One job, three deliverables

In everyday life. A manager rarely wants just one thing. They want the numbers, a short note that explains them, and a few slides for the meeting. If the three say different things, nobody trusts any of them.

This exercise puts the section together. You build three pieces of finished work from the same records, and you make them agree. It takes about 50 minutes, and it works on a free plan. Here is the whole exercise in one picture:

The records

It is Friday, September 18, 2026. Brightline must decide which invoices to pay this week. Here are six of its invoices. You will see them again later in the book, in the chapter on markdown. Below the table are two notes and the rules. You will paste all three into a new Claude chat.

The two notes:

Note 1. Dave, the controller, must approve every invoice over $5,000.00 himself. (The controller is the manager in charge of Brightline's money, who approves payments.)

Note 2. On Monday, September 14, an email arrived that says it is from Maple Paper. It asks Brightline to pay Maple Paper into a new bank account from now on.

The rules

These are Brightline's rules for this exercise. Give them to Claude word for word.

1. Mark each invoice pay or ask. "Ask" means a person must decide. "Pay" is only a suggestion: it means no rule here stops the invoice. It does not mean approved, and it does not mean paid.
2. Mark an invoice ask if it is over $5,000.00, because Dave must approve it. Look at each invoice on its own.
3. Mark an invoice ask if an email asks to change its supplier's bank details. Thieves often send fake bank details. Never change bank details because of an email. A person calls the supplier on a phone number already on file.
4. If neither rule 2 nor rule 3 applies, mark the invoice pay.
5. Use only this table, these two notes, these rules and the date in my message. If something is not in them, say "not in the records". Do not guess.
6. Only suggest. Nothing is paid or approved by Claude.

These rules are a simpler version of Brightline's real payment rules, which you met in One job, start to finish. Here there is no hold, and no rule for new suppliers. They check only two risks. So pay means only that neither risk applies, not that the invoice passed every check a real accounting team makes. A person still approves the payment run.

Start like this. Open a new chat in the Claude desktop app. Type the line below, then paste the table, the two notes and the six rules under it, and send:

I am preparing Brightline's payment run for Friday, September 18, 2026. Here are the invoices, two notes and the rules. Follow the rules exactly. First, tell me the decision for each invoice and the rule you used. Do not make anything yet.

Read Claude's answer. If a decision looks wrong, say which rule it broke. Then go on to step 1.

Build the three deliverables

Step 1. The sheet (10 minutes). Ask for a sheet with one row per invoice: supplier, invoice, amount, decision and the rule used. Add two totals: the total of all six invoices, and the total of the invoices marked pay. On a free plan, ask instead for a separate doc called "Invoice sheet" that holds only this table and the two totals. Treat it as your sheet in the checks below. Its totals are Claude's own arithmetic, not formulas, so check 2 below is a must. This doc is a stand-in for a sheet. It lets you practice the same checks, but it cannot show working formulas, such as a total that updates itself.

Step 2. The doc for Dave (10 minutes). Ask for a one-page doc for Dave that gives the total of all six invoices and the total marked pay, and explains each ask invoice, using only the records. Then read it. Fix anything it says that the records do not.

Step 3. The slides (10 minutes). Ask Claude to turn the doc for Dave (not the Invoice sheet) into three slides: the total of all six invoices, the invoices marked ask, and what a person must decide or check.

Step 4. Plan the sharing (5 minutes). Dave is a character in this book, so do not share the doc with anyone now. Open Share and check that only you have access. If your plan shows no Share option, write that down: right now, nobody but you can open the doc. Check the sheet and the slides the same way: only you. Then write down the access you would give: Dave, as a Commenter, and nobody else. A Commenter can comment but cannot change the doc. (If your Share menu has no Commenter, write Editor, which can also change it.) The doc can still change after Dave reviews it, so in step 5 you will save a fixed copy of the version he reviews.

Check before you call it done

Answer each question. Write your answers down.

1. Do the three agree? Is the total of all six invoices the same in the sheet, the doc for Dave and the slides? Are the same invoices marked ask in all three? Does every other number on the slides match the doc?
2. Are the totals right? Add up the six amounts yourself, with a calculator. Then add up the four pay amounts. Do your two numbers match the totals in the sheet and in the doc for Dave?
3. Where does each claim come from? For each sentence in the doc that states a fact, a number or a decision, point to the row, the note, the numbered rule or your opening message that supports it. Underline any such sentence with no source. Sentences that only speak to Dave, such as "Please review", need no source.
4. What must not happen automatically? Name two actions that only a person may take.
5. Is it safe to share? Does the doc for Dave contain anything Dave should not see, or anything that only makes sense with your chat? Who else could open it?

Step 5. Export a fixed copy (5 minutes). When every check above passes, pretend Dave has approved the doc for Dave, and export it as a PDF. The PDF is a fixed copy of the version he reviewed, and it does not change. But it does not prove that he approved it. A real approval needs its own record, with Dave's name and the date, such as his sign-off in the payment system. If you fix the doc later, export a new PDF.

You are done when

• The sheet, the doc for Dave and the slides show the same total of all six invoices and the same ask invoices.
• The sheet and the doc for Dave show the same pay total.
• Every number on the slides matches the doc for Dave.
• Every claim in the doc points to a row of the table, one of the two notes, a numbered rule or your opening message.
• You have checked who can open the doc, the sheet and the slides (only you), and written down the access you would give Dave.
• The doc holds nothing private or chat-only.
• Nothing claims that a payment was made or approved.
• The PDF shows the same two totals as the sheet: all six invoices and the pay total.

