The complete setup for Anthropic's new Claude for Small Business plugin. Connectors, the first workflow to run, and the one privacy setting most owners forget to flip.
Anthropic just launched Claude for Small Business: a new plugin inside Claude Cowork built specifically for small business owners. It connects to QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Google Workspace, and more, and ships with 15 ready-to-run workflows for the tasks every owner hates (payroll, month-end close, invoice chasing, tax prep, lead triage).
The setup is actually fast. The 5-minute framing is aspirational once you add OAuth time, but a realistic complete setup with all the primary connectors takes 15 to 20 minutes. This guide walks you through it end-to-end, including the one privacy setting most owners forget to flip.
A paid Claude plan. Pro ($20/mo), Max ($100 to $200/mo), Team, or Enterprise. Claude for Small Business is included at no extra cost on every paid plan. Free does not work.
The Claude Cowork desktop app. Mac or Windows. Cowork (and therefore the Small Business plugin) does not run in the browser or on mobile. Download from claude.com/download if you don't have it yet. Then make sure it's updated to the latest version.
Admin access to the tools you want to connect. QuickBooks Online, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365. You don't need to connect all of them. Start with the ones you actually use.
About 15 minutes for the full setup with the primary connectors. The plugin install itself takes 60 seconds. Connecting each tool is 1 to 2 minutes of OAuth.
Step 1
Open the Claude Cowork desktop app. In the left sidebar, click Plugins. Find Claude for Small Business. Toggle it on. The plugin bundle (15 workflows + 15 skills + all the connector definitions) downloads as one package. Takes about 60 seconds.
If you don't see the plugin
The most common reason "Small Business" doesn't show up under Plugins is that the Cowork desktop app is on an older version. Go to Settings, click "Check for updates," install the latest, and restart Cowork.
Step 2
In a new chat, type the slash command /smb-onboard and send. Claude walks you through the entire onboarding step by step. You don't have to figure anything out yourself. It will ask you about your business, the tools you use, and which workflows you want to start with.
If you'd rather skip the guided flow, you can also just type "get me started" in plain English and Claude will run the same onboarding informally.
Step 3
When Claude asks you to connect tools, start with the ones you actually use most. The primary connectors at launch:
QuickBooks (accounting, invoicing, payroll prep)
PayPal (payments, settlements, refunds)
HubSpot (leads, deals, contacts, campaigns)
Canva (marketing creative)
DocuSign (contracts, agreements)
Google Workspace (Gmail, Drive, Calendar)
Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Word, Excel, Calendar)
You can also add Slack, Stripe, Square, Gmail, and Outlook as you go. For each connector, Claude opens that tool's standard OAuth login in your browser. You sign in once, approve the permissions, and you're done. About 60 to 90 seconds per tool.
Critical OAuth tip
Claude inherits exactly the permissions of the account you sign in with. If a bookkeeper can't see payroll in QuickBooks today, they won't see it through Claude either. Sign in with the right user. Most owners should use their own admin account for full access.
Step 4
This is the highest-leverage step in this entire guide. On Pro and Max plans, "model improvement on chat data" is defaulted to ON. Team and Enterprise plans default to off. If you're a solo founder on Pro or Max, your chat content is being used to train Claude unless you flip this off.
Go to Settings » Privacy » Model improvement and toggle it off. Raw connector data is already excluded, but anything you type or paste into chat (customer names, financial details, internal docs) is not. Do this before you run any real workflow.
Step 5
Type /monday-brief (or ask Claude to "run a business pulse"). This is the workflow Anthropic explicitly recommends running first. It touches every primary connector you just hooked up, so any broken OAuth or missing permission shows up immediately. Better to find a connector problem now than mid-payroll.
Business Pulse generates a one-page brief that aggregates your cash position from QuickBooks, incoming settlements from PayPal, sales trends, pipeline movement from HubSpot, your weekly calendar, and three top action items for the day. It also notes which tool each data point came from, so you can verify any number at the source.
It's a brief, not a dashboard
Business Pulse generates a one-page document per run. It's not a persistent live dashboard. If you want it delivered automatically every Monday, schedule the workflow to run on a cron and drop the output into Slack or a Drive folder.
Anthropic ships 15 ready-to-run workflows with the plugin. The four officially named by Anthropic:
/plan-payroll · Payroll planning. Forecasts your next payroll run from QuickBooks data and flags anything unusual.
/close-month · Month-end close. Reconciles your books, identifies missing entries, and prepares a clean close.
/monday-brief · Business pulse. The one-page weekly brief described above.
/run-campaign · Campaign runner. Builds and stages a marketing campaign across HubSpot, Canva, and your email tool.
Additional workflows in the bundle include invoice chasing, margin analysis, tax-season organization, contract review, lead triage, content strategy, employee onboarding packets, cash flow forecasting, pipeline health checks, and support ticket triage. Type "what workflows can I run?" inside Cowork to see the full list available in your install.
Nothing sends, posts, or pays without your approval. That's Anthropic's explicit promise. When Claude generates an invoice reminder, drafts a campaign email, or stages a payroll run, you see the full output and approve it before anything goes live.
You can also approve once at the plan stage and let a workflow run end-to-end. Useful for recurring tasks you've already verified, like the Monday Business Pulse. Per-action auto-approval rules (e.g., "always send invoice reminders under $500") are not yet documented; the choice is per-run.
Permissions inherit from the tools. If an employee can't see something in QuickBooks today, they can't see it through Claude. Revoking access at the source (disconnect Claude from the QuickBooks admin panel) immediately cuts Claude's access. No privilege escalation through the plugin.
Free training that's actually good
PayPal and Anthropic built a free on-demand course called AI Fluency for Small Business. Nine lessons, 54 minutes total, certificate on completion, no Claude subscription required to take it. Find it at anthropic.skilljar.com/ai-fluency-for-small-businesses. Worth the 54 minutes before you let Claude near payroll.
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