Get Started with Claude Cowork — for FP&A and Finance Teams

by Christian Martinez

This guide walks through Claude Cowork, specially for financial planning & analysis, accounting, and finance workflows: month-end close, reconciliations, variance analysis, journal entries, SOX testing, and financial reporting.

Availability

Claude Cowork is available on paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) on:

Claude Desktop for macOS — download from claude.com/download
Claude Desktop for Windows — requires the latest version; download or update at claude.com/download
Web, at claude.ai
Claude Mobile — latest version of Claude for iOS and Android

Chat and Cowork share one home — start both from the same message box. Select “Cowork” to hand off a task (e.g., “reconcile this month’s bank statement against the GL”), or “Chat” for a quick question (e.g., “what’s the journal entry for a prepaid insurance accrual?”).

Cowork is in beta on web and mobile, rolling out over several weeks starting with Max.

What is Claude Cowork?

Cowork brings Claude Code’s agentic architecture to finance work — no terminal, no scripting required. Instead of one prompt at a time, Claude can take on multi-step work: pulling data from your ERP/GL export, reconciling it against a subledger, flagging variances, and delivering a formatted workpaper — while you do other things.

You describe the outcome (“close out the AP accrual for July, book the entry, and flag anything over $10K variance from last month”), step away, and come back to finished output: a reconciliation, a journal entry with support, a variance narrative, or a full close package.

Sessions run remotely (in beta) and follow your account across desktop, web, and mobile. With projects, you can keep a persistent workspace per close cycle, entity, or recurring analysis — with its own files, instructions, and memory. With scheduled tasks, Claude can run recurring close or reporting tasks automatically (e.g., every month-end).

Important:

Cowork has real risks given its agentic nature and internet/file access — this matters more in finance, where files often contain sensitive financial data.
Cowork respects your network egress permissions, but web fetch/web search/MCPs run server-side and aren’t subject to those permissions.
Team/Enterprise admins can disable web search for Cowork/Chat, and Claude in Chrome, under Organization settings.
You can delete a task anytime (task removed immediately, purged from backend within 30 days).
Cowork activity isn’t yet in the Compliance API — relevant for audit trail requirements.
Admins can monitor Cowork activity org-wide via OpenTelemetry (OTel) — useful for SOX-relevant change tracking.
Review “Use Cowork safely” before using it on sensitive financial data.

Key Capabilities for Finance

Work from anywhere: Start a close task on desktop, check status on your phone during a commute, finish it on web.
Work that continues without you: Kick off a reconciliation before a meeting; it keeps running.
Direct local file access: Claude can read your ERP exports, POS files, and GL extracts directly from disk — no manual copy-paste into a chat window.
Sub-agent coordination: For a full close package, Claude can parallelize — one workstream reconciling AP, another building the variance narrative, another prepping the flux analysis.
Professional outputs: Excel files with live formulas (not static values), formatted Word memos for audit support, PowerPoint decks for leadership review.
Edit drafts in place: Highlight a paragraph in a draft variance commentary and ask Claude to tighten it, without re-explaining the whole document.
Long-running tasks: A multi-entity consolidation or a full reconciliation doesn’t get cut off by a conversation timeout.
Scheduled tasks: Set a recurring task for the close calendar — e.g., “every 1st business day, pull last month’s actuals and flag variances >10%.”
Spreadsheets and presentations: Output can be further refined in Claude for Excel or Claude for PowerPoint.
Projects: One workspace per close cycle, per entity, or per recurring deliverable (e.g., “Q3 Close,” “Monthly Board Deck”).
Browser actions: Claude in Chrome can pull data from a banking portal or ERP web UI when there’s no direct export.

How Cowork Runs Your Tasks

Tasks run remotely on Anthropic’s servers in an isolated environment; your session and files stay tied to your Claude account. When you start a task, Claude:

Analyzes the request and builds a plan (e.g., “reconcile GL vs. bank statement, identify reconciling items, draft the memo”).
Breaks complex work into subtasks (e.g., separate workstreams for AP accrual, revenue rec adjustment, and depreciation entries).
Runs code/shell commands in an isolated environment to process spreadsheets or exports.
Coordinates parallel workstreams where useful.
Delivers finished outputs — reconciliations, journal entries, variance decks — to your session for preview and download.

You retain visibility into Claude’s plan throughout, so you can steer (e.g., “use accrual basis, not cash basis”) or let it run.

Get Started

Requirements: - Paid plan (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) - Claude Desktop app open and connected, for local file access (ERP exports, GL files) and browser use - Active internet connection throughout

Start a session: 1. Open Claude on web, desktop, or mobile. 2. Select “Cowork” in the message box. 3. Describe the task — e.g., “Here’s this month’s ERP FP&A data export and also budget's files — reconcile them, flag discrepancies over $500, and draft a reconciliation memo and build a dashboard” 4. Review Claude’s plan, then let it run.

Keep the desktop app open if the task touches local files, your browser, or a banking/ERP portal.

What to Expect During a Task

Progress indicators show each step (e.g., “matching Order IDs,” “flagging unmatched transactions”).
Transparency: Claude explains its reconciliation logic or variance methodology as it goes.
Steering: Jump in mid-task to redirect (“use the prior quarter as the comparison base, not prior year”).
Check in from anywhere: Monitor a long reconciliation from your phone during close week.
Parallel work: Multiple sub-agents can work simultaneously on a multi-entity close.
Deletion protection: Claude asks explicit permission before deleting any file — important when working with source financial data.
Long-running tasks: A full close package can run for an extended period; step away and return when it’s done.

