Using Claude Projects for your finances

7 min read
Direct answer: Create a Claude Project for your finances, put your rules in its instructions (which accounts are whose, what counts as rent, your budget caps, your goals), and keep reference files like your budget in its knowledge. Then connect your bank with a connector like BankBridge so every chat in the Project reads live balances and transactions instead of stale uploads.

Why a Project helps

Every new chat with Claude starts blank. For money questions that means repeating the same context: the transfer on the 1st is rent, the joint card is shared, your grocery cap is $600, you are saving for a car. A Project stores that context once. Every chat inside it starts with your instructions and files already loaded.

What a Project does not have is fresh data. That is the bank connector's job. The Project knows your rules; the connector knows this morning's balance.

1. Connect your bank

Sign up at bankbridge.money, link checking and every card you spend on, then add BankBridge as a custom connector in Claude (Settings, Connectors, URL https://bankbridge.money/api/mcp). The claude.ai setup page walks through it. The connector works in every Project and in regular chats.

2. Write the Project instructions

Create a Project called Money. The instructions are where rules live. A starting point:

You help me manage my personal finances using the BankBridge tools.

Accounts
- Checking ending 4821: my paycheck lands here.
- Card ending 1190: everyday spending.
- Card ending 7734: shared with my partner; split 50/50.

Rules
- Exclude credit card payments and transfers between my own accounts from spending.
- The transfer to "J Rivera" on the 1st is rent ($1,850).
- Treat anything from "VENMO" over $200 as a question; ask me what it was.

Plans
- Monthly budget is in budget.md. Compare against it when I ask about spending.
- Savings goals are in goals.md.

Style
- Lead with the number, then the breakdown.
- Say which date range you used.

Use the last four digits of accounts, not account ids. Ids can change when a bank is reconnected; the last four stay the same.

3. Add knowledge files

Knowledge files hold things that change monthly or yearly but not daily:

  • budget.md: caps per category. Build it in the Project with this budget guide, then save the result as a file.
  • goals.md: target amounts and dates, plus your sinking funds.
  • renewals.md: annual subscriptions and their months. See the renewal calendar guide.
  • reviews/2026-09.md: last month's review, so this month can compare.

4. One chat per job

Keep chats short and focused. A long chat full of transaction lists gets slow and easy to misread. Useful recurring chats:

“Monthly review for September: compare spending by category to budget.md, list anything over, and draft reviews/2026-09.md.”
“Any annual renewals in renewals.md coming in the next 60 days? Check my checking balance can cover them.”
“What did we spend on the shared card this month, and what does my partner owe me under the 50/50 rule?”

The plugin prompts (monthly-check, subscriptions, budget-draft and others) are available under the + button and pick up your Project instructions too.

5. Keep the Project current

At the end of each monthly review, ask Claude what in the instructions or files is out of date: a new card, a subscription you cancelled, a cap you keep missing. Edit the files then. A Project with wrong rules gives confident wrong answers.

What not to put in a Project

  • Full account numbers, routing numbers, or passwords.
  • Exported transaction dumps. Let the connector fetch them.
  • Your API key. Claude.ai uses sign-in, not a pasted key.

For more on what flows where, read is it safe to connect your bank to ChatGPT or Claude. Ready to set it up? Connect your bank ($5 per month per bank) and create your Money Project.

FAQ

Can a Claude Project see my bank account on its own?

No. A Project holds instructions and files you add. To read live balances and transactions, add a bank connector such as BankBridge in Settings, Connectors, and enable it in chats inside the Project.

Should I upload bank statements to Project knowledge?

Usually not. Statements go stale the day after you upload them and put every transaction into the Project permanently. Keep rules and plans in the Project, and let the connector fetch transactions when a question needs them.

Can I share a finance Project with my partner?

On Claude plans with Project sharing, yes, but the connector is tied to whoever authorized it. Each person who chats needs their own BankBridge connection to the accounts they want included. See our guide on merging finances with a partner.

Do Projects work with the Claude Code plugin commands?

The 19 BankBridge plugin commands are also exposed as MCP prompts, so in the Claude apps they appear under the + button in the chat input, including inside a Project.

How much of my history can a Project chat use?

BankBridge returns up to 24 months of transactions. Long ranges produce long tool results, so ask for summaries by month or category rather than every transaction when you look back a year or more.