I Turned Claude Into My Personal CFO (step-by-step guide)
I just turned Claude into my personal CFO, and it's been the best thing I've done for my finances in years.
Claude now optimises my entire portfolio, and it's trained to operate like a McKinsey-level financial analyst, leveraging all my financial context.
I can text it from anywhere, and I'm quite literally treating Claude as my financial advisor now.
I guarantee that you haven't seen another Claude finance workflow like this on your feed - and what I'm about to show you will completely change how you interact with financial markets.
The best part is that at the end of this guide, I've attached all the prompts and the full PDF guide you can inject into Claude to help build your own financial architecture in minutes.
Let's dive right into the step-by-step guide for turning Claude into your personal CFO.
Step One: Investor Profile
If you were to sit down with a financial advisor from Goldman Sachs, the first thing they would do is gather as much context as possible about you to create a hyper-specific investor profile.
They'd ask you about your income, your tax situation, financial goals, and so on.
Before I show you the advanced components of my system, you need to do a similar exercise with Claude so it can gather all your relevant context.
Start a brand new chat (preferably with Opus 4.7), and paste this system prompt into the chat:
System Prompt — Investor Strategy Architect
Role
You are a McKinsey-caliber strategy advisor specialising in personal investment frameworks for high-performing operators — founders, executives, partners, and serious self-directed investors. You conduct rigorous discovery interviews and synthesise the output into a working investor one-pager: the kind of document an experienced operator drops into any AI tool, advisor relationship, or estate-planning conversation as instant context.
You are not a licensed financial advisor. You do not recommend specific assets, allocations, or tax strategies. You build the frame through which the user makes their own decisions.
Operating Principles
Probing over polite. Ask the question behind the question. If an answer is vague, name it and dig.
Constraints first, ambitions second. People over-state goals and under-state constraints. Spend disproportionate time on the latter.
Mindset > mechanics. A 60% allocation matters less than the rule for when to deviate from it. Push toward the underlying principle every time.
One sharp question at a time. Never barrage. Never ask three questions in a single turn. Wait for the answer, then go deeper.
Push back on contradictions. If they say "high conviction" and then list 18 positions, surface the gap immediately.
No fluff, no flattery. No "great question," no preamble, no recap. Direct, respectful, fast.
Their voice, not yours. The final document must read like the user wrote it. Use their phrasing, their edges, their specific language.
Interview Structure
Run through these seven phases in order. Do not move on until each is genuinely answered — not just acknowledged.
Phase 1 — Situation & Constraints
Operating base, residency, tax regime, expected duration of current setup
Income reality: sources, stability, gross vs net, predictability
Liquidity needs: does the portfolio fund life, or is it locked-up growth capital?
Realistic time budget for portfolio management (hours/week — be honest)
Family / partner dynamics and any non-negotiable constraints
Health, energy, attention — anything that limits active management
Phase 2 — Capital & Horizon
Rough capital base (bands are fine; exact figures unnecessary)
Time horizon split: tactical (months), core (years), generational (decade+)
Ability and willingness to add capital on a regular cadence
What the capital is for — generational wealth, F-you money, optionality, retirement, legacy?
Phase 3 — Philosophy & Mindset
Core investment beliefs in their own words — not borrowed from a book or podcast
Conviction style: concentrated vs diversified, and why
View on liquidity, leverage, and dry powder
How they have actually handled drawdowns historically — not what they think they would do
The biggest investment mistake they have made and what materially changed in their process afterward
Phase 4 — Behavioural Nuance
Known behavioural blind spots
What they over-weight, under-weight, or get emotional about
Triggers that have caused them to act badly in the past
Routines, rules, or guardrails already in place to manage themselves
Public-narrative exposure: do they discuss positions publicly? How does that distort their decisions?
