What the Finaloop MCP can see and change

About

The Finaloop MCP reads two different things: your operational data, like sales, orders, units, ad spend as they happen, and your books, where those events have been through accounting treatment. Ask about the same day and the two can give you different numbers, and both are correct.

This article covers why the two sets differ, which one your question reaches, what the MCP can read and change, what it can't touch, who's allowed to connect, how to choose what runs without asking, and how to turn it off.

Who is this for? You can connect it if your Finaloop role is Admin, CFO, Tax CPA/Accountant, or Operator/VA. Your permissions to access data or make the changes through MCP listed below will be based on your specific role limitations.

In this article

Why the same day has two answers
Which numbers your question reaches
What it can read
What it can change
Who can connect it
Choosing what runs without asking
Turning off access
FAQs
Related articles

1. Why the same day has two answers

Say you take a $100,000 order this morning. It hasn't shipped yet.

How much did I sell today? → $100,000

How much revenue is in my books for today? → $0

Neither answer is wrong. Depending on your Revenue recognition method, Finaloop recognizes revenue when an order is fulfilled, not when it's placed. Until that order ships, the sale is real in your sales data and absent from your Profit & Loss (P&L).

The same gap shows up anywhere accounting treatment sits between the event and the ledger: an order awaiting fulfillment, a payout still in transit, inventory bought but not yet sold.

Key takeaway: Your sales data answers "what happened." Your books answer "what counts, and when."

2. Which numbers your question reaches

You don't choose a mode. The words you use decide it.

Ask about	You reach	For example
Sales, orders, units, SKUs, sales channels, ad spend, customers, contribution margin	Your operational data	Sales by channel last month
Your P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, ledger accounts, categorized bank transactions, bills, invoices, Purchase Orders	Your books	Revenue on my P&L last month

Tip: When it matters, say so in the prompt "from my books" or "from my sales data" removes the ambiguity entirely.

3. What it can read

Everything you can see in Finaloop, on both sides:

Financial reports: your P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow, on an accrual or cash basis
Ledger account transactions
Sales, orders, units, returns and discounts, by month, channel, product or customer
Contribution margin, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), landed cost and product cost
Ad spend, clicks, conversions and return on ad spend (ROAS), by platform and campaign
Bank transactions and their categories
Bills, invoices, vendors and products
InventoryIQ only: Purchase Orders (POs), shipments, receipts, transfers and stock per warehouse

Answers come back in bounded chunks, for analatics data it's at most 1,000 rows, ledger detail is 100 rows per page. A total Finaloop calculates for you is complete whatever the row limit. A total your AI tool adds up from a list it fetched is only as complete as that list, so when you need every row, ask for an export instead. Finaloop MCP: common issues and fixes covers this.

Note: The MCP can only see what's already in Finaloop. If a bank connection is broken or a channel hasn't synced, you'll get the same gap your reports show, it won't fill it in.

4. What it can change

Only your books. Nothing on the operational-data side can be written to, so a question about sales, ad spend or margin can't alter anything.

On the books side, with your approval, the MCP can do the following.

Bills, invoices and Purchase Orders

Action	What it does to your books	Reversible?
Create, update or delete an invoice	Records accounts receivable (A/R) and revenue	Yes, in Finaloop
Create, update or delete a bill	Records a payable and an expense or inventory cost	Yes, in Finaloop
Create, update or delete a Purchase Order	Adds a PO to your Supply Chain in InventoryIQ	Yes, in Finaloop
Create vendors, customers, products and warehouses	Adds a vendor, customer, product, or a warehouse to your Finaloop records	Yes, in Finaloop
Send a document to a customer	Emails the document from Finaloop	No

Bank transactions

Action	What it does to your books	Reversible?
Categorize a bank transaction, bill or invoice	Moves the amount to a different account on your P&L or Balance Sheet	Yes, recategorize it
Report a business transaction	Records a purchase paid outside your connected accounts as a transaction you can categorize	Yes, in Finaloop

Reporting a transaction is the same as Report business transactions in the Finaloop app. Use it when the money didn't move through a connected bank or card: you paid from a personal card, a related party covered a cost, an employee paid and you owe them back, or a third party lent the money. Finaloop records who paid, so the amount you owe them shows on your Balance Sheet.

Example prompt: "Report a $1,200 trade-show booth I paid on my personal Amex on March 3."

Accruals

Action	What it does to your books	Reversible?
Create or replace an accrual on a bank transaction or bill	Spreads the expense across periods instead of booking it all on the payment date	Yes, delete the accrual, unless any of its dates is in a closed period

An accrual can spread an amount four ways: on one specific date, evenly over a date range (daily or monthly), on a custom schedule of dates and amounts, or as fixed-asset depreciation (straight-line or declining balance, with optional Section 179 and bonus depreciation). Creating an accrual on a transaction or bill that already has one replaces the old schedule completely.

