You can connect Claude directly to your Tiller account using a custom MCP (Model Context Protocol) connector. Once connected, Claude can query your transactions, categories, and other Tiller data without requiring you to export or paste anything manually.

You'll need an active Tiller subscription and a Claude account. The connection works in both the Claude desktop app and the Claude web app at claude.ai. A free Claude account is sufficient to get started. Note that usage limits may apply depending on your plan. See Claude's plans and limits for the latest information.

In the Claude desktop app: Go to Settings → Connectors.

In the Claude web app: Go to claude.ai/settings/connectors.

You'll see a list of available connectors. If Tiller isn't listed yet, you'll add it manually in the next step.

Click Add custom connector. A modal will appear with two fields:

Click Add.

After adding the connector, it will appear in your connectors list. Click Connect next to the Tiller entry.

After logging in, you'll see an authorization screen confirming that Claude is requesting access to your Tiller account. Review the redirect URI (https://claude.ai/api/mcp/auth_callback) and click Allow.

A Tiller login screen will open. Sign in using the same Google or Microsoft account you use for your Tiller account.

Once authorized, Claude can access your Tiller data in any conversation where the Tiller connector is active. Claude will prompt you to allow certain actions and this type of Always Allow message may come up a few times throughout the process.

You can manage or disconnect it anytime from Settings → Connectors.

Be specific about time periods. Claude needs to convert your question into a date range, so "last month" or "Q1 2025" works better than vague requests like "recently" or "this year so far."

If you have multiple spreadsheets, name the one you want. Claude will ask you to clarify if it finds more than one, but you can save a step by specifying upfront — e.g., "in my 2025 budget spreadsheet."

Your category names are the source of truth. Claude uses your exact category names from your spreadsheet, so if you ask about "Dining Out" but your category is called "Restaurants," it won't find a match. When in doubt, ask Claude to list your categories first.

Ask for totals or summaries vs. transaction lists intentionally. Claude behaves differently depending on whether you want a summary ("how much did I spend on groceries?") vs. individual transactions ("show me my grocery transactions in April"). Being explicit gets you the right format faster.

Transfers won't inflate your income or expense totals. Claude is built to classify transfers separately, so things like credit card payments moving between accounts shouldn't skew your numbers — but if something looks off, you can ask Claude to show you how it's classifying a specific category.

Categories marked "hide from reports" are excluded by default. If you're missing something you expect to see, it may be hidden in your category settings. You can explicitly ask Claude to include hidden categories if needed.

Large date ranges may take a moment. Claude can only retrieve 500 transactions at a time and will paginate through larger datasets automatically, so annual analyses may take a bit longer than a single-month query.

The MCP now allows writing changes back to the Transactions sheet for Direct Fills sheets.

You can use Claude to categorize transactions and apply notes to transactions.

Example prompt:

Show me the most recent uncategorized transactions in my Tiller spreadsheet called [insert Spreadsheet name].

Claude will list out uncategorized transactions

Using my categories from the Categories sheet how you would categorize these transactions?

Claude will list out how transactions will be categorized and ask if you want it to apply the edits.

Reply, yes categorize those transactions.

Claude will write those edits back to your Google Sheet.

We've created a few different preset prompts to help you interact with and visualize your data based on common workflows.

Spending Report — Get a breakdown of your spending for any time period, including total income, total expenses, net cash flow, and your top spending categories ranked by amount.

Income vs. Expenses — See a clear comparison of money in vs. money out for a given period, with income, expenses, and transfers calculated separately and a full breakdown of top sources and categories.

Spending Trends — Compare your spending month-over-month to spot patterns, see how totals are changing over time, and identify which categories are increasing or decreasing the most.

Budget vs. Actual — Compare what you budgeted against what you actually spent by category for a given month, including which categories are over or under budget and your overall budget utilization.

For the best results right now we recommend Claude. In early testing with ChatGPT the responses were inconsistent and inaccurate. We have not validated with other tools like Gemini.

However, if you want to experiment, the basic steps are the same and you'd use https://ai-tools.tillermoney.com/mcp URL to connect to the MCP. For now we're not documenting steps for other tools.