QuickBooks that isn’t on it, and what’s on it that isn’t in QuickBooks?” Claude reads both and lists the differences. Marking items cleared isqb_set_cleared_status, which sets the cleared flag — it doesn’t create a reconciliation record. Finish in the Reconcile window in QuickBooks.