How to install and use the Claude for Small Business plugin
Install the plugin, see what's in it, customize it for your business, and run your first task. By the end, you'll have the plugin tailored to your business and a first task already done.
- CategorySmall Business
- ProductClaude Cowork
- Reading timeWatch time5minmin
- ShareCopy link
The Small Business plugin for 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.
Install and run the plugin
You'll need the Claude desktop app on a Pro, Max, or Team plan.
- Open Cowork and click Customize in the left sidebar.
- Under Plugins, click +.
- Find Small Business and click Install.
You can also find the plugin at claude.com/plugins/small-business. After installing the plugin, you'll have all of the skills listed below available.
To run a skill:
- Type
/in the Cowork 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 Cowork 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.
Money and finance
- What does cash look like for the next 60 days?
- Which invoices are open and which ones should I follow up on?
- Help me close out April and reconcile the books.
- What are my margins on the catering side of the business?
- Get my Q2 estimated taxes ready for my accountant.
Sales and marketing
- Who should I call first today?
- What's selling and what should I push this month?
- June is usually a quieter month — help me plan a promo to fill it.
Customers and operations
- A customer wrote about a late shipment. Help me draft a reply.
- What are customers saying lately, and what should I act on?
- Tidy up the CRM and tell me what's worth a fresh look.
- Walk me through this NDA before I sign it.
Business intelligence and hiring
- Give me my Monday brief.
- How'd we do this week?
- Write the QBR narrative for last quarter.
- Help me hire a part-time bookkeeper — write the post and the interview guide.
For a step-by-step walkthrough of four of these — payroll, the month-end close, the Monday brief, and a campaign — see Using Claude for your small business.
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 — four 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
- AI Fluency for Small Business — a free course on running a small business with AI, taught by owners who do