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Claude for Small Business

anthropic.com

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Re: Claude for Small Business

#261

Post by AussieWog93 »

prawn wrote: post #255
windexh8er wrote: post #240

> PayPal powers settlements, invoicing, disputes, and refunds inside Claude. > Intuit QuickBooks handles payroll planning, the monthly close, and cash-flow, along with tools to help businesses prepare for tax season, and reconciliation work that touches every other system. I can't wait for the horror stories, this is going to be fun. Remember last month when Anthropic was like: no, we're not going to refund you even…

I suspect that the time spent on accounting or the money spent on accountants will influence decisions made by small-small business owners (1-5 staff range), in that some will take these risks. Admin is a huge pain for very small businesses.

As someone in this situation myself who has used AI tools, Claude Code/Codex are useful for doing certain laborious tasks like bookkeeping errors/reconciliation issues but they don't replace a professional accountant.

It's not just about being able to balance Xero but knowing rules, procedures and the way the tax office works.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#262

Post by adam_patarino »

windexh8er wrote: post #240

> PayPal powers settlements, invoicing, disputes, and refunds inside Claude. > Intuit QuickBooks handles payroll planning, the monthly close, and cash-flow, along with tools to help businesses prepare for tax season, and reconciliation work that touches every other system. I can't wait for the horror stories, this is going to be fun. Remember last month when Anthropic was like: no, we're not going to refund you even…

Closing books and running payroll feel like solved problems with today’s saas and high stakes if you mess up.

This is one of those areas I would spend more time checking the outputs than it would take me to click the button myself.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#263

Post by pjmlp »

freetanga wrote: post #168
puchatek wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is perpetually dealing with the fallout from all the vibe coding as the pool of people who'd have a shot at fixing it gets smaller and smaller. Shitty will be the new normal.

I feel like it will be like going back to the 80s, when PCs became a norm and most programmers and hobbyists could code without the need of a University or a Corporation. Thousands of shareware apps you had to navigate, everyone trying to solve the same problems from different angles.. I do agree quality will be missed, and shadow IT will be again a big issue like at the end of the 80s and early 90s.

Coding on 8 and 16 bit home computers still required some skills that most vibe coders certainly lack.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#264

Post by cucumber3732842 »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #261
prawn wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that the time spent on accounting or the money spent on accountants will influence decisions made by small-small business owners (1-5 staff range), in that some will take these risks. Admin is a huge pain for very small businesses.

As someone in this situation myself who has used AI tools, Claude Code/Codex are useful for doing certain laborious tasks like bookkeeping errors/reconciliation issues but they don't replace a professional accountant. It's not just about being able to balance Xero but knowing rules, procedures and the way the tax office works.

>but knowing rules, procedures and the way the tax office works.

Those three letters "CPA" in one's email signature basically expand to "I won't fall for your low effort form letter bluff, you can't get one over on me that easily" as far as the auditor who's following up on the form letter cares.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#265

Post by com »

graemep wrote: post #130
pmontra wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business wise, neither Google nor Facebook were impacted IMHO. Google sells the tools that WhatsApp need to run and Facebook bought WhatsApp and kept its FB users in house. Probably phone operators were not impacted too: SMSes bundled with flat plans are still flat plans and Europe style unlimited calls + 100 SMS per month plans are still there and those SMSes are still mostly unused. So we could have a killer app an…

Google was impacted: their chat product is pretty much dead. Mobile network operators lost the profits (at prices that were pretty much pure margin) they had on pay as you go messages, and messages not included in flat plans (e.g. overseas SMS's). They also lost a huge amount on highly profitable overseas calls. Those of us with family in other countries save a lot of money by using Whatsapp and similar instead of ph…

WhatsApp and other over the top messaging and calling apps destroyed “the rivers of gold” that the telcos had in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Net neutrality was triggered by their attempts to block VOIP and messenger apps.

I knew one telco who made €3Bn clear profit a year from 2 Dell servers and a team of five to keep SMS messages flowing. Their billing infrastructure was bigger, much bigger than the SMS servers.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#267

Post by Ucalegon »

foobar10000 wrote: post #243
Ucalegon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about one person's introduction of a technology to persons and the implications of that action within the framework of enterprise governance and risk, it is one in the same. If anything, who a person is, their knowledge of the domain and the associated implications that action has on the domain has relevancy where someone who is ignorant of implications may have more grace than someone who has the expe…

I think the one thing you are not taking into account is that the investors on average fundamentally don’t care. Scale arbitrage means that small companies are fundamentally about velocity - and if they get sued due to regulations that do not pierce the corporate veil, they just fold. And the ones that did not get sued make money for the vc. And figure out later how to be hipaa etc compliant. Basically, I’ve been see…

VCs and investors are a massive issue, which is ironic saying that here, but once you get into contracts with other businesses, it changes things for the business and the leadership within who do carry liability when things go wrong, especially when they have made attestations.

Re: Claude for Small Business

#269

Post by prawn »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #261
prawn wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that the time spent on accounting or the money spent on accountants will influence decisions made by small-small business owners (1-5 staff range), in that some will take these risks. Admin is a huge pain for very small businesses.

As someone in this situation myself who has used AI tools, Claude Code/Codex are useful for doing certain laborious tasks like bookkeeping errors/reconciliation issues but they don't replace a professional accountant. It's not just about being able to balance Xero but knowing rules, procedures and the way the tax office works.

For how long though? I like my accountant, but I use Claude Code enough to know the SOTA and potential, read through the Claude for Small Business skills and texted a friend "How long do you think accountants have?"

- an Aussie half-wog

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