Example prompt: "Spread the $12,000 annual insurance bill from Acme evenly over the next 12 months."

Categorization rules

Action	What it does to your books	Reversible?
Create a rule from a bank transaction	Always applies the same vendor, the same category, or both, to that merchant's future and existing transactions in the same direction (money in or money out)	Delete the rule. Transactions it already categorized keep their category
Create invoice rules for customers	Categorizes a customer's invoices to one category, for up to 25 customers at a time	Delete the rule.
Set a rule for payment-processor payouts	Attributes payouts and top-ups from one payment integration to an owner, related party or other counterparty	Yes, set a new rule to replace it

Note: A rule isn't a single change. It re-categorizes every matching transaction already in Finaloop as soon as it's saved, so one approval can move many amounts at once. If a rule already exists for that merchant and direction, the new one replaces it. Before you approve a rule, ask your AI tool to list the transactions it would match.

Links between payments and documents

A link tells Finaloop which payment settled which document, so the document's open balance goes down and the bank transaction is accounted for.

Action	What it does to your books	Reversible?
Match a bank transaction to bills	Marks one or several bills as paid by that payment and reduces each bill's payable	Yes, unmatch the bills
Link customer payments to invoices	Reduces each invoice's unpaid balance by the amount linked	Yes, delete the link. The transactions then need categorizing again
Link store payouts to orders	Reduces each Shopify order's unpaid balance by the amount linked	Yes, delete the link. The transactions then need categorizing again
Link vendor payments to inventory	Records which POs, shipments, transfers, assemblies or opening balance a vendor payment paid for	Yes, edit or delete the link

One payment can cover bills from different vendors, and paying less than a bill's balance leaves the rest open as a partial payment. Fees, discounts, chargebacks and currency differences can be included so the payment and the documents add up exactly.

Example prompt: "Match the $8,450 payment to Coastal Packaging on June 12 to their two open May bills."

Inventory

With InventoryIQ, the MCP can also create and edit shipments, receipts, warehouse transfers, recipes, assemblies, product adjustments and opening balances.

Note: Anything dated in a closed (locked) period can't be changed through the MCP, the same as in the app. The request is refused and nothing is saved.

Everything here except sending is something you could undo yourself in Finaloop afterwards. Sending is the one that leaves the building.

5. Who can connect it

Connecting happens per person, not per account. Each person on your team who wants to use the MCP adds it in their own AI tool and signs in with their own Finaloop credentials.

Roles that can connect:

Admin, CFO, Tax CPA/Accountant and Operator/VA – Full access get everything in this article.
Operator/VA - Advanced access, categorization access, and basic access gets access to the same items allowed in the app. That role can't read financial reports or bank transactions, and can't link payments to documents.

Each connection is tied to the person who signed in. A teammate can't reach your books through your connector.

6. Choosing what runs without asking

By default your AI tool asks before it runs anything. That gets tedious for questions and stays valuable for changes, so set them differently.

Note: Signing in also sets one active company for that connection. If you have access to more than one, the MCP won't follow whichever company you're viewing in the app. Name the company in your question, or sign in again to change which one it defaults to. See Finaloop MCP: common issues and fixes.

Recommended: Let the read-only tools, like reports and ledgers, run without prompting. Keep every tool that creates, updates, categorizes, or sends set to Ask every time.

To set this in Claude:

Go to Customize → Connectors.
Open the Finaloop connector and find Tool permissions.
Set the read tools to run without asking.
Leave every create, update, categorize, and send tool on Ask every time.

Once saved, questions about your numbers answer straight away, and anything that would write to your books or email a customer pauses for your approval first.

7. Turning off access

Removing the connector in your AI tool stops it reaching Finaloop immediately. To revoke the underlying access as well, or if you're removing access for someone who's left your team, email support@finaloop.com.

FAQs

Can the AI tool see my books without me asking it something?

No. The MCP only runs when your AI tool calls it in response to something you asked in that conversation. It doesn't sync, poll, or run in the background.

Which number should I use for reporting?

Your books, for anything that has to tie out: tax, statements, month-end close, anything you'd show a lender or an accountant. Your sales data is for operating decisions during the month, when you need to know what's happening now rather than what's been recognized.

Why is my sales figure higher than my revenue?

Almost always unfulfilled orders. Revenue lands in your books when an order is fulfilled, so anything sold and not yet shipped sits in your sales data and not in your P&L. Returns, discounts, and channel fees also separate the two.

Can I connect more than one AI tool at a time?

Yes. Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor can all be connected to the same Finaloop account, and each is independent. Removing one doesn't affect the other.

Can the MCP change a closed month?

No. Anything dated in a closed (locked) period is refused, the same as in the app, and nothing is saved.