Sample · Practical guide

Purpose and structure

This guide shows how a small business sets up Claude and brings it into everyday work without doing itself harm: which kind of access fits, who manages it, which settings to look at before the first real task, how recurring tasks are filed, what one piece of work looks like from the enquiry to the checked result, and what never goes in. It is written for owners, managing directors and office managers — for businesses from the one-person company to the medium-sized firm without its own IT department.

This guide describes the interface as of 15 September 2026

Interfaces go stale. A menu item is renamed, a switch moves, a new kind of account appears. That is why this guide carries a date, and why it is maintained differently from a handbook in the series: once a quarter it is gone through, changed screenshots are replaced, the line above is moved forward. Readers using online access see the new version immediately; readers who downloaded the PDF see it the next time they download.

The provider's statements — kinds of account, roles, default settings, retention, connections — come from its own pages and each carry the page, its stated version and the retrieval date. The paths through the interface were walked on screen and are documented with screenshots. Where a statement does not appear on the pages checked, the guide says so; it does not fill the gap with a guess. The annex “Uncertainties” brings together everything that remains open.

What this guide is not

Not a guide to the law. Whether your business may enter a particular document into an AI tool, which contractual assurances you need from the provider, and what to do in the event of an incident is not decided at the interface. Those questions belong to the handbook “AI in the Company” (Volume 1 of the series); the rules towards staff belong to “AI Policies for the Workforce” (Volume 2). At such points this guide refers there by section number and invents nothing. It is not legal advice.

No statement about the provider that is not on the provider's page. Every statement about kinds of account, use of data, retention or connections carries a source and a retrieval date. What the provider changes applies from the day of the change — not from the day this guide catches up. For the most important setting, what happens to your inputs, section 3 therefore says explicitly: look for yourself, today.

No substitute for a set of rules. Section 7 gives three rules for the start, no more. A full usage policy with approval procedure, briefing and records is the subject of Volume 2 and of the AI evidence kit in this series. This guide sets up; the kit regulates.

Structure

Part I is a single page: the four decisions that come before the first account. Part II sets up — account and access (section 2), the settings (section 3), projects, instructions and connected folders (section 4). Part III is everyday use: one complete piece of work (section 5), the exclusion list (section 6), the rules once staff join (section 7), and the monthly check (section 8). The annex contains the checklist to print out (section 9), the uncertainties (10), the glossary (11) and the sources (12).

Every setting gets three things: where it sits, what it does, why it matters to a business. The third is the one this guide was written for.

Choice of words

Business account means, in this guide, an account that the business manages and in which several people work — with the provider, these are the Team and Enterprise plans. Individual plan means an account of a single person (Free, Pro, Max). Connection means Claude's access to another service, such as a file store or a mailbox; the provider calls this a “connector”. Project is the place for recurring tasks with permanent instructions and stored knowledge. Interface terms are given as they appear on the provider's pages, because the provider's help pages are in English and the interface may be labelled differently depending on the language setting.

The example business

The examples in this guide refer to a fictitious joinery with eight employees: an owner, an office manager, a master joiner, four journeymen and an apprentice. There is no IT department; the office manager looks after the computers on the side. All screenshots show an account created specifically for this fictitious business; no real customer, staff or business data, no names.