The problem
I had several credit and debit cards across 4 banks, a personal loan, a budget file I kept meaning to update, and absolutely no single view of where I stood financially.
Every month I knew what came in. I had no clear picture of what was truly going out, across cards with different billing cycles, different interest rates, and different due dates. I was paying minimums without knowing if that was the right decision. I had no visibility into whether I was making progress or falling behind.
The real cost was not only stress, but decisions made without data: which card to pay first, whether I could handle a large expense next month, whether my cash flow had an invisible spike coming.
Two hours with Claude changed that.
What the dashboard shows
A personal finance dashboard built by AI is a single HTML file you open in any browser. No app to download, no account to create, no subscription. It lives on your computer and shows:
- Income and fixed cost overview. Monthly income vs. fixed costs as a percentage. Mine came out at 41%, before I spend a single franc on food or anything else, nearly half my income is already committed.
- Debt tracker by card. Each credit card shown as a separate card with: current balance, credit limit, interest rate, payment strategy (full / minimum / partial), and whether the balance is growing or shrinking each month.
- Total debt picture. All debt in one number: credit cards plus personal loan. Seeing it in one place is uncomfortable. It is also necessary.
- 6-month cash flow projection. What the next months actually look like, including irregular large expenses. The month that looks fine on paper often has a hidden spike.
- AI insights. Specific actions ranked by financial impact: which card to stop using first, what the minimum payments are actually costing you per month, where your highest-leverage move is.
How to build it
You need: your credit card statements as PDFs, your budget tracking file if you have one, and Claude Cowork.
Step 1: Connect your folder
In Claude Cowork, connect the folder where your financial files are saved. Claude will read files from this folder directly.
Step 2: Get your statements as PDFs
If your bank sends statements by email: They usually arrive as a PDF attachment. Save each attachment to your connected folder.
If your bank delivers statements only in its mobile app: This is the common case for Swiss banks like Migros Bank, Cembra, and Swisscard. The process:
- Open the banking app
- Look for Documents, Statements, Abrechnungen, or Dokumente, usually in the card section or main menu
- Tap the most recent monthly statement
- Tap the share / download icon (iOS: square with arrow ↑; Android: three dots or download icon)
- Choose Save to Files (iPhone), then navigate to your iCloud or local folder
- On Mac: the file appears automatically if you use iCloud Drive, or you can AirDrop it from your phone
Total time: 2 to 3 minutes per card. With four cards: under 10 minutes.
Step 3: Give Claude this prompt
I have [X] credit card PDFs in my connected folder. Read all of them. Build me a personal finance dashboard as a single HTML file with: (1) monthly income vs fixed costs, (2) all credit card balances with interest rates and payment strategies, (3) total debt including any loans, (4) 6-month cash flow projection, (5) AI insights on what to pay first and why. My monthly net income is [your number].Claude reads all files, extracts every transaction and balance, and builds the HTML. It takes 2 to 3 minutes.
Step 4: Correct the data
The first version will have assumptions. Go through it and correct anything wrong:
- “Update the income to [X], that’s already net, not gross.”
- “Card A I pay in full every month, no interest. Card B I pay only the minimum. Update the strategy for each.”
- “I also have a personal loan of [X]/month for [Y] more years with [Z] still outstanding. Add this to the total debt picture.”
Each correction takes Claude about 30 seconds to implement.
Step 5: Save and open
Claude saves the final HTML to your connected folder. Open it in Chrome or Safari. No internet connection needed to view it.
Three questions everyone asks
1. Can I avoid uploading files manually every month?
Yes, with different levels of effort.
Level 1, 5 minutes per month (recommended starting point): Create an email folder or label for each bank’s statement notification. When the monthly statement arrives by email, save the PDF attachment to your connected folder. With a banking app: follow Step 2 above once per month. This takes 5 minutes total for three to four cards.
Level 2, automated saving (Make.com, free tier): If your bank emails you a notification when the statement is ready, you can automate the PDF download. Create a free account at make.com, build a scenario (Gmail, detect email from your bank, extract PDF attachment, save to Google Drive folder), connect your Google Drive to Claude Cowork, and Claude reads the PDFs directly from Drive with no manual step. Setup time: about 30 minutes once. After that, it runs automatically every month. Make.com’s free tier allows 1,000 operations per month; four bank emails equals four operations.
Level 3, Open Banking API (where available): In the UK, EU, and Australia, banks are legally required to provide API access to your account data under Open Banking regulations (PSD2 in Europe, CDR in Australia). This means apps, and potentially Claude, can read your balance and transaction history directly, with no PDFs at all.
Check if your bank offers this: search “[your bank name] Open Banking API” or look for a “Connected apps” or “Third-party access” section in your bank’s settings. In Switzerland, this is less mature but expanding. In the UK and EU, it is already widely available.
