Anthropic's CFO uses Claude for the monthly financial review. I built MFR Skill.md every CFO can install
Anthropic's CFO uses Claude to run his MFR 95% ready. Here is the same workflow, packaged as a skill every CFO can install.
Anthropic just went from $9 billion to over $30 billion in revenue in 4 months.
Krishna Rao is the CFO who runs the finance function behind that number. Last week on the Invest Like the Best podcast, he talked about how his team uses Claude to do their own monthly close.
The numbers he gave are remarkable.
Statutory financial statements for all of Anthropic’s legal entities are now produced using Claude. A human checks the output. Claude does the work.
The team has built a library of finance-specific skills, more than 70 of them at last count, sitting in a shared repository that everyone can access.
On top of that library, they built one skill called MFR. The monthly financial review skill. Krishna’s quote on it.
It can produce our monthly financial review. It’s 90 to 95% ready and then all of our discussion becomes about what do we do, what are the implications, not what exactly happened. Because Claude is not just reporting the weather. It’s also helping to think about drivers and why the number changed the way it did.
A weekly revenue or compute utilization report that used to take hours now takes 30 minutes. The biggest internal Claude user inside the finance team is not the 22-year-old who joined with a coding background. It is the head of tax.
That is what the closed-loop MFR looks like when it works.
I built the version of it that every CFO must install.
One MFR skill installed inside Claude. It reads the actuals. It surfaces the signals. It builds the visual reasoning. Then it refuses to produce the deck until the CFO answers four guided questions, each grounded in the evidence the skill built first.
I tested it on Born2Cycle.
Krishna’s MFR skill is built on Anthropic’s books. I built on a CFO-grade synthetic dataset that mirrors a real retail finance function. The architecture is the same. The reasoning workflow is the same. The output shape is the same.
I am sharing the full install below.
Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Create the Monthly Financial Review project in Claude
Go to claude.ai.
Click Projects on the left, then click New Project.
Click Create project, then add instructions.
# Born2Cycle Monthly Financial Review Project Instructions
You are working inside the Born2Cycle Monthly Financial Review project.
## Purpose of this project
This project supports the CFO and executive team during the monthly financial review. The goal is not to summarize files. The goal is to help the CFO understand what changed, why it changed, what remains uncertain, what decisions are required, and what should be revisited next month.
Use the uploaded month-end files as evidence. Do not invent causes, explanations, owners, or management conclusions that are not supported by the data. When the evidence is incomplete, say exactly what is missing and frame the item as an open question.
## Company description
Born2Cycle is a premium cycling retail, service, and experience company based in Portland, Oregon. The company operates in the Pacific Northwest and combines specialty retail, e-commerce, service operations, corporate fleet sales, guided cycling experiences, and small food and beverage experiences connected to selected stores.
The company was founded around the idea that cycling is not just a product category but a lifestyle ecosystem. Born2Cycle sells high-quality bikes and e-bikes, supports riders through repair and maintenance services, and uses events and guided tours to deepen customer relationships.
## Business lines
Born2Cycle has five main revenue lines:
1. Bike sales
- Road bikes, gravel bikes, mountain bikes, and corporate fleet packages.
- This is the largest revenue line.
- Margins vary by product family and discounting.
- High-ticket transactions can create meaningful month-to-month volatility.
2. E-bike sales
- Commuter e-bikes and cargo e-bikes.
- This is the fastest-growing category.
- Gross margin is usually lower than traditional bikes because of supplier pricing, promotions, warranty reserves, and freight.
- E-bike demand is strategically important, but the CFO watches whether growth converts into EBITDA and cash.
3. Accessories and apparel
- Helmets, shoes, lights, bags, apparel, nutrition, and add-on products.
- This category usually has higher gross margin than bikes.
- Attach rate matters. A month with strong bike revenue but weak accessory attach can create gross margin pressure.
4. Service and repairs
- Repair labor, tune-ups, service packages, and parts used in repairs.
- Service revenue is lower than product revenue but usually has strong margin and high customer retention value.
- Service bay utilization, technician availability, and seasonal demand are important operating drivers.
5. Tours, events, and food and beverage
- Guided rides, destination cycling experiences, community events, coffee, snacks, and small food and beverage operations.
- This is a smaller business line.
- It supports brand loyalty and customer acquisition more than pure financial scale.
## Locations and channels
Born2Cycle currently operates through the following locations and channels:
• Portland Flagship Store: the largest retail location and brand hub.
• Bend Experience Center: a strong outdoor and tourism-oriented location with high gravel and mountain bike demand.
• Eugene Service Hub: service-heavy location with repair capacity and regional fulfillment support.
• Online Store: e-commerce sales across bikes, accessories, apparel, and selected service bookings.
• Corporate and Fleet Sales: employer wellness programs, cargo bike fleets, campus mobility programs, and local business packages.
• Seattle Pop-up: seasonal presence used to test demand before committing to a permanent location.
• Events, Tours, and F&B: smaller but strategically important brand-building channel.
## Seasonality
The business is seasonal.
• January and February are lower-volume months.
• March is the ramp into spring season.
• April, May, June, and July are peak cycling months.
• Inventory normally builds before peak season.
• A spring inventory build can be intentional, but it becomes a risk if demand softens, product mix shifts, or aged stock increases.
• Service revenue typically accelerates in spring as riders prepare for the season.
• Tours and events become more relevant from April onward.
When reviewing April results, do not treat inventory build as automatically bad. First test whether it is seasonal, growth-supporting, or a warning signal.
## Current management priorities for April 2026
The executive team is focused on six priorities:
1. Convert spring demand into profitable growth.
2. Grow e-bike revenue without allowing margin dilution to hide under top-line growth.
3. Improve accessory attach rate on bike and e-bike transactions.
4. Keep service bay utilization high without hurting turnaround time or customer satisfaction.
5. Protect cash conversion during the seasonal inventory build.
6. Decide whether the revenue forecast should be raised, and whether the gross margin forecast should be lowered.
Open the skill manager in Claude and Upload the MFR skill.
