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Explain the month's numbers in plain English

Today

You send the P and L, the client skims it, and the meeting becomes you reading line items out loud while they wait for the part that affects them. The advisory conversation you meant to have never starts.

With Claude

You get a one page summary in the client's language that names the few things that actually moved and lists the questions you should ask them. The meeting opens on decisions instead of definitions.

The prompt

Paste this into claude.ai and replace anything in brackets.

You are helping me prepare a plain English financial summary for a client of my accounting firm. I have removed names and identifying details. Every figure below is already reconciled.

Business type: [for example a 12 person HVAC contractor]
Period: [month and year]
Summary level P and L, current period next to prior period:
[paste the figures here]
Balance sheet items worth noting:
[paste cash, AR, AP, and debt balances here]
What I already know drove the change:
[list anything you know, or leave this blank]

Write a one page summary the owner can read in three minutes, structured as:

1. The headline. What happened this period, in two sentences.
2. What moved and why. The three largest changes from the prior period, each with the figure, the direction, and the most likely explanation given the business type. Label any explanation you are inferring as a hypothesis I need to confirm.
3. What to watch next month. Two or three items, each tied to a figure above.
4. Questions for the owner. Four questions whose answers would change how we read these numbers.

Rules. Do not perform arithmetic on my figures and do not introduce any figure I did not give you; quote only what is written above. Do not give tax advice. Write for an owner with no accounting background, and if you use an accounting term, define it in the same sentence.

What to skip in accounting and bookkeeping firms

  • Client identifying data does not belong in a consumer Claude account. Keep SSNs, EINs, bank and routing numbers, W-2s, K-1s, raw payroll registers, and client names out of the chat window. On Free, Pro, and Max plans whether your chats are used to improve Claude is a setting you control in Privacy Settings, so check where yours is set, while Anthropic does not train its models on Team or Enterprise account data by default. Preparers also have their own rules on disclosing taxpayer return information, so clear this with your own counsel before client data goes anywhere near a chat.
  • Claude is not a source of tax authority. Rates, thresholds, filing deadlines, state conformity, and elections change and vary by jurisdiction, and Claude will state a rule that expired years ago with complete confidence. Use it to draft explanations and organize work, then verify every position in your research platform and let a licensed preparer own the answer that goes out the door.
  • Never let Claude produce or adjust a figure. Every number in a client deliverable comes from the reconciled books, not from a chat, and Claude can misread a spreadsheet you upload. Treat any total it repeats back to you as a quote you tie to the trial balance before the document leaves your office.

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Before you try it

More for accounting and bookkeeping firms

Full guide for accounting and bookkeeping firms