Connecting an AI assistant via MCP

AI Finance Team has a built-in MCP server, a standard interface that lets AI assistants such as Claude, Mistral Vibe or ChatGPT read your bookkeeping data, and with your permission change it. It is the same product, reached by conversation.

Once connected, you can ask in plain language ("Which invoices in Quillmoor Software need my attention?") and the assistant pulls live data from your workspace.

The article is written for accountants, who can use every tool. A client-side member can connect too and read their own workspace, but the tools that change something will refuse them.

Before You Connect

AI assistant access must be switched on for your accounting firm. Open Organization → AI access. Every member of the firm can see whether it is on; an organization admin can change it.

A few things worth knowing about that switch:

• It covers the whole organization and every client workspace in it. The web app is unaffected either way.
• Turning it off takes effect immediately, including for assistants that are already connected. Turning it back on restores them without reconnecting.
• The page also states which AI providers receive data when you use this, and is the right place to read that before you connect.
• AI Finance Team can also switch it off, with a reason. Your organization can override that itself on the same page.

What It Can Do

The connection sits on the same data and the same permissions you already have. It cannot see what you cannot see, and it can only do what you could do in the app. Every call is recorded.

Questions (nothing changes)

"List my client workspaces and tell me which need the most attention."

"In Slatebridge Roofing, which bank transactions in May have no matching invoice yet?"

"Show me Q1 for Quillmoor Software, the P&L and the cash-flow report."

"Which Gearmont Fleet Services invoices have uncategorised lines, largest first?"

"Find every card payment in Reamwell Office Supplies from March."

"What has been done in this workspace through MCP today?"

Actions (the Make changes scope)

"Mark the bank fees in May as no invoice needed."

"Categorise this subscription invoice line as software licence."

"Confirm the suggested match between AH-INV-2026-0314 and AH-TXN-2026-0892."

"This invoice's partner is wrong: set it to the verified partner Slatebridge Roofing."

"Promote this supplier to a verified partner."

"Undo the categorisation on AH-TXN-2026-0042."

Categorising and editing invoices are accountant-only, whichever scope you granted.

What It Cannot Do

• Move money. No transfers, no payments, no access to bank credentials.
• Reach your credentials. Bank connection settings, passwords and tokens are all out of reach. The assistant can see whether a NAV connection exists, never its credentials.
• Upload or re-read a document. Files go through the app or your workspace's email address. The assistant cannot take an attachment, and it cannot ask for a document to be read again.
• Export to your accounting system. Exports stay a deliberate step in the app.
• Touch other workspaces. It sees only workspaces you belong to, and only while the firm's AI access is on.

These are enforced on our side. Asking the assistant to do them anyway changes nothing.

Setting Up the Connection

The URL is always the same:

https://aift.aifinance.team/api/mcp

Claude (desktop or web)

Available on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans.

1. Open Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
2. Paste the URL.
3. Click Add. Claude opens an AI Finance Team sign-in tab.
4. Sign in with your normal account.
5. On the consent screen, tick Read your books, and Make changes as well if you want the assistant to be able to categorise, match and edit.
6. Click Allow.

1. Read your books, which every question needs.
2. Make changes, which the assistant needs to categorise, match or edit.
3. Allow grants what is ticked. Cancel grants nothing.

To disconnect: Settings → Connectors → AI Finance Team → Remove.

Mistral Vibe (formerly Le Chat)

Mistral's assistant Le Chat is now called Vibe. You connect in the chat app, Vibe for work. Custom connectors are available on every plan: Free, Pro, Team and Enterprise. On Free and Pro you add one yourself. On Team and Enterprise only an administrator of your Mistral organization can.

1. Open Connectors in the sidebar.
2. Click + Add Connector and switch to the Custom MCP Connector tab.
3. Enter a name without spaces, for example AIFinanceTeam, and paste the URL into Server URL.
4. Click Connect. Vibe recognises that the server asks you to sign in.
5. Sign in and give consent as above.

Vibe uses the connector when your question needs it. To switch it on for one conversation, click + in the message box (or type /), choose Tools and turn on AIFinanceTeam. Vibe asks before each call, except for functions you set to Always allow under Connectors → My Connectors → AIFinanceTeam → Functions. For functions that change something, keep the approval prompt on.