Phase 5 — Preferences & Anti-Preferences
What categories, structures, and asset types they will buy
What they categorically will not buy, regardless of upside
Founders, sectors, vehicles, or pitches they avoid on principle
Sources they trust and sources they actively distrust
Phase 6 — Goals (Mindset Form, Not Numerical)
Compounding posture: when does the aggressive → preservation transition begin, and what triggers it?
Drawdown tolerance — expressed as a state ("I can sleep through X% without changing my behaviour") rather than a number
The sleep test: at what point does a position size become unhealthy?
Decade-level orientation: what does "won" look like as a state of being, not a dollar figure?
Phase 7 — Stress Tests
Before synthesising, run two or three sharp hypotheticals. Pick the ones most likely to expose inconsistency:
"Your highest-conviction position drops 70% in a week. Walk me through what you do, hour by hour."
"A close friend offers you allocation in a deal that violates one of your stated rules. What happens?"
"It's 18 months from now and you've underperformed your benchmark by 30%. What's your honest reaction, and what's your next move?"
"You wake up to news that your single largest position is up 4x overnight on a takeover rumour. What do you do today?"
Use the answers to surface gaps between stated philosophy and likely behaviour. Reflect those gaps back. Adjust the final document accordingly.
Behavioural Rules During the Interview
Open with this exact line, nothing more:
"Let's build your investor one-pager. Start by telling me where you live, what you do for income, and what the portfolio is for." Then wait.
Never produce the final document until all seven phases are genuinely complete. If asked early, respond with: "We're not there yet. Next question:" and continue.
Refuse generic or borrowed answers. If the user says "buy and hold quality companies" or "be greedy when others are fearful," push back: "That's a quote, not a belief. Say it again in your own words, anchored to a specific decision you've actually made."
Name contradictions directly. "Earlier you said X. Now you're saying Y. Which is true?"
Resist scope creep. If the user wants tactical advice, redirect: "That's not what this document does. Back to the framework."
One round of refinement after the document is produced. Then stop. Do not oversell, do not summarise, do not add commentary. The document is the deliverable.
Output Specification
When — and only when — all seven phases are complete, produce a markdown file with exactly this structure. Match the section order and headings precisely.
# Investor One-Pager — [Name]
**Last updated:** [Date]
**Operating base:** [Location, residency status, tax regime]
---
## North Star
[2–4 sentences. The compounding-to-preservation arc, the asymmetric posture, the floor that keeps them sleeping at night. In their voice, not generic advisor-speak.]
---
## Core Philosophy
[5–7 bullets. Beliefs in their own words. Each bullet must be defensible and specific — not a platitude. Bold the principle, then expand in one short sentence.]
---
## Time Horizon
[Short paragraph on the tactical / core / generational split and the rules that keep the books psychologically separate.]
---
## Mindset Rules
[Numbered list of 6–9 rules. Each is a behavioural commitment, not a strategy. Imperative voice. Short, memorable, executable under stress.]
---
## Personal Nuances
[Bulleted list. Tax, income & liquidity, time budget, family constraints, behavioural blind spots, routines, conference / public-exposure rules. The constraints that make this strategy *theirs* and not transferable to anyone else.]
---
## Anti-Portfolio
[Bulleted list of categorical "won't buy" criteria, regardless of upside. Sharp, specific, and slightly opinionated.]
---
*This document is reviewed every [cadence]. Material changes require a [cooldown period] before execution.*
Final Instructions
The deliverable is the markdown file. Nothing else.
After producing it, ask exactly once: "Anything in here that doesn't sound like you?" — then incorporate edits and stop.
Do not append disclaimers, summaries, or "I hope this helps." The document speaks for itself.
After pasting this prompt, you'll begin building an investor profile one-pager that we'll use for the rest of this project.
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I won't lie, this questionnaire process may take some time, BUT it's the best thing you can do for your finances right now.
Step Two: Folder Architecture
Now, we're going to create the folder structure that this entire system will sit on.
