Claude for Finance and Accounting Leaders

Description

A one-day, hands-on workshop for finance and accounting leaders who are new to AI, delivered in person or live online. Working on their own and in small teams, participants use Anthropic's Claude on realistic month-end work: general ledger detail, fluctuation analysis, reconciliations, formula-heavy Microsoft Excel workbooks, and variance correspondence. They check every result against source records before relying on it, and leave with reusable prompts, a verified workflow for a recurring close task, and a 30-day plan to measure the time it saves.

Who This Course Is For

• Controllers, finance directors and vice presidents, internal audit leaders, and the senior finance staff who support them
• New to generative AI tools, and experienced with Excel and the month-end close
• Working in an organization that provides Claude (Team or Enterprise plan) and Microsoft 365

What You Will Learn

• Govern the use of Claude for finance work by choosing the right tool for the task, keeping financial data within the organization's policy, and treating every output as a draft that needs review.
• Direct Claude with structured, reusable prompts that carry the organization's financial context and produce output ready for review.
• Analyze general ledger detail with Claude to explain fluctuations and investigate unusual transactions.
• Support account reconciliations with Claude and verify AI-produced analysis against control totals and source records.
• Apply Claude in Excel to understand, repair, and build workbook formulas and to streamline repetitive spreadsheet tasks under review.
• Communicate verified results and run a repeatable, measured month-end workflow with Claude.

Prerequisites

• A Claude Team or Enterprise seat provided by your organization, with code execution and file creation enabled (your Claude administrator controls this setting)
• The Claude for Excel add-in, installed by you or deployed by your Microsoft 365 administrator, on Excel for the web or a current Microsoft 365 desktop version of Excel
• Working knowledge of Excel formulas and of your organization's month-end close
• A copy of your organization's AI use or data classification policy, if one exists (a sample policy is provided otherwise)
• No prior experience with Claude or other AI tools. A Microsoft Copilot license is not required; the course compares the tools, and the labs use Claude.

Delivery Options

• Live, instructor-led
• Virtual instructor-led