Claude Skills for Small Business: What They Are and 35 Free Ones to Install

Every time you open a new chat with Claude, you start from zero. You explain what your business does, how you like invoices worded, which clients pay late, what "done" means for a month-end close. Then the chat ends and all of it goes with it.

Claude skills for small business fix that one problem. A skill is a saved file that teaches Claude how you do a specific job, so the next time you ask for it, Claude already knows the steps, the rules and the format. This guide covers what a skill is, how it differs from Anthropic's Claude for Small Business plugin, and where to get 35 free ones that install on any Claude plan, Free included.

What a Claude skill is, in plain English

A skill is a folder with one file in it called `SKILL.md`. The top of the file holds a name and a one-line description of when to use it. The rest is instructions: the role Claude plays, the questions it asks you once, the rules it follows, and what the output looks like.

Claude reads the descriptions of your installed skills. When a request matches one ("categorize these transactions"), it loads the full file and works from it. You don't have to remember a command.

Our bookkeeping copilot is a good example of the shape. It's about 950 words. It asks for your chart of accounts and your regular vendors once, then refuses to invent a number, flags statements that end mid-month, and closes every answer by telling you to have your accountant check anything important.

That's the whole trick. A prompt is something you paste. A skill is something Claude keeps.

If you're weighing where skills sit next to plain prompts and custom-built systems, prompts vs. skills vs. custom AI walks the full ladder.

Claude skills vs. the Claude for Small Business plugin

Anthropic launched Claude for Small Business on May 13, 2026. It's a plugin, which means a bundle: skills, workflows and connectors to QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, Docusign, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. Its public GitHub folder listed 44 skills when we checked in September 2026, covering payroll prep, invoice chasing, lead triage and more.

The plugin can do things a lone skill can't. It reads your QuickBooks data and stages the bill run for your approval. If your books live in QuickBooks and you pay for Claude, turn it on.

Two limits matter for a lot of owners, though. The plugin runs in Cowork on paid Claude plans, and it's built around those connectors. Keep your books in Wave or a spreadsheet, or run Claude on the free plan, and most of it doesn't apply.

A standalone skill has neither requirement. It works from whatever you paste or upload, on any plan, and you can read every line of it before it touches your business. The two sit side by side without conflict: plenty of owners will run the plugin for QuickBooks and a handful of single skills for the jobs it doesn't cover.

35 free Claude skills for small business owners

We publish 35 skills in the Vexlo Toolbox, grouped by the job they do. All of them came out of client work, and all of them are MIT-licensed on GitHub.

• Finance (6): bookkeeping, cash-flow forecasting, an accountant handoff pack, an AI spend audit, grant finding, and a finance analyst for P&L questions.
• Customer support (5): a support reply writer, complaint resolution, a knowledge base builder, review replies, and a customer insights miner.
• Operations (7): SOPs from a voice ramble, meeting follow-ups, inventory, quality control, automation planning, scheduled AI tasks, and a prompt library for your team.
• Hiring and staff (4): job posts and screening, a recruiting pipeline, onboarding, and shift scheduling.
• Sales (4): discovery calls, proposals, a sales pipeline, and referrals.
• Marketing (5): content repurposing, email campaigns, an SEO audit, website copy, and a growth plan.
• Strategy (4): a business plan, competitor tracking, quarterly goals, and an idea stress-test.

Where to start depends on which job you hate most. Say you run a three-person bookkeeping practice in Windsor and every month-end is the same scramble for missing receipts: start with the bookkeeping copilot. Drowning in the same ten support emails? The support reply skill learns your voice and your refund policy once. Losing Sunday nights to the staff rota? Shift scheduling remembers who can't work Tuesdays.

Install one. Use it for two weeks. Then add a second.

How to install a skill in Claude

As of September 2026, Anthropic's help center lists skills on every Claude plan, Free included. The steps:

1. Download the skill's folder from the GitHub repo (each one sits under `skills/`, with a `SKILL.md` inside) and zip it.
2. In Claude, check that code execution is on under Settings > Capabilities. Skills don't show up without it.
3. Open Customize > Skills, click the plus button, choose Create skill, then Upload a skill.
4. Pick the zip. Claude lists the skill, and it loads whenever a request matches its description.

The first time a skill runs, it asks its setup questions. Answer them properly. Five minutes of real answers here is the difference between generic output and output that sounds like your shop.

On a Team or Enterprise plan, an admin can switch off user-created skills. If you can't find the upload option, that's the usual reason.

In Claude Code, Cursor or Codex

If you use a coding agent, one command installs a skill from our repo:

npx skills add VexloCa/toolbox --skill bookkeeping-copilot

Leave off `--skill` to see the full list and pick. You can also copy a folder by hand into `~/.claude/skills/` for Claude Code.

In ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot

ChatGPT now has its own Skills section that reads the same `SKILL.md` format. As of September 2026 it's rolling out plan by plan, so check whether your account shows it before you go looking. If it doesn't, paste the whole file into a ChatGPT Project's instructions. Skip custom GPTs for this: OpenAI plans to retire them on December 11, 2026.

In Gemini or Copilot, paste the file into a Gemini Gem or a Copilot agent. It'll run the same setup questions and follow the same rules. What you lose is the automatic loading: there, the skill only runs where you pasted it.

Where Claude skills break

A skill is instructions, and instructions can be bad. Someone else's skill could tell Claude to send your data somewhere or quietly skip a step you care about. Read any skill before you install it, ours included. Our free Skill Check grades a skill file or a GitHub link from A+ to F, and this guide to checking skills covers what a bad one looks like.

A skill also doesn't make Claude know your numbers. The bookkeeping skill organizes and flags. It can't tell you whether an expense is deductible, and it says so. Anything touching tax, payroll or a contract still goes past a professional.

Plan details move fast, too. Anthropic has changed what each plan includes more than once this year, so if a step above doesn't match your screen, check the help center before you assume you did it wrong.

Where to go next

Pick the one job that eats your week, install that skill, and give it two weeks before you judge it. Browse the full set by category starting with finance, or take the free AI Skills for Small Business course, which walks through installing a skill and then writing your own.