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Use Claude to Build Insane Finance Dashboards (+ Prompts) — Transcript

by Nicolas Boucher · 2,836 words · 394 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00In one of my videos, I showed you how to
0:02build a live P&L dashboard with Claude
0:04that updates itself when you drop in new
0:07files. And a lot of you asked me the
0:09same question after that. Okay, Nicolas,
0:11[music] but what else can I actually use
0:13this for as a CFO? So, today I will be
0:15going through five real dashboards that
0:18you can actually use and exactly what to
0:21type to get each one right on the first
0:23try. First, a board KPI scorecard.
0:25Second, a cash runway tracker. Third, a
0:27budget variance dashboard that flags
0:30overspend on its own. Fourth, an AR
0:32aging dashboard for collections. And
0:35fifth, a scenario tool where you can
0:36drag a slider and watch your forecast
0:39move live. And on top, I will use each
0:41of this example to teach you a different
0:44prompting trick. So, you will have a
0:46complete toolkit by the end of this
0:48video and not just five one-off
0:51examples. And one rule before we start,
0:53it applies to every single prompt in
0:55this video. Always tell Claude who the
0:58dashboard is for and what decisions it
1:00needs to support. Not what data to show,
1:03but what question someone is trying to
1:05answer when they look [music] at it.
1:06Skip that and even a perfect prompt
1:09gives you a dashboard that looks fine
1:11but means nothing. Remember to subscribe
1:14if you haven't already. I post [music]
1:15every week on AI for CFOs and you don't
1:18want to miss what we have coming next.
1:22So, the first use case is [music] the
1:24board KPI scorecard. This is the
1:26dashboard you build for your next board
1:29meeting with just [music] an Excel file
1:31unformatted and you will see you will do
1:33wonder. So, here is the prompt that I'm
1:35going to write. So, I explain that I'm a
1:37CFO, that I want to build an HTML
1:39dashboard. I want to answer to one
1:41question. Are we on track for the
1:42quarter? And that's why I always need
1:44[music] my actual data and my budget
1:46data. And for my main KPIs, which are
1:49the revenue, the gross margin, the
1:50EBITDA, and the cash, [music] I will
1:52give, of course, the trial balance, but
1:54I will also give the details behind. So,
1:57for example, for revenue, [music]
1:59I will give the revenue by products. For
2:01the gross margin, I will also have the
2:03same details, the gross margin by
2:04product. For the EBITDA, [music]
2:06I will use the P&L to be able to explain
2:09the EBITDA, you know, with a waterfall
2:11chart. And for the cash, the same,
2:13[music] what are the big cash movements?
2:16So, like this, I can explain to the
2:17board what is happening. So, it's very
2:19important you give that as details, and
2:21then I will explain in my [music] prompt
2:23a bit of how I want the dashboard to be.
2:25Big KPIs at the top, I want the graph
2:28under, and then [music] if there is any
2:30flag, I want to turn it red. One last
2:32thing, I say this needs [music] to work
2:34as a two-minute walk-through, because
2:36basically, I just want that in one
2:38snapshot, they understand everything.
2:40Notice what I did there. I really
2:42explained to Claude the audience and the
2:43one question it needs to answer. And
2:45also, [music] I was really hard on the
2:47layout. So, what is the constraint? One
2:49screen with no scrolling. That last part
2:52matters more than people think, because
2:54a board dashboard that needs scrolling
2:56is not a board dashboard, because people
2:58don't have time, and people often never
3:00go under. So, that's why keep it simple,
3:03make all of the information in one page
3:05[music] as much as you can. And there it
3:07is, my dashboard is finished with KPI
3:10cards at the top. We have the different
3:12graphs. We have also the highlight
3:13[music] where we are beyond budget or
3:15also when we are good in budget.
3:17Everything in one screen, that's exactly
3:19what I asked for. This [music] is what I
3:21will screen share live in the actual
3:23meeting. Of course, always very verify
3:25your numbers. What you can do is ask AI
3:27to make an audit for you to make sure
3:29that your Excel file and your board
3:31[music] presentation is the same. So,
3:33that one was for a board.
