Bookkeeping Ops Skills for AI Agents
Open-source skills for getting a small business's books caught up before a deadline someone else set — a tax date, an IRS letter, a lender, an accountant — keeping them caught up, and paying quarterly taxes on time. Built for small business owners, freelancers and solo operators in the US. Works with Claude Code, the Claude app, OpenAI Codex, Cursor, and any agent that supports the Agent Skills spec.
Browse every skill at charlenetstrain.github.io/bookkeeping-ops-skills.
Built by Charlene Strain. Sibling libraries: Money Ops Skills and Product Ops Skills.
Contributions welcome. Have a better way to run one of these, or a skill to add? Open a PR or request a skill.
These skills are planning tools, not tax or accounting advice. They lay out the work, the order and the trade-offs so you can decide. Anything about what you'll owe, penalties, payroll or sales tax goes to a CPA.
Contents
What are skills?
A skill is a markdown file of instructions an AI agent follows for one specific job. Add these to your setup, and when you say "I'm six months behind on my books and my accountant needs them by April," the agent recognizes the job and works through it the same careful way every time.
How the skills work together
Everything starts with bookkeeping-ops-context. Run it once and it writes .agents/bookkeeping-ops-context.md: how the business is set up, its accounts and payment processors, its software, who does the books and taxes, payroll, contractors, sales tax, and deadlines. Every other skill reads that file first, so it only asks you for what's specific to the job. It never stores account numbers, tax ID numbers, or passwords.
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ bookkeeping-ops-context │
│ (read by every other skill first) │
└───────────────────┬──────────────────┘
│
┌────────────────┴────────────────┐
▼ ▼
┌───────────────────────────┐ ┌───────────────────────────┐
│ Getting caught up │ │ Quarterly taxes │
├───────────────────────────┤ ├───────────────────────────┤
│ catch-up-plan │ │ quarterly-tax-set-aside │
└───────────────────────────┘ └───────────────────────────┘
The chains that come up most:
- Bookkeeping ops context → Catch-up plan: write down the business once, then get a dated plan that finishes before the deadline
- Catch-up plan → Quarterly tax set-aside: sort the year's income and costs, then work out what to pay each quarter and what to set aside
Each skill ends with a Related skills section naming what it hands off to and why.
The rules every skill follows
- Deadline first. Every plan works backwards from the date someone else set.
- Their books, not averages. Plans are built from the business's own accounts and volume. Estimates are marked as estimates.
- Planning, not tax advice. No guesses at this year's tax bill or any penalty. Quarterly payments use the IRS's own rule based on last year's return; everything else goes to a CPA.
- No judgment. Skills describe where the books are and the next step, never that someone fell behind on purpose.
All skills
Start here
| Skill | What it does |
|---|
| Bookkeeping ops context | Writes down your business setup, accounts, software, helpers and deadlines once, so every other skill can read it |
Getting caught up
When months of books are unfinished and a deadline is coming.
| Skill | What it does | Output |
|---|
| Catch-up plan | Turns months of unfinished books into a deadline-first plan, with a do-it-yourself vs. hire estimate and questions for your CPA | Excel workbook: summary, accounts, backlog, week-by-week plan, CPA questions, stay-caught-up routine |
Quarterly taxes
When no one takes taxes out of your pay.
| Skill | What it does | Output |
|---|
| Quarterly tax set-aside | Works out each quarter's safe payment from last year's return, a set-aside rate on your profit, and what to do if you already owe | Excel workbook: safe payments, set-aside rate and log, payment tracker, options if you owe, CPA questions |
More skills coming: a loan-ready books skill for owners who need lender-ready statements.
Install
Option 1: CLI (recommended)
Use npx skills to install into whichever agents you have:
# Install all skills
npx skills add CharleneTStrain/bookkeeping-ops-skills
# Install specific skills
npx skills add CharleneTStrain/bookkeeping-ops-skills --skill bookkeeping-ops-context quarterly-tax-set-aside
# See what's available
npx skills add CharleneTStrain/bookkeeping-ops-skills --list
If you run it from inside a Claude Code session, name the agent so the skills land where Claude Code reads them:
npx skills add CharleneTStrain/bookkeeping-ops-skills -a claude-code
Option 2: Claude Code plugin
/plugin marketplace add CharleneTStrain/bookkeeping-ops-skills
/plugin install bookkeeping-ops-skills
Outside an interactive session, use the CLI version:
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