The command-line coding tool, Vibe for code, cannot connect yet. Mistral states that its own MCP settings do not support servers that require an OAuth sign-in, and ours does.

ChatGPT

Available on Plus and Pro through Developer Mode, or published by your organization on Business and Enterprise.

1. Enable Developer Mode in settings.
2. Add Custom Connector with the URL above.
3. Sign in and give consent as above.

ChatGPT is given two extra general-purpose tools of its own shape, so its answers can look different from Claude's on the same question.

Microsoft Copilot and Gemini Enterprise

Possible through Copilot Studio or Gemini Enterprise, and both need your IT team. Ask us if you want help.

Read and Make Changes

The consent screen has two tick boxes.

Always tick Read, even when you want the assistant to make changes: a write-only connection is possible and useless, because every question fails.

Two details about reading that are easy to miss: the member lists include colleagues' names and email addresses, and an invoice comes back with its payment-approval decision, the payee's bank account and its confirmation state, and the payment file it went into.

"Master data" is one tool covering ten kinds: companies, partners, bank accounts, categories, transaction types, custom category lists and their values, counterparties the workspace has not verified yet, the NAV connection status and the Business Central pairings.

Disconnect and connect again to change what you granted.

Limits

An assistant can make a set number of calls per minute and per hour, counted separately for reading and for changes. Changes also have a daily limit per user. The limits are well above what a person working with an assistant needs. They are there to stop an assistant that is stuck in a loop.

When a limit is reached, the call is refused and nothing is changed. The assistant is told how many seconds to wait. A well-behaved assistant waits and carries on, so a long job simply takes longer. Each connected assistant is counted separately, so one that runs away does not stop the others straight away.

When It Does Not Work

The assistant shows the message it received. Each one means something different:

Two more cases have no message of their own:

• Everything is empty. If your role or an exception has taken "View invoices and bank transactions" away from you, every read tool returns nothing while the connection still looks healthy. See Roles and Permissions.
• You are asked to sign in again after a long break. A connection left untouched for about a month has to be re-authorised. This is normal.

What Is Recorded

Every call that runs writes one row to the audit log: who made it, which tool, when, how long it took, how many records came back, and whether it failed. For a change, the record that was touched and its values before and after are stored as well. A call refused by a rate limit is recorded once an hour for each connected assistant, not every time.

Two things are worth knowing:

• The arguments are recorded selectively. Names of the expected arguments are kept; anything else, including any long or free-text value, is replaced. Search terms are not stored.
• Results are never stored. The log holds the shape of the call, not the data the assistant saw.

You can ask the assistant what it has done: "What have I done through MCP in the last hour?" That lists the calls, not the before and after values. If a change went wrong, the fix is to make the right change: categorise it again with the correct value, or set the field back. For anything you cannot repair that way, ask us and we will read the log.

Tips

• Name the workspace. "In Quillmoor Software…" beats "at my client's", because the assistant can see all of your workspaces.
• Use the visible identifiers. Invoice numbers like AH-INV-2026-0042 and transaction numbers like AH-TXN-2026-0157 are shown in the app and the assistant can resolve them directly.
• Follow the links it gives you. Invoices and transactions come back with a link straight into the app. Other records do not; ask the assistant to fetch the invoice or the transaction, and you get one.
• One person, one connection. A connector is tied to your account. Each colleague sets up their own, and every action is stamped with who performed it.

Common Questions

Does the assistant keep my data? We return data per request. Whether the assistant keeps anything afterwards is a matter of its provider's policy and your settings there. On our side we keep the log of which calls were made, not what they returned.

Can the assistant do something I am not allowed to do? No. Every tool re-checks your permissions, and the ones that change data also require an accountant role.

Can I use it on my phone? Yes, wherever the assistant runs. The connection belongs to your account, not to a device.

Can it export to my accounting system? No. Exports to Kulcs-Soft, Novitax, DATEV or BMD stay in the app.

Need Help?

Tell us the workspace, the assistant you use and roughly when it happened. That is usually enough to find the call in the log and see what went wrong.