3:38The second use case is for a very
3:40different audience. It's actually for
3:42you, to help you watch one number every
3:44single week. How much runway do you
3:47actually have left? If you are CFO at a
3:49startup or scale-up, this is probably
3:52the dashboard you check more than any
3:54[music] other. So, for this, you're
3:55going to use this prompt. So, you
3:57explain that you're a CFO, that you
3:59track your [music] cash runway, and that
4:02you're going to use the bank export, and
4:04you want to calculate the monthly net
4:07burn. You are also going to ask to take
4:10into account some exceptions, because,
4:12you know, you might have a one-big
4:14payment, and you don't want to have it
4:16all the time in your burn rate. Imagine
4:18if you just paid a big one-time deposit
4:22for your building. It's not going to
4:24happen every month. So, that's why here,
4:26you say as well, "Make sure to make one
4:29view with and [music] one view without
4:32exceptional amounts." Really important
4:34as well is if you have a financing plan,
4:38where you know that you can also call
4:39some cash, you might want to add this
4:42into the document. So, like this, not
4:44only you have your cash from the bank,
4:47but you also have your cash call plan,
4:50or your financing plan. Adding both,
4:52then you ask to create the dashboard
4:54with the cash balance, and also the burn
4:57rate trend with [music] and without
4:59exceptions. And again, the projection
5:01you want also to see the projection
5:03without the exceptions. And inside, you
5:05also want to see if you have any
5:08financing event. Because, if you know
5:10that in 6 months, you are receiving
5:11[music] 1 million from financing, then
5:14you want to show that here. And again,
5:17you add here a notion of flags. You say,
5:20"Okay, if there is any problem, if I'm
5:23getting next to zero, please put this
5:25big number in red, so I see how many
5:27months I have left." And the trick in
5:30this prompt is that I'm not just asking
5:32for a chart of past data, I'm asking
5:34Claude to calculate something that
5:35doesn't exist in the raw export yet, a
5:38projection. But, you have to tell it the
5:39logic. You [music] remember that I said
5:42to forget some of the exceptional
5:43amounts, or also to take into account
5:46the financing. So, that's where it's
5:47important to explain your own logic. And
5:50there is our runway. We see how many
5:52months we have with the current burn
5:54rate. We also see the exceptions, and
5:56[music] we see if we are under or above
6:00the 6-month threshold that I set. And
6:02the position line shows exactly when
6:04[music] we will hit zero if nothing
6:07changes. Already, this is the one number
6:09every founder and CFO actually loses
6:12sleep over. And now, you have it every
6:14time you drop a new [music]
6:16export or a new financing plan. Really
6:18cool, right? And really visual. Before
6:21we go to the third dashboard, I want to
6:23invite you to my free masterclass
6:25happening every Tuesday. So, please join
6:27this Tuesday if you want to learn how to
6:30use AI for finance. It's free. It's for
6:32you if you're in finance. Just click the
6:34link in the description below. Let's
6:36keep going.
6:38>> [music]
6:39>> For the third use case, this one is for
6:42all of you who are tired of chasing
6:44department heads for explanations every
6:46single month. What we are going to build
6:48is a budget versus actual by department
6:51with automatic overspend flags inside.
6:53So, you're going to type that [music]
6:56you want to review the departmental
6:58spend, that you have a file with
7:00multiple tabs, that you have the cost by
7:04department, the budget, and the actuals,
7:06and you want [music] a dashboard with
7:08one row per department showing the
7:10budget, actual, the variance, variance
7:12in percentages, and that you want to
7:15sort the table [music] from the worst to
7:17the best. Like this, you see always the
7:20one that you have to focus at the
7:21beginning. You give what you want to be
7:23flagged, so either percentages or maybe
7:25dollars or euro values. And also, you
7:27give, you know, like a signal, maybe
7:29amber or red or green. And you propose
7:33some of the graphs that you need, and
7:35maybe a button to select the department
7:37or the type of cost. So, that's it.
7:39>> [music]
7:39>> And now, Claude is building that for us.
7:42So, two things to notice here. First, I
7:44told Claude exactly how to sort the data
7:46with worst overspend appearing first
7:49because that's the order of what we want
7:51to focus first. And second, I give it
7:54three specific thresholds for red,
7:56amber, and green instead of just saying,
7:59"Oh, flag anything over budget." Because
8:01the more precise your thresholds, the
8:03less Claude has to guess what counts as
8:05a problem for you. And now we can see
8:07that marketing has a big problem and is
8:10at the top in red. Sales is in amber and
8:13everything else is green. That is
8:15exactly the conversation starter you
8:18want walking into a budget review. And
8:20like this, you already know who you need
8:22to talk to before the meeting even
8:24starts. So, number four is about money
8:27that is owed to you, not spent by you.
8:29And if you ever chased a client for an
8:31overdue invoice, the next one really is
8:34for you.
8:37So, this fourth use case is accounts
8:39receivable aging for collections. And
8:42this is one of the most requested
8:44dashboards I get asked about every week.
8:46And it's also one of the easiest to get
8:48wrong if your prompt is vague. So, this
8:50is what we are going to use. We are
8:52going to explain that we want to manage
8:53the collections so you or your team and
8:56then using all of this export from your
8:59ERP where you have all of the invoice
9:01that were sent out and all of the
9:03receivables, we want to bucket all of
9:05this open invoice into specific age
9:08groups. And that's where you give your
9:10age groups. So, here we explain what are
9:12our age groups and then we want to know
9:15how much money are per age groups, but
9:18also who are the worst payer, you know,
9:20because you want to know who you have to
9:22talk to first. And then after you want
9:24to be able to filter and to sort and
9:28maybe to have a button based on the age
9:30group and to flag your real problems.