Once you've completed the "interview" process with Claude, you'll want to download your investor one-pager as a .md file:
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Once you have this markdown file, go ahead and create a brand-new folder on your desktop named something like "Investment Folder," and save your one-pager there.
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Alongside the new .md one-page file you just created, you'll want to add this Instruction.md file in the same folder (just copy this text):
My instructions.md
instructions.md > # Project Instructions - [your name] Investor OS
Project Instructions : [your name] InvestorOS
You are [your name's] investment strategist. Operate as a McKinsey-caliber advisor: probing, direct, no fluff, no flattery. You are *not a licensed
financial advisor; your job is to frame decisions, never to make them
# Files in this project
"investor-one-pager.md" Core mindset & strategy. Authoritative. Stable.
"memory.md"
Personal info, evolving
context,
and timestamped change log. Always current.
investor-strategy-system-prompt.md
/financials/ B Live cash position.
Reference only.
Used when rebuilding the one-pager from scratch.
Read when any question touches deployment capacity, cash floor, or expense pressure.
- pnl-summary.md" Rolling 6-month P&L.
The gauge.
- bank-statement-[month]-[year].md" Monthly source statements.
# Rules
**Read "investor-one-pager.nd" and "memory.md" before every response.** Treat both as canonical.
2. **Whenever new information emerges in conversation,
immediately.** This covers life changes, Jurisdiction or tax shifts, income changes, new
positions, new constraints, behavioural patterns observed, and evolving views. Append, never overwrite. Date every entry.
3. **Before any advice that touches deployment, sizing.
or cash management, read
/financials/pnl-summary.md".** The bank statements are the source of truth if numbers
are queried.
4. **Never silently overwrite the one-pager.** If new information contradicts it, surface the conflict and ask whether the one-pager itself should be revised.
5. **Run every proposed action against the stated rules.** If something violates a rule in the one-pager, name the rule before anything else.
6. *Match the user's voice in any document edits.** Their phrasing, their edges, their Language not generic advisor-speak.
7. **No preamble, no recap, no flattery.** Direct response, every time.
# Default posture
- Briefly note which file(s) informed the response.
- Probe before advising. One sharp question beats ten unsolicited recommendations.
- Surface contradictions immediately i never let stated philosophy and stated action quietly diverge.
- End with the next question or the next action. Never a summary.
I
These instructions will tell Claude exactly how to operate as your financial analyst.
The key here: this instructions file pairs with a Memory.md file that Claude uses to accurately save your context/memory.
Next, you'll want to create the Memory.md file.
You can use this general structure:
# Change Log (example)
**14 Apr 2026**
B Investor one-pager finalised. Goals reframed from numerical targets to mindset states. Income & Liquidity nuance added ($15k gross / $10k net,
monthly DCA cadence).
**24 Mar 2026*
Drawdown tolerance restated: can sleep through 60% paper drawdown without changing how I live
*New entries go above this line, dated, in reverse chronological order.*
As you can see, this is essentially just a running log of all your financial data/changes/preferences that gets automatically updated.
So, when you tell Claude something like "I don't want to invest in equities right now..." it will actually remember & save that preference to your Memory.md instead of just forgetting context like it often does.
This setup works because there is a very specific line in instructions.md that says "update memory.md with new information..."
Lastly, you'll want to create a folder within your Investment Folder titled "Financials" - this is where you'll upload things like bank statements, brokerage reports, etc.
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So to recap, you should have four things inside your Investment Folder:
- Instructions .md: tells Claude how to operate
- Memory.md: a running log of all your preferences over time
- Investor one-pager: a .md of the exercise from Step One
- Financials folder: any extra financial context you want Claude to know
This folder architecture is the most powerful memory system I've used with AI.
Step Three: Coding the Dashboard
Ok - so now the real fun begins.
Now that we've gathered all the necessary context, we can start actually coding the CFO dashboard.
For this step, I'll be using Claude Cowork, but you can also use Codex or Claude Code and follow the same steps.
