Claude Prompt to Analyze a Financial Balance Sheet

Analyzing a financial balance sheet is a complex exercise that requires a thorough understanding of accounting standards, financial ratios, and the overall health of a company. Claude excels at this task thanks to its ability to process structured data, identify trends, and produce nuanced analyses. Whether you are a CFO, analyst, accountant, or entrepreneur, using Claude to analyze a balance sheet saves considerable time while providing a rigorous assessment of a company's financial position. The AI can break down assets and liabilities, calculate key liquidity, solvency, and profitability ratios, and then formulate strategic recommendations. It also identifies warning signs that the human eye might miss in a dense document. By combining Claude's analytical power with your business expertise, you get a faster, more comprehensive, and better-structured financial analysis than traditional manual processing.

The prompt

Claude

Act as a senior financial analyst specialized in accounting balance sheet analysis. I will provide you with the data of a financial balance sheet. Perform a comprehensive analysis following this structure:

Executive summary: summarize the financial situation in 3-4 key sentences.
Asset analysis: break down fixed assets and current assets, identify significant items and their evolution.
Liability analysis: examine equity, long-term and short-term debt, assess the financing structure.
Key financial ratios: calculate and interpret the following ratios:
- Current and quick liquidity ratios
- Debt ratio and financial autonomy ratio
- Net working capital (NWC)
- Working capital requirement (WCR)
- Net cash
- Return on equity (ROE)
Warning signals: identify any imbalances, cash flow risks, or points of vigilance.
Recommendations: propose 3 to 5 concrete actions to improve the financial situation.

Present each ratio with its formula, calculated value, and interpretation relative to industry norms. Use tables for numerical data.

Here are the balance sheet data:
[PASTE BALANCE SHEET DATA HERE]

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Why it works

This prompt is effective because it assigns a precise expert role to Claude (senior financial analyst), which activates a specialized knowledge base. The numbered six-section structure forces a comprehensive and methodical analysis, avoiding superficial responses. The explicit request for formulas, calculated values, and industry interpretations ensures an actionable and verifiable result.

Expected result

You will obtain a structured financial analysis report including an executive summary, detailed breakdown of assets and liabilities, a table of financial ratios with formulas and interpretations, as well as a list of warning signals and strategic recommendations. The document will be directly usable for a management committee presentation or an audit report.

Variants by level

FAQ

In what format should I provide the balance sheet data to Claude?

Claude can process balance sheet data in several formats: plain text with amounts separated by tabs, a table copied from Excel or Google Sheets, or even a textual description of accounting items. For best results, structure your data with item labels and their amounts in two columns (fiscal year N and N-1 if available). You can also attach a PDF or image of the balance sheet if you use Claude with file reading capability. Be sure to include total assets and total liabilities to allow consistency checks.

Can Claude compare a balance sheet across multiple fiscal years?

Yes, Claude excels at multi-year comparative analysis. Provide data from two to five fiscal years and explicitly request a trend analysis. Claude will calculate absolute and relative variations for each item, identify significant changes, and produce descriptive trend charts. It can also calculate compound annual growth rates (CAGR) and detect trend breaks that might signal a strategic shift or emerging risk.

Are the financial ratio calculations performed by Claude reliable?

Claude performs arithmetic calculations with high precision when the provided data is correct and complete. However, it is recommended to verify critical results, especially for ratios that involve adjustments or off-balance-sheet items that Claude cannot guess. To maximize reliability, ask Claude to display the formulas used and the intermediate values for each calculation. This allows you to quickly spot any potential errors and validate the consistency of the analysis before using it in a decision-making context.

How to use this prompt

Copy the prompt with the button above.
Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or your favorite AI assistant.
Replace the bracketed variables with your details, then refine the result.

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