Permission Modes

Three modes control how often Claude checks in before acting — worth thinking through carefully given the sensitivity of financial data and connectors (banking, ERP, GL systems):

Manually approve (Manual): Recommended for anything touching live financial systems, bank connections, or journal posting — you review and approve each action.
Automatically approve (Auto): Claude screens every action for safety (data exfiltration, prompt injection) before proceeding. Good for read-heavy reconciliation or analysis work; use caution for anything that writes to a system of record.
Skip all approvals (Skip): Only for tasks you fully trust end-to-end — generally not advisable when connectors touch live GL, banking, or payroll systems.

For work with real consequences — booking entries, sending numbers externally, touching source financial files — stay close to the session, regardless of mode.

Team/Enterprise organizations may require per-task approval for write-capable connectors regardless of your personal settings (relevant for SOX/ITGC control environments).

Global and Folder Instructions

Global instructions (Settings > Cowork): standing instructions for every session — e.g., “always use accrual basis,” “flag any variance over 10% or $50K, whichever is lower,” “use our fiscal calendar (fiscal year starts February).”
Folder instructions: project-specific context when you point Claude at a local folder — e.g., a “Close” folder with entity-specific chart-of-accounts mapping notes.

Cowork Plugins

Plugins bundle skills, connectors, and sub-agents for a role or workflow. Finance-specific plugin-style skills that pair naturally with Cowork include:

Journal entry prep — accruals, prepaid amortization, depreciation, revenue rec, payroll entries
Reconciliation — GL-to-subledger, bank recs, intercompany recs, reconciling-item categorization
Variance analysis — budget vs. actual, period-over-period driver decomposition, waterfall analysis, narrative commentary
Close management — close calendar sequencing, task tracking, blocker identification
Financial statements — income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, with variance flagging
SOX/audit support — sample selection, testing workpapers, deficiency classification

Schedule Recurring Tasks

Type /schedule in any Cowork task, or use “Scheduled” in the sidebar. Useful for close-cycle recurring work — e.g., “every last business day of the month, pull the ERP export, reconcile against POS, and email me a variance summary.” Scheduled tasks run remotely without your computer needing to be on.

Usage Limits

Multi-step finance work (reconciliations, full close packages) consumes more usage than standard chat. If you’re hitting limits:

Batch related close tasks into one session rather than many small ones.
Use standard chat for quick lookups (e.g., “what’s the standard entry for accrued payroll?”).
Monitor usage in Settings > Usage.

Permissions and Security

Session isolation: Claude’s work runs separate from your computer/network; isolation protects your machine but doesn’t limit what Claude can read/do through access you’ve granted.
Controlled file and network access: Claude only reads/writes folders you’ve connected; network access follows your egress settings.
Review Claude’s planned actions carefully before allowing it to proceed with anything touching live financial systems or sensitive files (payroll, banking credentials, unreleased financials).

Example Use Cases for FP&A and Finance

Close and reconciliation - “Reconcile this month’s bank statement against the GL and categorize reconciling items.” - “Match ERP sales export against POS weekly sales, flag Order_ID duplicates and mismatched SKUs.” - “Build the close calendar for next month with task dependencies and flag likely blockers.”

Journal entries - “Prepare the month-end accrual for unbilled AP based on this PO log.” - “Book the depreciation entry for Q3 fixed asset additions.” - “Draft the deferred revenue adjustment entry with supporting schedule.”

Variance analysis and reporting - “Decompose the revenue variance vs. budget into price, volume, and mix drivers, with a narrative for leadership.” - “Build the monthly board deck from this trial balance and last month’s version.” - “Generate the P&L with period-over-period comparison and flag variances over 10%.”

Audit and controls - “Pull a sample for the P2P control test this quarter and build the testing workpaper.” - “Classify this list of control exceptions by deficiency severity.”

Data prep - “Clean and reconcile these ERP, POS, and CRM exports into one forecast-ready dataset” (mixed date formats, currency symbols, duplicate order IDs, and all). - “Build a data dictionary and issue log for this quarter’s raw exports.”

Current Limitations

Memory: Chat memory doesn’t carry into Cowork yet, except within projects — worth setting up a project per recurring close cycle so context persists.
No session sharing: Sessions aren’t shareable with teammates yet (Team/Enterprise can share live artifacts within the org — useful for a shared close package review).
Desktop-only features: Live artifacts and local-MCP plugins (e.g., a direct ERP connector) require the desktop app.

Troubleshooting

“Setting up Claude’s workspace”: Normal — Cowork is updating to the latest version.
Cowork missing on web/mobile: Rolling out gradually; confirm your plan is eligible and your app is updated.
Task stopped: For local sessions, check the desktop app stayed open (e.g., during an overnight batch reconciliation). Remote sessions keep running in the background — reopen the session to check progress.
Hitting usage limits quickly: Reserve Cowork for multi-step work (recs, close packages); use chat for quick questions.
Files not appearing: Check file access permissions and the output location Claude specified — especially important when output should land in a shared close folder.

Thanks for reading!

Christian Martinez

AI for Finance