Claude in Excel Is Game Changing for Accounting & Finance Teams
Claude now works right inside your spreadsheet. In Episode 3, John hands it a raw P&L dump and asks it to find what needs accruing.
How Can Accounting Teams Use Claude in Excel?
Point it at the data you already have and ask it to build the workpaper you would normally build by hand. Claude in Excel is an add-in that works directly in your workbook. It reads your tabs, adds columns and formulas, and builds new sheets. In Episode 3, that workpaper is an accrued expense roll forward built from a February P&L dump.
How Do You Set Up Claude in Excel?
Start from the Home ribbon. Open Add-ins, type Claude into the search, and add it. Once it is installed, click it and the Claude panel opens next to your workbook.
Before you ask for anything, click into Claude's settings and turn on session logging. Claude then creates a log tab that records the changes it makes to your cells. Anyone reviewing the file later can see exactly what the AI touched.
The Shift
You Become the Builder of Templates
"So now you become the builder of templates, and then you effectively go and you share this with the team."
It takes about 15 minutes to build a file like this the way you want it. Then you hand it to the team with a how-to guide, and they roll it forward every single month.
Building the same file by hand would take most people an hour or more.
The 5-Step Build John Runs in Episode 3
This is the exact sequence from the episode.
Flag the accruals in the P&L dump
The first prompt, lightly cleaned up.
"Can you look through my P&L data and put together an accrued expense roll forward? I want you to flag the expenses in the P&L dump tab and have them pull dynamically into the roll forward on a separate tab. Anytime you include something, put a small description as to why."
Claude adds an accrual flag column and an accrual reason column, then flags lines whose descriptions point to a prior month or prior period.
Map each account to the balance sheet
After clearing the chat, John asks Claude to assign each P&L account to a balance sheet accrual account. He keeps the demo to three options: accrued expenses, accrued wages, and accrued bonuses.
Ask for a true roll forward, and answer its questions
John asks for a January 2026 roll forward with beginning balances, reversals or payments, new accruals, and an ending balance, and tells Claude to assume zero beginning balances. Claude asks clarifying questions first, including how to treat reversals and which layout to use. John picks one consolidated roll forward with all three balance sheet accounts as rows.
Add a compliance check
John takes it one step further.
"Can you build a compliance flag at the bottom of the new accruals column that checks to make sure that all accruals were brought in correctly from the P&L dump tab?"
Now the file checks its own work every time it rolls forward.
Ask for a how-to-use guide
The last ask is a how-to-use guide John can send to his senior accountant. Claude puts it on a new tab without being told to.
Tips and Tricks
Get More Out of Claude in Excel
Type continue when it gets stuck
Sometimes Claude stops partway through a task. Tell it to continue and it picks up where it left off.
Clear the chat between big asks
The context window is fairly small. One focused ask at a time works. Asking it to build 20 tabs at once probably won't.
Read the colors and click the references
Input cells come back in blue and formulas in black, so you can spot inputs at a glance. Click a cell reference in Claude's reply and it jumps to that tab and highlights the cells.
Don't Blindly Trust It. Take the Head Start.
Claude flags, you review. Treat its first pass as a head start. Or perform the procedure yourself first, then run Claude over the same data to highlight anything you missed.
It won't get everything right the first time. When the detailed accrued expense listing doesn't work, John has Claude fix it.
Your Guide
Who's Teaching This Episode
John Ikosipentarhos, CPA
President & Co-Founder, Zeroed-In Consulting
John helps accounting and finance teams put AI to work inside the workpapers they already use. He has 12+ years of experience in public and private accounting, specializing in month-end close, financial statement preparation, AI and Automation, and is a licensed CPA in California.
Common Questions
Episode 3 Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, as a first pass. John never tells Claude which month to accrue for. It still flags the February P&L lines whose descriptions point to a prior month or prior period, and writes a reason next to each one. Every flag still needs your review.
It helps a lot. John already knows how an accrual roll forward should work, so he knows how to answer when Claude asks how to handle reversals and which layout to use. The better you know how to ask the questions, the better the output is going to be.
Episode 3 premieres free on YouTube on October 5th, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Join the series to get the episode delivered to your inbox the moment it's released.
Episode 4, releasing in November 2026, covers using n8n to build end-to-end workflow automation. A new episode is released every month through December 2026.
Keep Going
Your Next Step
Catch Up on Episode 2
Episode 3 builds a new workpaper from scratch. Episode 2 shows how to improve one you already have. One Claude prompt turns a hard-coded depreciation schedule into a dynamic, documented workbook.
Watch Episode 2Find Your Team's Place on the AI Skill Tree
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