How to install and use the Claude for Small Business plugin

The Small Business plugin in Claude Cowork puts Claude to work across the tools you already use — your accounting, payments, CRM, design, contracts, email, files, and calendar. You describe the job in plain English, and Claude reads the data, does the work, and shows you the result before anything sends, posts, or pays.

Running the plugin well is an act of delegation, in two moves: you put the job into plain words so Claude picks the right skill for it, and you stay involved while the work happens, reading what Claude stages before anything goes out. Claude works as a collaborator you direct: it brings the capability, and the intent and the judgment calls stay with you.

Install and run the plugin

You'll need the Claude desktop app on a Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan.

1. Open Cowork and click Customize in the left sidebar.
2. Under Plugins, click +.
3. Find Small Business and click Install.

After installing the plugin, you'll have all of the skills listed below available. To tailor the plugin to your business and workflow, see the Customize the plugin for your business section of this guide.

To run a skill:

• Type / in the chat bar and pick it from the list, or
• Describe the job in plain English and Claude picks the skill that fits.

Either way, Claude follows the skill's instructions for that task. To learn more, see What are skills and Use plugins in Claude Cowork.

What's in the plugin

A plugin bundles a set of skills and the connectors they read from. Each skill is a set of instructions for a specific task. With the plugin installed, Claude already knows the steps for a range of tasks, so when you prompt for one it only has to be a few words.

Some skills in this plugin run a few of the others in sequence, asking for your decision between steps, so a bigger job is still one ask. The table lists each skill, what it does, and the tools it reads from

The tools listed are the defaults. When you customize the plugin, you can point a skill at the tools you actually use — a different payment processor, accounting tool, or CRM — and the skill reads from those instead.

Customize the plugin for your business

The skills come with defaults written for a typical small business. There are two ways to make them yours.

In Customize → Plugins, open Claude for Small Business and click Customize. Or type the prompt yourself in the chat bar:

Claude asks about your business — what you do, who works with you, what's hardest right now — and rewrites the plugin's defaults to match. From then on, the skills carry your context: your industry, your team size, your priorities, the way you like things done.

As you do tasks with Claude that run these skills and see the output they produce, you can tell Claude to update any of them at any time — say what you'd like different and the change is saved. Over time the skills get more tailored to how you like things done and how you want the outputs to come out.

For the full pattern, see How to customize plugins in Cowork.

Examples to try

Pick something that's on your list this week and describe it the way you'd describe it to someone you trust to handle it. Claude reads your prompt and runs the skill that fits.

Set up the plugin

• Get me started. I run a coffee roaster with two cafes, a wholesale business, and an online shop.

Extend beyond what's available

• My roasting software isn't on your list. Can you connect to it so I can see each day's roast batches?
• Every Monday I pull last week's wholesale orders and email cafes about anything we're short on. Can you turn that into something I can just ask for?

Run the business

• Pay the bills. Can I cover everything due this week and still make payroll?
• We're running low on beans and bags. Figure out what to reorder and draft the POs for my suppliers.
• Run my weekly numbers pack and send it to me every Monday morning.
• Give me my Monday brief. What do I need to know this week?
• Close the books for August and get the packet ready for my accountant.
• Get me ready for taxes. Close out the quarter and tell me what to set aside for my estimated payment.
• Money's tight and payroll is due Friday. Can I make it, and if so, get the run ready?

Grow the business

• Who should I call today? Give me my top 5 with talking points.
• Fill my funnel. Find cafes like my best wholesale accounts and write the outreach.
• Run speed-to-lead every night and weekend so no inquiry sits unanswered.
• Give me my Monday marketing brief. What's working, what are customers saying, and what did competitors change?
• Some of our regulars haven't ordered in months. Find who's gone quiet and help me win them back.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of three of these — payroll, the month-end close, and the Monday brief — see Using Claude for your small business.

Practice: run one skill yourself

Take one job from your week, one where you already know roughly what the answer should look like, and describe it in the chat bar the way you'd hand it to a person:

Swap in your own job if invoices aren't the one on your mind this week, keeping the wording plain, with no skill name. Claude picks the skill that fits. If what comes back isn't the job you meant, type / and choose the skill yourself.

Before you approve anything, check the result against something you already know:

• Confirm one line against your books. Pick a customer you know offhand and check that what the draft reminder says about them matches your records.
• Scan the list for anything that doesn't belong. An invoice you know was settled showing up as open is your cue to stop and sort out the mismatch before anything goes out.

The habit to keep: describe the job, let Claude pick the skill, and check the result against something you know before you approve it. It works the same for every skill in this plugin.

Things to note

• You approve before anything sends, posts, or pays — skills draft, propose, and stage. Nothing goes out until you say so.
• Your existing permissions hold — Claude reads what your account in each tool can read. It can't see data you don't already have access to.
• Anthropic doesn't train Claude on your business data — and the permissions you've already set in your tools still apply. If an employee can't see something in QuickBooks today, they can't see it through Claude. The full policy is in the Trust Center.
• The big decisions stay with you — Claude prepares the work and shows you what it found, but the calls that matter — what to charge, what to sign, what to send your accountant — are yours and your professionals' to make.
• Some features depend on your plan in a connected tool — generating designs or staging sends may need a higher tier in that tool. When something isn't available, the skill tells you and offers a workaround.

Learn more

• Introducing Claude for Small Business — the launch announcement
• Using Claude for your small business — workflows the plugin runs end to end
• How to customize plugins in Cowork — make the skills run from your context
• What are skills — how skills work in Claude