Examples / Finance / Messy export → board report

Clean a messy export into a board-ready report

You download the export, it comes out a mess, and you spend an hour turning it into something presentable. This removes that hour.

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xlsx  by anthropics

Reads, fixes, and builds spreadsheet files end to end — cleaning messy exports into proper, formatted workbooks with live formulas and zero formula errors.

106,897 installs143,381finance · reporting-dashboards

The problem

  • You download the revenue export and it arrives ugly: junk rows, dates in three formats, amounts typed as text (“R$ 1.234,56”), duplicates hiding in 220 rows.
  • So you fix it by hand — delete, retype, hunt duplicates, rebuild the totals. An hour or two, every month.

How it works

You give Cowork the broken file and one sentence:

Clean this export into a board-ready revenue report — totals by plan and region — and flag anything I should look at.

And this is what comes back:

Before — 220 raw lines
BILLING SYSTEM v4.2 — TRANSACTION EXPORT
2026-05-07 · AutoPeças Silva · Pro · 4470 · pago
12/05/2026 · Livraria Foco · Starter · R$ 245,00
May 3, 2026 · Mercado Aurora · PRO · 4470 · paid
--- SUBTOTAL PAGE 1 ---
· Construmax · Enterprise · 4900 · SP Paid
After — board-ready
EnterpriseR$ 338,100
ProR$ 178,055
StarterR$ 55,370
Flagged (5)for review
✓ 214 transactions · 20 customers · formulas that update

Why use it

  • An hour or two back, every month — the cleanup follows rules, so it doesn't need you.
  • Nothing silently guessed — the 5 odd rows went to a “Flagged for review” tab, not into your totals.
  • A real Excel file, not a picture of one — the formulas work: change a number, the totals update.
  • Repeatable — next month, same sentence, same clean report.
~2 hrs
of cleanup, back
5
rows flagged, 0 guessed
1
sentence typed

Do it yourself, step by step

1

Download the skill

Click here to download it — or use the Download button on its Claudinho page. A file called anthropics-skills-xlsx.skill lands in your Downloads folder.

2

Drag that file into Cowork

Open your Downloads folder and drag the file into the Claude desktop app window, like attaching a file to a chat. It shows up under Customize → Skills. Steps 1 and 2 are once — from now on you start at step 3.

3

Start a task and drop your export in

Broken as-is — no pre-cleaning, no renaming.

4

Type the sentence

You don't need to mention the skill: Claude sees a spreadsheet job and uses it on its own.

Clean this export into a board-ready revenue report — totals by plan and region — and flag anything I should look at.
5

Review the spreadsheet

A real Excel file back: a Summary tab whose formulas still work — change a number and the totals update — the cleaned data behind it, and a “Flagged for review” tab with the rows it refused to fix silently.

Prefer a command? npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/skills/tree/main/xlsx does the same.

Next: Call notes → deck

Finance · reporting-dashboards · live