Claude skills for accountants.
Write your first one.

By The Experts AI editorial team · Written with AI assistance · Updated October 16, 2026

Short answer: A Claude skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file: plain-English instructions, plus optional scripts, that Claude loads when a task matches its description. For accountants it turns a procedure you repeat, such as bank reconciliation rules or a commentary style, into something Claude follows every time. Skills work on Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans.

Most of the value in a finance prompt is the rules: what to match, what counts as material, when to stop. A skill stores those rules once, so you do not have to paste them into every chat.

Where Claude skills work

Sources from Anthropic: Use skills in Claude, Use plugins in Claude, Claude Code documentation.

A complete bank reconciliation skill

Copy this into a file named SKILL.md inside a folder named bank-reconciliation. The description line matters most: Claude uses it to decide when the skill applies.

---
name: bank-reconciliation
description: Reconcile a bank statement export against a general ledger cash export and list unmatched items. Use when asked to reconcile a bank account, match bank to ledger, or find unreconciled items.
---

# Bank reconciliation

## Inputs
- Bank export: CSV with date, description, amount (deposits positive).
- Ledger export: CSV with date, reference, memo, amount for the cash account.
- Statement ending balance and ledger ending balance, from the user.

## Matching rules
1. Match on exact amount with dates up to 3 days apart.
2. One bank line matches at most one ledger line.
3. Never match on description alone.

## Output
An Excel file with three sheets: Matched, Unmatched bank, Unmatched ledger.
A summary: statement balance, ledger balance, difference, and the
sum of unmatched items that explains it.

## Checks before finishing
- Matched plus unmatched rows equal the input row counts on both sides.
- The explained difference equals statement balance minus ledger
  balance. If it does not, say so and stop.
- Never invent transactions, change amounts or post anything.

How to write a good finance skill

• Write the description as a trigger. Name the task and the words people use for it ("reconcile", "match bank to ledger").
• State the inputs and their columns. Most AI mistakes in finance start with a misread column or sign.
• Put a number the result must match. A reconciliation must explain the difference; a summary must tie to a control total.
• Tell it when to stop. "If it does not tie, say so and stop" prevents confident wrong answers.
• Test on fictional data first. Our sample CSV with expected totals works for testing.

Four more skills for accounting work

Safety

A skill can include scripts that run code. Install skills only from sources you trust, read them before use, and keep client data out of the skill itself. The skill holds the rules; the data stays in the files you work on. For data handling, see Claude Cowork and client data.

Prompts you might turn into skills: 13 Claude prompts for accountants.

The Experts AI is independent and not affiliated with Anthropic, Intuit or Xero.

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