# How do I connect Claude or ChatGPT to Briefcase?

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How do I connect Claude or ChatGPT to Briefcase?. Connect Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant to Briefcase, then ask your books anything: who owes you money,.

Connect Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant to Briefcase, then ask your books anything: who owes you money, which bills are waiting for review, or what a business spent on software this year. The answers come from your books. The assistant works as you. It can only see and change what you can, and only on the businesses you choose when you connect it.

## What a connected assistant can do

-   Look up your businesses, contacts, bills and receipts awaiting review, published documents, expense claims, bank statements and archived items.
-   Explain a transaction: its extracted values, why Autopilot made its decision, review warnings and the actions available.
-   Upload a document for a business, or give you an upload link or the business's forwarding email address.
-   Save edits to a transaction, publish it to Xero, QuickBooks or Briefcase Ledger, archive it, or restore an archived document.
-   Create, add to and publish expense claims.
-   Show and manage prepayments, deferred income, accruals and fixed assets, including the period trackers.
-   For Briefcase Ledger businesses: read the profit and loss, balance sheet, aged creditors and aged debtors, journals and sales invoices, and raise sales invoices, add customers and post manual journals.
-   Search Briefcase help articles.

The assistant never moves money. It cannot make payments, transfer funds or send invoices to your customers.

## Before you start

-   Your Briefcase workspace needs assistant connections enabled. If the connect page says they are not enabled, ask your Briefcase contact.
-   The assistant uses your permissions. For example, it can only publish if you can publish, and it can only read reports or post journals on Briefcase Ledger businesses if you have the **Ledger** View or Post permission.

## Where to start

Open **Settings → AI assistants** in Briefcase. The guide at the top has a card for Claude, ChatGPT and any other assistant that supports MCP, each with a button that takes you straight there.

![The connect guide in Settings, AI assistants, with cards for Claude, ChatGPT and another assistant](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/wkspnrl7ztxurznuy5f9ki3w-ai-assistants-connect-guide.png "Choose your assistant")![The connect guide in Settings, AI assistants, with cards for Claude, ChatGPT and another assistant](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/mzvxpyev1e97mla2cd01d3gy-ai-assistants-connect-guide-dark.png "Choose your assistant")

## Connecting Claude

1.  In Claude, open **Settings → Connectors**. Find Briefcase and press **Connect**. If it isn't listed, choose **Add custom connector** and enter **https://api.briefcase.so/mcp**.

2.  Briefcase opens in your browser. Sign in if asked.

3.  Check the application name. Briefcase shows **Verified provider** for assistants it has verified. If you see **Unverified application**, only continue if you started the connection yourself.

4.  Choose **All businesses, including ones added later** or **Only the businesses I choose**.

5.  Press **Connect**. You return to Claude, which is now connected.

![The Briefcase connect page asking which businesses the assistant can work on](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/pmwcz5h09itsprn5bog3igsj-ai-assistants-consent-screen.png "Choose the businesses it can work on")![The Briefcase connect page asking which businesses the assistant can work on](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/gc8ixtnqtd8afi27lhgcfmyl-ai-assistants-consent-screen-dark.png "Choose the businesses it can work on")

To check the connection at any time, ask the assistant to "Check my Briefcase connection". It reports which businesses it can see and whether changes are allowed.

In Claude Code, run **/plugin marketplace add Briefcase-AI/briefcase-plugin**, then **/plugin install briefcase@briefcase**, and choose Briefcase under **/mcp** to sign in.

## Connecting ChatGPT

1.  Open [Briefcase in the ChatGPT plugin directory](https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_6abd0fee216c819191349465958a49d5), or search for Briefcase under **Plugins** in ChatGPT.

2.  Press **+** to add it.

3.  Sign in to Briefcase, choose your businesses and approve, the same as for Claude.

In Codex, run **codex plugin marketplace add Briefcase-AI/briefcase-plugin**, then install Briefcase from **/plugins** and start a new session.

## Connecting another assistant

Any assistant that supports MCP connectors can connect. Add a custom connector or MCP server with the address **https://api.briefcase.so/mcp**, then sign in, choose your businesses and approve.

## How changes work

Publishing, archiving, raising invoices and posting journals are two-step actions. The assistant first shows a preview of what would change and anything that blocks it, such as a missing supplier, a locked period or an unbalanced journal. It only goes ahead when you agree, and Briefcase re-checks your permissions and the current state before anything is posted. If the connection drops during an action, asking the assistant to retry is safe: Briefcase recognises the retry and does not repeat the change.

## Staying in control

**Settings → AI assistants** lists every connected assistant, who connected it, the businesses it can work on and when it was last used. Workspace administrators see the assistants everyone in the workspace has connected.

![Connected assistants with who connected them, their businesses and status, above recent activity](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/f9k8cjqxxdhozdcnwwdeydw4-ai-assistants-assistants-page.png "Connected assistants and recent activity")![Connected assistants with who connected them, their businesses and status, above recent activity](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/u4otiyce6lyu9j4pog29yv4e-ai-assistants-assistants-page-dark.png "Connected assistants and recent activity")

-   **Recent activity:** the latest changes and refused requests from every assistant, with links to the records they affected.

-   **All activity:** press **View all activity**, or **Activity** next to an assistant, to open the full history. Filter it by assistant, business, outcome or date, and move through it 25 entries at a time. Select an entry to see who asked for it, which business it was for, why Briefcase refused it if it did, and links to the records it changed. Lookups and reports an assistant reads are not listed.

-   **Disconnect:** press **Disconnect** next to an assistant to revoke its access immediately. You can reconnect at any time.

-   **Workspace controls:** workspace administrators can turn off **Allow assistant connections** for everyone, or keep reads on and turn off **Allow assistants to make changes**.

![The assistant activity panel with filters and a refused request opened to show why](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/ils9fb3fhmtdriavcx9n1hks-ai-assistants-activity-drawer.png "Filter and open assistant activity")![The assistant activity panel with filters and a refused request opened to show why](https://kb-assets.briefcase.so/support-kb/uploads/b8ilnxhplnsm8mddltk5gpqm-ai-assistants-activity-drawer-dark.png "Filter and open assistant activity")

Anything the assistant asks Briefcase for, including your businesses' financial data, is sent to the assistant's provider (for example Anthropic or OpenAI). Only connect assistants your firm has approved for client data.

## More in Getting started - Accounting firm

-   [How do I migrate to Briefcase Ledger?](https://briefcase.so/articles/how-do-i-migrate-to-briefcase-ledger)
-   [How to get started with Briefcase as an accountant](https://briefcase.so/articles/how-to-get-started-with-briefcase-as-an-accountant)

## Still need help?

Email the support team with what you were trying to do and we'll get back to you.

[Email support](mailto:support@briefcase.so)[Browse the help centre](https://briefcase.so/help)