How to ask Claude about your business spending and renewals

Ask a general AI assistant "what software are we paying for?" and the honest answer is "I don't know." It has never seen your card statement. You can paste one in, and it will do a decent job on that one file, but next week you start over, and it has no idea who on your team owns which tool or what renews in March.

Connect it to the place where your recurring money already lives and the conversation changes. "What renews this quarter, and who owns each one?" gets a list with dates, amounts and names, pulled from your actual charges. This post shows what that looks like with Claude and Subly, how to set it up, and where the limits are.

What changes when the assistant works from real numbers?

Three things. Answers stop being guesses: the totals come from your charges, already converted to your currency, rather than from what the assistant thinks a Figma seat costs. Context carries over: owners, categories, projects and notes are already there, so you do not explain your setup each time. And you can act in the same conversation: if Claude finds a renewal with no owner, you can assign one without opening another app.

What stays the same is that you are the one deciding. The assistant looks things up, adds up numbers and drafts changes. It does not cancel anything at the vendor or pay anyone.

What is MCP, in plain words?

MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is an open standard that lets AI assistants connect to other apps. An app that supports it offers a short list of actions, such as "find items" or "upcoming charges", and the assistant can call them while you talk to it. You give permission once by signing in, and you can take it back any time. Subly offers an MCP server, which is why the same connection works in Claude, in Claude Code and in other assistants that support remote MCP servers.

What can you ask Claude about your spending?

Here are questions people ask once Claude is connected, with the kind of answer that comes back. The numbers are examples; yours come from your own workspace.

"Which of our tools renew before the end of the year, and who owns each one?" Four renewals before December 31, $1,260 in total: Adobe ($720, November 5, no owner), Webflow ($168, November 21, no owner), Figma ($180, December 2, Sam) and Zoom ($192, December 9, Dana). Two have no owner, and Claude can offer to assign them.

"Where does our money go?" What your recurring costs add up to each month and year, broken down by category, so you can see that design tools are a third of the total before you open a spreadsheet.

"Add Linear, 6 seats at $8." Claude repeats back what it is about to add (Linear, $48 a month, monthly) and asks you to confirm before it creates the item.

"Who owns Webflow?" Nobody, yet. Claude can set an owner when you name one, and that person then gets its renewal reminders.

"What did we actually pay last quarter?" The charges recorded between two dates, with the total in your currency and the largest items first. This is what was really paid, not what the plans say, so a seat added mid-quarter or a one-time fee shows up too.

"Summarize October." The month in numbers: what went out, what came in, what changed and what renews next month, with Subly's written summary when there is one.

How do I connect Claude to Subly?

The connection takes a few minutes. You need a Subly account on Personal, Business or Team (or a lifetime deal with the AI & Automation add-on), and access to custom connectors in Claude.

If you use Claude Code, the same Connections card has a one-line command (claude mcp add --transport http subly followed by the address) you can paste into your terminal. For other assistants and tools that speak remote MCP, the MCP server card in Connections has the same address and a small JSON config for tools that read one from a file. Every app you connect shows up under Connected apps.

Is it safe to give an AI assistant access to my finances?

It is reasonable to ask. Here is exactly what the connection allows.

• What Claude can see: your recurring items, charges, totals and monthly summaries in your workspaces. The same things you see in Subly.
• What Claude can change: it can add items, mark them as cancelled and set owners. It is set up to check with you before any of these, and it repeats the details back so you can say yes or no.
• What Claude cannot do: delete anything, see bank details or change billing.
• What nothing connected to Subly can do: move money. Subly is read-only at the bank. It can see transactions; it cannot pay anyone or change anything at your bank. If you connect a bank, it goes through Plaid, so your bank login never reaches Subly.

"Mark as cancelled" means marking it in Subly after you have cancelled with the vendor. Subly does not cancel subscriptions for you. And you can disconnect Claude in Connected apps at any time; its access stops right away.

What about the API, webhooks, Zapier and Make?

If you would rather automate than chat, the same data is available in other ways:

• REST API with an OpenAPI spec. Read and update items, charges, what is coming up and signals from your own scripts. Create keys in Connections.
• Signed webhooks for every signal. A price change, a late client payment or a crossed budget can wake your own tools the moment it happens. Personal includes 3 webhooks, Business 5 and Team 10.
• Zapier and Make. Send a renewal to your task board or a late payment to your CRM without writing code.

A common setup is to let webhooks push the urgent things (a renewal in seven days, a client three days late) and use Claude for the questions that come up in between. If you track income too, the post on tracking recurring revenue shows what to put in so "summarize October" covers money in as well as money out.

What do I need to get started?

Before connecting anything, get your recurring charges into one place; the assistant can only be as good as the list behind it. The SaaS subscription audit guide is a good first pass, and if your team shares tools, giving each tool an owner makes answers like "who owns Webflow?" worth asking.