Reference · Back office

Run the back office

Stop saving receipts in a shoebox for one awful week in April. Tell Claude about money as it happens — one sentence or a photo — and year-end becomes a download, not a dig.

Expenses: capture them the moment they happen

Bought chemicals, filled the truck, paid the insurance? Say so — or just snap the receipt and paste it in. Claude files it in the right category with everything the IRS wants recorded, and attaches the receipt image.

Say this to Claude

Spent $84 at Leslie's on tabs.

The $75 rule, handled
For anything $75 and up, the IRS wants the actual receipt. Claude attaches photos when you have them and nudges you — once — when a big one is missing.

Big purchases become tracked assets

A new truck, a trailer, a serious vacuum rig — those aren't ordinary expenses; they're business assets your CPA depreciates. Claude spots them by size, asks the two or three questions that matter (in service yet? mostly business use? heavy truck or light?), and sets up the record so your CPA can write it off properly — often 100% in year one under current law.

Say this to Claude

Bought a used F-250 for the business — $28,000.

Mileage: the log that actually holds up

Vehicle write-offs are all-or-nothing: no contemporaneous log, no deduction — the IRS is strict about this one. So log drives the day they happen, in one line. Claude keeps the trip log with dates, miles, and purpose, timestamped as you go.

Say this to Claude

Drove the Tuesday route today — 38 miles.

Reports: how the business is really doing

  • Profit & loss — “P&L for the quarter”: collected, spent by category, what's left.
  • Growth — revenue, customer count, and average ticket, trending month over month.
  • Margin per customer — which pools make you money and which ones quietly cost you (chemical burn included).

Year-end: hand your CPA one file

Say “get my year-end package ready” and Claude builds one spreadsheet with labeled tabs — every categorized expense, the asset and depreciation schedule, the full mileage log, and the worksheet numbers your CPA needs. Instead of a shoebox and a long afternoon, your accountant gets clean records and you get their bill for an hour, not a day.

Records, not tax advice
Claude tracks and reports; it never files anything or decides a deduction. Every number your CPA should rule on is labeled exactly that way — this is about walking into their office with perfect records.