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build recipe

Clean up and analyze an Excel file

Hand Claude a messy spreadsheet and get back a clean version plus answers to the questions you actually care about.

easy ~10 min

you'll end up with A cleaned-up spreadsheet and a plain-English summary of what the numbers say.

The steps

  1. Save the file where Claude can see it

    Export your spreadsheet to CSV (File → Save As → CSV) or keep it as .xlsx, and put it in the folder you open Claude in.

    paste this to Claude 
    There's a file called expenses.csv in this folder. Read it and describe what's in it, including anything that looks inconsistent or broken.

  2. Ask for a clean-up

    Tell Claude what 'clean' means for you — consistent dates, no duplicates, standardized categories.

    paste this to Claude 
    Clean this up: make all the dates the same format, remove duplicate rows, standardize the category names, and save the result as expenses-clean.csv. Tell me what you changed.

  3. Ask your real questions

    Now that it's clean, ask the questions you opened the file for in the first place.

    paste this to Claude 
    Using expenses-clean.csv: what did we spend the most on this quarter, which category grew the fastest, and is there anything that looks like a mistake?

  4. Get it as a report

    Have Claude write the findings up so you can paste them straight into an email or doc.

    paste this to Claude 
    Write a short summary of those findings in plain English — three bullet points a manager would care about.

tips & best practices

  • Always ask 'what looks wrong with this file?' first — clean the data before you trust any total.
  • Save the clean version to a *new* file (expenses-clean.csv) so your original is never touched.
  • Ask Claude to say what it changed, so you can confirm it didn't quietly drop a row that mattered.
  • Keep private financial data in a workspace you control — don't paste account numbers into untrusted tools.