The guide · playbook
The Claude for Small Business setup.
Anthropic launched Claude for Small Business — a plugin that installs inside Claude Cowork with 15 ready-to-run workflows and 15 reusable skills. Instead of copy-pasting your books, invoices and customer notes into ChatGPT every day, Claude reads from your real tools, drafts the work, and waits for your approval before anything sends, posts or pays. Here's the 5-step setup and the full command map.
The full setup + command list
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What this actually is
On May 13, 2026, Anthropic launched Claude for Small Business, a plugin that installs inside Claude Cowork (the desktop agent app). It ships with 15 ready-to-run workflows and 15 reusable skills that plug Claude into the tools you already use: QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, Docusign, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack.
Translation: instead of copy-pasting your books, invoices, calendar and customer notes into ChatGPT every day, Claude reads from your real tools, drafts the work, and waits for your approval before anything sends, posts or pays. It's available on paid Claude plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise).
What you need before you start
- A paid Claude plan.
- Claude Desktop installed (claude.com/download), latest version.
- Claude Cowork enabled on your account.
- Admin access to whichever business tools you want connected (QuickBooks, PayPal, etc.).
The 5-step setup
Toggle on the Small Business plugin
Open Claude Desktop, switch into Cowork mode, and find the plugin library. Install the Small Business plugin. That single toggle pulls in all 15 workflows, all 15 skills, and the connector list.Connect your tools
Inside the plugin, link the accounts you actually use — you don't need all eight, only what your business runs on. QuickBooks for payroll, cash and month-end close; PayPal for settlements, invoicing, disputes and refunds; HubSpot for lead triage, customer pulse and campaign tracking; Canva for campaign assets; Docusign for contracts; Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for mail, calendar and drive; Slack for daily briefs and alerts. Your existing permissions carry over — if a team member can't see something in QuickBooks today, they can't see it through Claude.Run your first workflow: /plan-payroll
Type /plan-payroll in Cowork. Claude pulls your cash position from QuickBooks, reconciles against incoming PayPal settlements, builds a 30-day forecast, ranks every overdue invoice by how the customer historically pays, and drafts the chase emails calibrated to each one (friendly for the on-time payer, firmer for the repeat late one). You review. You approve. It sends.Close your month: /close-month
Type /close-month. Claude reconciles your books against settlements, flags duplicate refunds, catches the small errors that usually cost you an hour with your accountant, and writes a full Profit and Loss document. Forward the packet straight on.Get a Monday brief: /monday-brief
Type /monday-brief and put it on a schedule (use /schedule inside any task). Every Monday morning a Slack message lands with your cash position, your week's calendar, pipeline movement from HubSpot, and the three things you should actually do today. One page instead of four browser tabs.The full command list
There are 30 workflows and skills you can invoke. Here's the map.
Finance
/plan-payroll30-day cash forecast + overdue invoice chases/close-monthmonth-end reconciliation + P&L packet for your accountant/cash-pulsedaily or weekly cash position check/forecast-cashrolling cash-flow forecast/invoice-chasechase what's overdue, customer by customer/tax-preppulls together what your accountant needs for tax season
Sales & customers
/lead-triagesorts inbound leads, drafts first replies/customer-pulseflags accounts going quiet or at risk/deal-recapsummary of where each open deal stands/follow-up-draftdrafts the next message in any thread
Marketing
/run-campaignfinds your weakest revenue month, drafts the offer, builds Canva assets, segments HubSpot, stages the send/content-strategycontent calendar tuned to your audience/campaign-attributionwhat's actually driving revenue/launch-productcoordinated launch checklist across tools
Operations
/monday-briefweekly Slack brief: cash, calendar, top 3 priorities/business-pulsebroader monthly view of how the business is doing/inbox-zerotriages mail and drafts replies for approval/calendar-cleardefends focus time, reschedules low-priority meetings
HR
/onboard-employeegenerates the full onboarding packet and schedules week 1/offboard-employeechecklist + access removal/policy-updatedrafts and circulates a policy change
Contracts & legal
/contract-reviewreads a contract, flags risk, suggests redlines/send-contractdrafts the contract, routes through Docusign, files the signed copy
Customer service
/ticket-triagesorts incoming support tickets by urgency/refund-deciderecommends approve/deny with reasoning/dispute-responddrafts response to a PayPal dispute
Reusable skills
Called by the workflows above, also runnable directly:
cash-positioncurrent position across accountsinvoice-statuswhat's paid, due and overduereconcilematch books against settlementscustomer-historyhow a customer has behaved over timecampaign-briefstructured brief for a campaignbrand-voicekeeps drafts on-brand
Three things most people miss
It learns your context. Tell /invoice-chase you chase at 15 days, tell /monday-brief to lead with cash before calendar, and the change saves for next time. Customise once, run forever.
You stay in the loop on anything that sends, posts or pays. Every workflow waits for your approval at the action step. Drafts queue up; nothing ships without you clicking.
It only sees what your account can see. Claude inherits the permissions on each connected tool. It can't see a payroll line your role doesn't have access to in QuickBooks.
Where to schedule the recurring ones
Inside any Cowork task, type /schedule to put it on a cadence. The ones worth scheduling on day one:
/monday-brief→ every Monday 7am/cash-pulse→ daily at end of day/invoice-chase→ every Tuesday/close-month→ first business day of the month
Scheduled tasks only run while your computer is awake and Claude Desktop is open, so if you shut your laptop on weekends, queue them for Mondays.
What it won't do
- It's not a replacement for QuickBooks, your accountant or your bookkeeper. It reconciles and drafts. You and your accountant still own the books.
- It doesn't act autonomously. Every sensitive action waits for your approval.
- It's not training on your business data on Team and Enterprise plans.
Getting started checklist
- Install Claude Desktop.
- Enable Cowork.
- Toggle on the Small Business plugin.
- Connect 2–3 tools to start (QuickBooks + PayPal + your inbox is a great starter set).
- Run
/plan-payrollonce this week. - Schedule
/monday-briefto land in Slack every Monday. - Add the rest as you find them useful.
Anthropic also has a free AI Fluency course and a 10-city training tour if you want hands-on time. Worth checking the launch announcement on anthropic.com for dates near you.
Original guide by Artem Novitckii. More from him on Instagram, in the Skool community, and across his resource library.