9:33Last but not least, you want to have a
9:35list of actions to start with because
9:37maybe you want to give that to your team
9:39or maybe you want to give that to the
9:40sales team so they can call your
9:42clients. If in finance you did
9:44everything you could but you didn't
9:46reach out to your client, then you can
9:48get the help of sales. And you see the
9:50last line, I want to know who to call
9:52first is doing the real work in this
9:54prompt. And you see when you tell Claude
9:56the outcome you need in plain language
9:59like that, it shapes the whole dashboard
10:01around the decision and not just the
10:03numbers. And there we go, you can see
10:05the aging buckets ready for review. And
10:07right below it, the priority list. You
10:09can see this customer here is 125 days
10:13overdue and at the very top so our
10:15priority to call. So that's going to be
10:17our Monday morning call sorted out for
10:19us automatically. And you can either
10:22pass it to your team or take care of it
10:24yourself if you know that you have to
10:26get back the money really soon.
10:31And now the last one, one of my personal
10:33favorite [music] because it's not a
10:34static dashboard at all. It's a tool you
10:36can actually play with in a planning
10:39meeting. So the fifth use case is a
10:40scenario and a sensitivity dashboard
10:43with live sliders. This is the one you
10:46will get asked to build for planning
10:48sessions when someone says, "What if
10:50churn goes up by 2%?" And everyone just
10:53stares at a spreadsheet and doesn't have
10:54an answer. So that's why you will need
10:56this type of tool. So here is what we
10:58are going to write. We explain that we
11:00have planning to build. We explain what
11:04are our business model. So here we are
11:06SaaS company. We have this subscription
11:08data. We explain the type of products.
11:10We explain the assumptions. We also
11:12explain that what type of sliders we
11:14want. So we want [music] maybe to play
11:17at the price, on the growth, on the
11:19churn rate. Let's see. And we also
11:21explain that we want to see that when we
11:23move the slider that everything is
11:25recalculated and redraw. And even I was
11:28really precise here. I said what was
11:30full line and what is the dotted lines
11:32because I want basically to still see my
11:34base case as a dotted line to have a
11:37reminder of what was the initial
11:39calculation. You can see that the prompt
11:40is different from the other four because
11:42I'm [music] not asking for a static view
11:44of data that already exist. I'm asking
11:46Claude to build a small calculation
11:49engine with adjustable inputs. And the
11:52base case dotted line is the detail that
11:54makes this actually useful in a meeting
11:56because without it people lose track of
11:59what they have changed. So now let's
12:00test it and if I touch slider, yes, my
12:04chart is changing, my numbers are
12:06moving. So like this in my meeting, I
12:08can show the changes directly to my
12:11audience and instead of having to
12:13organize a new meeting to show the new
12:15numbers, I can answer everything
12:17directly on the spot and everybody will
12:19save time including yourself because you
12:21don't have to redo a new presentation.
12:23You can do everything in [music] the
12:25first meeting. I've been to tons of
12:27these meetings and this is the exact
12:28conversation finance teams are having in
12:30these planning meetings. Except now,
12:32everyone can see what is happening when
12:35you change your assumptions and you can
12:37stop having [music] multiple meetings.
12:39You can do everything on the spot in
12:41these meetings. So there you have it,
12:42five live dashboards from five real
12:45prompts. But actually, what made the
12:47difference between this and a generic
12:49result? Let's recap. First, we name the
12:51audience and the one decision the
12:53dashboard supports. Not what data to
12:55show, but what question someone is
12:58trying to answer. Second, we give
13:00specific threshold instead of a vague
13:02instruction like flag problems. The more
13:04precise you are, the less Claude has to
13:06guess. Third, we tell Claude the exact
13:08logic for anything it needs to calculate
13:10like a runway projection or a slider
13:13driven forecast. Claude will not guess
13:14what is your logic. You have to give it
13:16to it. Fourth, we set a hard layout
13:18constraint when it matters to you. You
13:20remember the first one, our board
13:22dashboard? We said that we wanted that
13:24in one page and it did it. And fifth,
13:26use plain language to describe the
13:28actual decision. Like, I want to know
13:30who to call first. You know that is
13:32better than just saying, "Sort by days
13:34overdue." Because one tells Claude what
13:36is the real job to do, and the other one
13:38only explain the mechanism or just one
13:41component. You see, none of these five
13:43dashboards needed you to code. You
13:45didn't need a BI team to build them. You
13:47didn't even need to write a single
13:49formula. And that was the point to use
13:51Claude to make these dashboards. They
13:53look better, they work better on top, in
13:55front of all of your meetings, yourself.
13:57[music] You will be the one that has
14:00built that, the one that is using that,
14:02the one that [music] everybody is
14:04impressed by. And that's why I want you
14:06to try these five dashboards when you're
14:08done with this video. Before you go and
14:10try them, tell me in the comments which
14:12one you will build first. Or if there
14:14[music] is any other dashboard that you
14:16want to build, or one that you're stuck
14:18with. Because like this, I can cover it
14:20in my next video. Thank you so much for
14:21watching. I hope you found the video
14:23useful. Don't forget to subscribe to the
14:25channel, and see you next time. And
14:27remember, [music] robots are coming, so
14:29stay human.

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