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Put eight branches of monthly reporting into one house format

Today

Eight branch managers write their monthly commentary eight different ways. The operations director spends the night before the board packet rewriting all of it into one voice, and half the variances still arrive with no explanation attached.

With Claude

Every submission comes back in the same house format with the figures copied exactly as sent, the missing lines named as missing, and a short set of questions to send back to the branch that owes you an explanation.

The prompt

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

You are helping the operations director at a [community bank / credit union] with [number] locations put branch level monthly reporting into one house format.

Paste aggregated figures only. No customer names, no account numbers, no loan level detail. If a branch narrative names a customer, remove the name before you paste it.

The house format every submission should follow:
[paste your template, or the section headings you use in the board packet]
This month's submissions, exactly as each branch sent them:
[paste them, labeled Branch A, Branch B, and so on]
Prior period figures, if you want them referenced:
[paste, or leave blank]

Absolute rules:
- Copy every figure exactly as submitted. Never calculate, total, average, annualize, or derive a percentage or a variance, even when the arithmetic looks obvious. If I did not give you a number, do not produce one.
- If a branch left a line out, write "not reported" and list it in the gaps section. Never fill it in from another branch or from the prior period.
- Never explain a variance I have not explained. A figure with no reason attached becomes a question, not an interpretation.
- Keep each branch's own wording where they gave an explanation, and mark anything you tightened for length.

Produce:
1. One section per branch in the house format, same headings, same order, figures unchanged.
2. A gaps list: every missing line, by branch.
3. Follow up questions grouped by branch, three per branch at most, specific enough to answer in a sentence.
4. A list of places where branches use the same word to mean different things, so we can agree on one definition.

Do not write commentary on performance or outlook. That belongs to the person who owns the packet.

What to skip in banks and financial services firms

  • Customer records and identifiers do not go into a chat window, in any account. That means account and card numbers, full Social Security and taxpayer numbers, dates of birth, online banking credentials, signature cards, core exports, wire instructions, loan files carrying borrower income and asset documents, and credit reports and scores. Two reasons, and they are separate. First, this is nonpublic personal information: Regulation P limits disclosure of it to nonaffiliated third parties and limits reuse, and the security standards your regulator enforces expect a written program and real diligence over any third party that touches customer information, which is exactly what the interagency third party risk guidance the OCC, Federal Reserve, and FDIC issued in June 2023 covers for banks of every size, community banks included. Credit unions get the same questions from NCUA. Second, a consumer report was pulled for a permissible purpose under FCRA, which allows a report to be furnished for listed purposes and no others, and pasting a tri merge into a chat is a use nobody documented. Work at the policy and summary level, paste the language and not the file, and settle the account and vendor question with whoever owns compliance before anything live moves.
  • Nothing that touches a credit decision. Not approving, denying, pricing, risk grading, granting an exception, working out debt to income or a coverage ratio that feeds the decision, and above all not drafting the specific reasons on an adverse action notice. Regulation B requires the statement of reasons to be specific, to indicate the principal reasons, and to relate to and accurately describe the factors actually considered, and CFPB Circular 2022-03 says plainly that a creditor may not use a model when doing so means it cannot give specific and accurate reasons, and that not understanding your own method is not a defense. A paragraph that reads like a reason but was not the reason is a violation with your institution's name on it, with fair lending exposure underneath. Anthropic's Usage Policy points the same way: loan approvals and determining eligibility or creditworthiness are named high risk, and home loans are named again under housing. The decision, the reasons, and the notice belong to your lender, your credit committee, and your written credit policy.
  • Suspicious activity reporting, and anything that would reach a customer as advice. A SAR, and any information that would reveal the existence of a SAR, is confidential under 31 CFR 1020.320(e), and no bank and no director, officer, employee, or agent of a bank may disclose it, so the narrative does not get drafted, polished, or rehearsed in a chat window, and neither does the alert that led to it. Examination reports and examiner correspondence stay out for a related reason: they are your regulator's records, not yours to hand to a third party. On the advisory side, Claude holds no registration and no license. No recommendation, no allocation, no security selection, no suitability or best interest conclusion, and nothing that reads to a client as investment advice. If your firm is a registered investment adviser or a broker dealer, your advertising, review, and recordkeeping obligations attach to whatever goes out, and a chat transcript is not part of your retention system.

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