Document your chart of accounts as a skill

One ask turns the ledger into a SKILL.md that says what belongs in each account and what does not — the rulebook that every monthly close review runs against.

Account definitions live in people’s heads, so every close review starts from scratch. This example asks the client to read the ledger once and write the definitions down as a skill. From then on, “review August against our CoA guide” is a complete instruction.

The accounts, counterparties, and figures shown are illustrative.

What the client does

1. Reads the entity’s full local account list with the read-scoped control_api_get tool, using the list_local_accounts_for_entity entry from the endpoint catalog, then the trailing transactions and top counterparties per account. Accounts with no activity are listed as dormant, not documented.
2. Writes a SKILL.md: a routing-rules table for the ambiguous cases (commuter tickets are a benefit, not travel; laptops are equipment, not software; team meals versus customer meals), plus a per-account reference with “use for”, “belongs”, and “does not belong”, each backed by real counterparties and amounts.
3. Lists the recurring misbookings it found on the way. Those become next month’s regression checks.

Try it in your workspace

1. Connect an AI client with MCP. Read access is enough.
2. Ask: “Scan each of our local accounts and write a CoA guide skill: short usage guide per active account, example transactions, and transactions that should not be there. List dormant accounts separately.” Add the judgment calls only you know, such as which perks are benefits rather than travel.
3. Review the skill yourself before relying on it. The client learns from the ledger as it is: if an account has been misused for a year, the misuse reads as the rule and the usage description comes out wrong. Correct those entries by hand, because a wrong rule gets applied at every close after it.
4. Keep the file local to the workspace it describes, per Use skills with Control MCP. If your client has no skill files, save it as project instructions or paste it at the start of the close review.
5. At the next close, ask for the monthly close review against the guide. Every finding should now cite the rule it breaks.

Example prompts: “Which accounts have activity, and which are dormant?” “For 7641 Software, list the counterparties that belong and the ones that do not.” “Review August against our CoA guide and cite the rule for each finding.”

Next steps

Monthly close review

Run the close review against the guide you just wrote.

Use skills with Control MCP

Where the skill file lives and how clients pick it up.