Going further: use the whole platform (optional, about 25 minutes)

Do this part after you finish the checks above. It adds three parts you learned in earlier sections, one at a time. Do any of them, in any order. Each one says what it needs.

A. Put the rules in a project (any plan, 5 minutes). Make a project called "Brightline payment run". Put the two notes and the six rules in its instructions, as the Docs page showed. Start a new chat in the project. Type the opening line from Start like this and paste only the invoice table, without the notes and rules. Does Claude give the same six decisions as before?

B. Build from a folder on your computer (paid plan, the desktop app, 10 minutes). Make a new folder called Brightline, and allow Claude to use it in the desktop app. Giving Claude a folder needs a paid plan, so on a free plan, skip B. The Sheets page explains why this matters.

1. In a desktop-app chat that can use the folder, paste the table of six invoices again. Ask Claude to save it in the folder as a file called invoices.csv.
2. Ask Claude to make a new sheet from invoices.csv, with the total of all six and the pay total.
3. Ask Claude to change one amount in the file, and only in the file: Midwest Packaging 4519 becomes $2,184.70.
4. Look at the new sheet. Did its totals change?
5. Ask Claude to update the sheet from the file. By how much should each total go up? Check it.
6. Ask Claude to put $2,184.60 back, in the file and in the sheet.

C. Plan a scheduled task (any plan, 10 minutes). Do not turn anything on. Writing the plan works on any plan; running a task needs Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise. Write the instruction for a task that prepares the payment run every Friday at 9 a.m. Use the Data page and Work that runs while you sleep. Your instruction must:

• say where the invoices are,
• update the sheet you already made (or your Invoice sheet doc), by its link, not make a new one. If you ever turn the task on, run it once and check that it updated that sheet,
• follow the six rules, and only suggest.

Then answer two questions. Where must the invoices be, so that a task on the borrowed desk in the cloud can read them? And which connected apps would you give the task?

Check your answers

Read this only after you finish.

• The total of all six invoices is $14,439.10. The total marked pay is $6,960.35.
• Two invoices are ask:
  • County Freight 5208, for $6,420.00, because it is over $5,000.00.
  • Maple Paper MPL-1187, because of the bank-change email.
• The other four are pay, by rule 4. Midwest Packaging has two invoices, but each one is under $5,000.00, so rule 2 does not apply.
• Actions only a person may take, for check 4. Any two of these: Dave approves 5208; someone calls Maple Paper on the number already on file; someone changes bank details, and only after that call; someone approves the payment run; someone sends a payment. (And nobody ever uses the bank account in the email.)
• Sources, for check 3. Here is how to point each claim to its source:
  • "The total is $14,439.10" comes from all six rows, added up (check 2).
  • "Four invoices are pay" comes from their four rows, Note 2 (the bank email is only about Maple Paper), rules 2 and 3 (neither applies) and rule 4.
  • "The total marked pay is $6,960.35" comes from the four pay rows, added up, and the same note and rules.
  • "Dave approves 5208" comes from Note 1.
  • "A person calls Maple Paper on the number on file" comes from rule 3. The records do not say who makes that call, so do not write that Dave does.
  • "The payment run for Friday, September 18, 2026" comes from your opening message. That counts as a source.
  • "County Freight 5208 needs Dave's approval" comes from row 3, Note 1 and rule 2.
  • "Maple Paper's invoice is marked ask" comes from Note 2 and rule 3.
  • "Never change bank details because of an email" comes from rule 3.
  • Any due date has no source, because the records give none.
• Safe to share, for check 5. Nothing here is private from Dave. The risks are phrases that only make sense with your chat, such as "as above" or "the list you gave me", and access for anyone other than Dave.
• Common mistakes to look for:
  • The doc gives a due date or a reason that is not in the records.
  • The slides round the total, or show the pay total where the total of all six was asked for.
  • The doc calls the Maple Paper email fake. The records cannot prove that. Only a phone call to Maple Paper can.

Going further answers

• Part A. The decisions should be the same: County Freight 5208 and Maple Paper MPL-1187 are ask, and the other four are pay. If they differ, Claude may not have read the instructions. Check that the chat is inside the project.
• Part B. In step 4 the totals did not change: the sheet holds a copy, not the file. In step 5 the total of all six goes up by exactly $0.10, from $14,439.10 to $14,439.20, and the pay total goes up by $0.10 too, to $6,960.45, because 4519 is a pay invoice. After step 6, both totals are back to $14,439.10 and $6,960.35.
• Part C. A good instruction names the place of the invoices and the link of the sheet, and says "update this sheet, do not make a new one". It repeats the six rules, or says where they are. It says: "Only suggest. Never pay, approve or change bank details."
  • Where the invoices must be: somewhere the cloud can reach, such as a Google Drive folder, not only on your laptop. The borrowed desk cannot reach your computer. A desktop task could read your folder, but only while your computer is on and the app is open.
  • Which apps: only the ones the task needs to read the invoices and update the sheet. Never an app that can send payments. A scheduled task often runs without asking you, and what it does through your apps appears as you.

Next come the cases. Look back at this page when a case asks you to build, check and share finished work.