2. How do I update numbers each month?
For a single balance update: “The balance on Card B is now CHF 1,400. Update the dashboard.” Claude opens the file, finds the number, changes it, saves. Thirty seconds.
For a full monthly refresh: Upload new statements and say: “New statements are in the folder. Read them all and update every balance and the cash flow projection.”
For quick manual edits: The dashboard has an Edit Numbers button (top right). Click it and all balances and totals become directly editable in your browser. Click Done Editing to lock them. No Claude needed for quick mid-month adjustments.
3. How do I know if an invoice is already paid?
Two features built into the dashboard:
Fixed costs checklist: Every row in the fixed costs table has a checkbox. Tick it and the row turns green with strikethrough. Use it at the start of each month as debits clear your account.
Debt card PAID badge: Each credit card has a Mark as paid this month button. Click it once you’ve made your payment for the month. The card turns green. At any point you can see which cards are settled and which are still open.
Both features save in your browser automatically. They reset if you clear browser storage, so treat them as a monthly working tool.
What this revealed that I didn’t know
When I built this dashboard, two things surprised me.
I thought July would be comfortable, it wasn’t. One card had a large charge in its June statement that I hadn’t fully accounted for. After fixed costs and that card payment, my free cash for the month was significantly lower than I assumed. I wouldn’t have seen this without the 6-month projection.
I found a subscription I had forgotten about. Showing up twice in the same month on one card statement, two separate charges adding up to CHF 45. I had cancelled it in my head months earlier. It was still running. That’s CHF 540/year gone.
My revolving card balances were growing, not shrinking. I thought I was making progress. In reality: I was charging more each month than I was paying in minimums. The balance was increasing quietly, every month, while I wasn’t looking.
Risks and limitations
It’s a snapshot, not a live feed. The dashboard reflects your statements at the moment you built it. Treat it as a monthly planning tool, not a real-time account view.
The first version will have errors. AI reads PDFs and makes reasonable assumptions about what’s income vs. spending, fixed vs. variable. Always verify the numbers against your actual statements before making financial decisions.
Privacy: Your financial data, balances, transactions, amounts, is processed by Claude. Anthropic’s privacy policy applies. Do not include actual account login credentials, only PDF statements you download from your bank.
Browser storage is local. The paid checkboxes and PAID badges are stored in your browser’s local storage. They don’t sync across devices and clear if you reset browser data. This is by design: your financial data stays on your machine.
If you’re outside Switzerland
The dashboard and the prompts work identically regardless of your country or currency. A few things to adapt:
Currency: Replace CHF with your local currency throughout the prompts. Claude will build the dashboard in whatever currency appears in your statements.
Bank names: The prompts reference no specific banks. Whatever PDFs you upload, from HSBC, ING, Chase, Deutsche Bank, BNP, Claude reads them the same way.
Interest rates: Swiss revolving credit rates run 10 to 12% per year. UK rates are often higher (20 to 25% APR on credit cards). EU varies widely. The dashboard will show whatever rate appears on your statement.
Health insurance: In Switzerland, everyone pays Krankenkasse (health insurance) directly as a fixed monthly cost, and it’s typically one of the largest line items. In most other countries, this is deducted from payroll. Adjust your fixed costs list accordingly.
Pension contributions: Switzerland has Pillar 3a (voluntary pension savings, tax-deductible). In the UK this is equivalent to a SIPP, in Germany a Riester-Rente. Whatever voluntary pension you contribute, add it to your fixed costs section.
Open Banking availability:
- UK: Full Open Banking since 2018. Most major banks offer API access. Check openbanking.org.uk for a directory of available bank APIs.
- EU: PSD2 requires all banks to provide API access. Available across most EU member states.
- Australia: Consumer Data Right (CDR) legislation. Available through major banks.
- Switzerland: Not legally mandated. Available at some banks (PostFinance, UBS have some API offerings). Expanding slowly.
- US: Not legally standardized, but services like Plaid and MX connect to most major banks and can export transaction data.
What to ask your bank: “Does your bank offer Open Banking or third-party API access to account data?” If yes, this could eventually eliminate the PDF upload step entirely.
The prompt that starts everything
Copy this, fill in your numbers, and run it in Claude Cowork with your statement PDFs in the connected folder:
Read all the PDF files in my connected folder — they are credit card statements from my banks. Build me a personal finance dashboard as a single HTML file. Include: monthly net income vs fixed costs as a percentage, all credit card balances with interest rates and my payment strategy for each, any personal loan or installment debt I'll describe, 6-month cash flow projection with any large known expenses, and AI insights on the highest-priority financial actions. My household net monthly income is [X].Then correct one thing at a time. The second version will be accurate. The third version will be genuinely useful.
This guide covers Claude Cowork as of June 2026. Make.com automation steps are based on the free tier. Open Banking availability varies by country and changes frequently, verify with your specific bank.