More of you are automating whole workflows with Claude now, not single tasks. I see it in the questions I get. Someone maps out their month-end close, hands the whole thing over, and waits for it to run. Then one step breaks, and the confidence goes with it.
The problem is almost never that Claude cannot do the work. A workflow is a chain of different kinds of work, and only some of it belongs to Claude. Sort the steps first, and most of the frustration goes away.
This week the free section has the way I sort any workflow into three types, with a real reconciliation worked through. The subscriber section goes further: a prompt that sorts your workflows for you, and a full build of one, including the exact Claude Project instructions you can copy.
Updates and Upcoming Events
Claude in Action, Cohort 2 starts today.
The next cohort runs in September. Signup opens closer to the date, so stay tuned!
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Yesterday I ran the Fractional CFO Corner inside the AI Finance Club. If you missed it, the replay should already be available for teh club members.
And next Monday, July 20, I am teaching a live class on Plugins in Claude in the AI Finance Club. Dont miss it!
The Three Types of Tasks
Here is the most common way I see Claude fail in finance right now, and it is not Claude's fault. Someone hands it a whole workflow, start to finish, and waits for it to run clean every month. It stalls on one step. They decide Claude is not ready.
Claude was ready for most of that workflow, but not all of it, and not as one block.
A workflow is a chain of steps, and the steps are not the same kind of work. Some need judgment. Some are a fixed rule. Some Claude should not touch. Sorting them is the whole game. Three types.
Probabilistic. The judgment work. Claude reads a receipt and decides what expense it is, writes the variance commentary, spots the odd duplicate. This is where it earns its place.
Deterministic. A rule with one right answer every time. A GL mapping, an accrual formula. Claude can write the rule for you, then it is locked as code or a formula. It does not get re-decided each month, because a model re-deciding the same math is how numbers drift.
Systems. Not Claude at all. The step moves data between tools, which wants a connector like n8n, or it runs inside a system that owns it, like posting a journal entry to the ledger or refreshing a BI dashboard. Purpose-built software already does this. Do not pull it into Claude.
The workflows themselves repeat. I see the same few shapes across finance teams. Here are two.
An AmEx statement reconciliation:
Load the statement and the receipts.
Match each charge to a receipt, flag any charge with no invoice.
Validate the file code and GL account for each charge.
Flag exceptions: missing receipts, miscodes, duplicates.
Prepare the coded journal entry lines.
Output the exception list.
A bank transaction workflow:
Import the bank detail, confirm the account list.
Categorize each transaction.
Summarize by account and category.
Map categories to GL accounts.
Draft the cash journal entries.
Reconcile the cash movement, flag unmatched items.
Take the AmEx one. Sort it step by step.
Load the statement and receipts. Systems. Get the data in.
Read each receipt, decide what it is, match it to a charge. Probabilistic.
Validate the file code and GL account. Probabilistic. Someone has to judge whether the coding is right.
Flag missing receipts, miscodes, duplicates. Probabilistic. Deciding a charge is miscoded is judgment.
Prepare the coded journal entry lines. Deterministic. Same transformation every time, lock it as code.
Output the exception list. Probabilistic, a light one.
Most of this reconciliation is judgment. That is why it is a good Cowork build. But here is the part people miss. To make the judgment steps run the same way every month, you do not re-explain them in a fresh chat each time. You write the classification rules into the project in detail, so Claude codes an expense the same way in July as it did in March. The one deterministic step, building the entry lines, you lock as code. And posting those entries to the ledger, the step after this workflow, is Systems. It never goes to Claude.
Get the split right, and the workflow runs. Hand the whole thing to Claude cold each month, and you get slow output and numbers that move.
A mis-sorted step shows itself in how it fails. Read the signal, then move the step:
It works once, then fails with file or connector errors the next time. That is a Systems step you handed to Claude, a pull or a save. Give it to a connector, or leave it in the system that owns the data.
The result reads fine but the numbers drift a little each run. A Deterministic step is running as judgment. Lock it as code or a formula so the math is identical every month.
You rewrite the same instructions every close. A rule is living in your head instead of your project. Put it in writing so the step runs the same way without you there.
The answer looks right but breaks on the odd case. A Probabilistic step with rules too loose. Name the categories and the exceptions until the edge cases are covered.
This is a snapshot, not a fixed rule. I am sorting for what Claude does today. It keeps getting more capable, and I expect it to run longer, more advanced workflows on its own before long, pulling steps out of Systems and handling more of the judgment end to end. That is the direction. It is not there yet. So build for the tool you have now, and re-sort as it grows.
Sorting one example here is easy. Doing it to your own workflow is the skill.
In the subscriber section, I hand you a prompt that sorts any workflow for you, then design a real one end-to-end, including the exact Claude Project instructions you can copy and a skill you can download.
If you are not yet a subscriber, this is a good edition to upgrade on.
Closing Thoughts
The goal was never to run everything through Claude. It is to know which part is Claude's, which part is a locked rule, and which part belongs to a system you already own. Sort one workflow well, and the next one goes faster. That is how this compounds, whether you are fixing one close or a hundred processes.
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Until next Tuesday, keep balancing!
Anna Tiomina
AI-Powered CFO
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