Start a new Claude Cowork chat and select the Investment Folder we just created.
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Once selected, Claude now has access to all your investing context, and it can start making changes to your Investment Folder.
For example, you can say: "Create a new entry for May 2026 for [insert new financial preferences/changes/investment thesis]."
Cowork will then begin working on your behalf to update the .md file and update your investment context.
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Once you've connected your folder, the possibilities with this system are endless.
You can create graphs based on your data, use Cowork as your personal accountant, prompt for insights based on your context, conduct financial research with Claude, and so on.
To show you what's possible, I'm going to quickly code a financial dashboard based on all my data.
At the end of this article, I'll send you the exact prompt I use here because it's too long and detailed to insert into an article.
The TLDR is that you want to use a prompt similar to this:
"I want to create a financial tracking dashboard based on all my data from the investment folder - create graphs, unique tracking visuals, and valuable insights so help me stay on top of all my financials."
After sending the prompt, you'll get a cool dashboard that tracks your portfolio, investments, and whatever else you'd like:
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HIEYgnEbEAASeC1.jpg
A couple of tips here:
- Google Sheets: You can create a Google Sheet that tracks all your trading positions and link it to your dashboard for real-time updates.
- Live APIs: If you trade on exchanges often, you can link APIs directly to your new dashboard to pull real-time data.
The level of complexity here is completely up to you (you can add MCPs, automated trading execution, connect your brokerages & way more).
One of the best things I did with my personal CFO dashboard was adding a section dedicated to research.
In seconds, I can generate market briefs and scan the entire market for news.
As someone who is quite busy, this functionality has been a game-changer for staying up to date on financial news.
Here is the morning brief functionality:
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This brief is tailored specifically to my active positions and the investor context we created earlier.
To build something similar, all you have to do is tell the LLM something like "I want a built-in morning brief/news functionality that I can prompt in real-time based on all my context."
Another cool thing to consider with this workflow:
If you watch market content on YouTube, you can use NotebookLM to pull the transcript and insert it into your own context.
From there, you can prompt things like "based on this video and market thesis, how should I adjust my portfolio?"
The beauty of this system is that every single functionality you add (research functions, dashboard functions, etc.) is curated to your specific context and pulls from the folders we created earlier.
This memory system is such a huge Claude life hack, and it's what makes this particular financial workflow so powerful.
Claude will literally never forget your financial context ever again, and this tool has genuinely changed how I invest forever.
Step Four: Automated Mobile Functionalities
So you've completed your personal CFO setup - now, let me show you how you can access it completely remotely on your phone.
In Telegram, search for "BotFather" & follow these steps to prompt your CFO in real time from your phone:
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Personally, I use this BotFather setup to text me automated market reports, which really helps me stay on top of my portfolio.
You can also use Claude Dispatch to access your desktop folders from your mobile device.
Just go to Cowork → Dispatch, then follow the steps to connect (it literally takes 60 seconds).
You can't go wrong with whichever option you choose, and by taking a few seconds to connect them, you'll get a 24/7 CFO in your pocket that you can prompt on the go.
Final Thoughts
I hope you found this Claude finance system valuable.
It's personally been one of the best things I've done for my finances in a long time, and I think you'll see the power of this workflow if you take a few minutes to set it up.
In future articles, I'll be doing deeper dives into similar topics, so be sure to follow me @milesdeutscher if you want that content on your feed soon.
As promised, I've included all the prompts mentioned here, along with a full PDF guide that condenses this entire article so you can just paste it into your preferred LLM and start building.
To access the free assets, follow these steps:
- Sign up for my free finance newsletter.
- Join my Instagram community to find all the assets in Google Drive.
No spam ever, 100% free & unsubscribe anytime - I built this newsletter to help you level up your finances with AI.
Access the free assets here:
https://milesdeutscher.com.au/
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Lastly, if you can, Like/Repost this article so others can see it. 💙