Connecting and using Claude

Once Claude is connected, you can ask it about your contracts, claims, retention and what's due, and it answers from your paymentclaims.ai account. It signs in with the paymentclaims.ai login you already use, and it can only see what your login can see.

This page is for Claude. If you use ChatGPT, see Connecting and using ChatGPT.

Who can use it

Every Claude plan can add paymentclaims.ai, on claude.ai and in the Claude desktop app. Claude calls it a custom connector.

Your Claude plan	What you need first
Free	Nothing. Free allows one custom connector, so paymentclaims.ai would use it.
Pro or Max	Nothing.
Team or Enterprise	An owner of your Claude organisation adds it first. Then you connect it yourself. See On Team or Enterprise.

Each person signs in with their own paymentclaims.ai login. Claude only sees the organisations and companies that login can see, and only does what your role allows. What you ask, and what paymentclaims.ai sends back, goes through Claude, so Anthropic's terms for your Claude plan apply to it.

Connecting it

On Free, Pro or Max

1. Open Connectors. In Claude, go to Customize, then the Connectors tab.
2. Add a custom connector. Select Add at the top right, then Add custom connector.
3. Enter the details. Name it paymentclaims.ai and enter https://app.paymentclaims.ai/api/mcp as the MCP server URL. Type it exactly, including /api/mcp at the end. Then select Continue.
4. Keep the sign-in settings Claude finds. Claude checks our server and marks Sign in now and Register automatically as Detected. Leave them as they are and select Add.
5. Connect. Claude takes you to our sign-in page. If it shows paymentclaims.ai as not connected instead, select Connect.
6. Sign in to paymentclaims.ai. If you're already signed in to paymentclaims.ai in that browser, it goes straight to step 7. Otherwise, sign in the way you normally do. You sign in on our own page, so Claude never sees your password.
7. Allow access. Our consent screen shows who Claude will act as, what it can do and what it can never do. Check it's your name and email, then select Allow access.
8. Check it's connected. Claude takes you back to paymentclaims.ai under Connectors and says it's connected. It lists 11 read-only tools, and 2 tools for filing a subcontract that ask for your approval first.

On Team or Enterprise

An owner adds it once for everyone: Organization settings, Connectors, Add, Custom, Web, with the same server URL. Then each person goes to Customize, Connectors, finds paymentclaims.ai, selects Connect, signs in and selects Allow access, as in steps 6 and 7 above.

These steps are from Anthropic's help article. We tested the route above on a Max account, but not this one.

Using it in a chat

Start a new chat and open the + menu, then Connectors. Check paymentclaims.ai is switched on. Then ask your question. Starting it with "Using paymentclaims.ai" helps Claude ask us rather than answer from somewhere else.

The first three questions to ask

1. "Which paymentclaims.ai companies can you see?" Claude lists every organisation and company your login can reach. If you have more than one company, tell it which one you mean.
2. "Which payment schedules are overdue?" It lists the claims you've served that are still waiting on a payment schedule, and marks the ones past their deadline. It also lists the contracts where you can put in your next claim.
3. "How much of our retention is still being held, and how much can we ask to have released now?" It gives you the retention still held from you across your contracts, and the part that's ready to be released.

paymentclaims.ai sends a link with each claim and contract, so you can ask Claude for the link and open it. The deadlines come from paymentclaims.ai, counted in business days for the state, territory or country each contract is under. Before you act on one, check it in the app.

What it can't do

Claude reads your account. It can't send anything to a head contractor, and nothing it does costs you a fee from us.

Never. Our consent screen lists the first four as well:

• It can't serve or submit a payment claim. Only you can, in paymentclaims.ai.
• It can't incur a Claim Fee. Nothing it does is chargeable.
• It can't confirm a contract read from your documents. A person does that in paymentclaims.ai.
• It can't reach billing, members, Xero or MYOB, or create or delete a company.
• It can't see a company you aren't a member of, and it works on one company at a time.

Not yet confirmed from Claude: filing a new subcontract. We haven't confirmed Claude can send the document through to us, so upload new subcontracts in paymentclaims.ai as you do now.

Claude writes its own sentences around the figures it gets from us, so it can still word something wrongly. If an answer matters, check it in paymentclaims.ai.

If something doesn't work

What you see	What to do
Claude can't connect when you add it	Check the server URL is exactly https://app.paymentclaims.ai/api/mcp. If it is, wait a minute and try again. We limit how many new connections can be made each minute.
paymentclaims.ai shows as not connected	Go to Customize, Connectors, select paymentclaims.ai and select Connect.
Our sign-in page won't let you in after a few tries	We allow three sign-ins every ten seconds from the same internet connection, so people in one office share it. Wait a few seconds and try again.
The consent screen says "This authorisation request is no longer valid"	It has expired. Start again from Claude.
Claude answers without using paymentclaims.ai	Check paymentclaims.ai is switched on under +, Connectors in that chat, or start your question with "Using paymentclaims.ai".
Claude asks which organisation or company you mean	Tell it the company name. If you have more than one, ask "Which paymentclaims.ai companies can you see?" first.
Claude asks for your approval before using a tool	That tool is set to need approval under Customize, Connectors, paymentclaims.ai. The two tools for filing a subcontract start that way. Filing isn't confirmed from Claude yet, so you can decline.
Anything else	Email contact@paymentclaims.ai with what you asked Claude and roughly when.

Turning it off

In paymentclaims.ai, go to Account, find Connected applications, and select Disconnect next to Claude. It stops on Claude's next question.

You can also disconnect it in Claude: go to Customize, Connectors, select paymentclaims.ai and select Disconnect. Claude keeps your earlier chats, but can't reach paymentclaims.ai for anything new. Disconnect in paymentclaims.ai is still the way to be sure access has stopped.