Clerra in Claude and ChatGPT

What you can ask

• “What's due this week, and what's overdue?”
• “Which T2s are due before Nov 30 and still waiting on the client?”
• “Where are we with Maple Dental?”
• “Which clients are set up wrong, so filings are missing?”
• “Unbilled time by client this quarter.”
• “Set Northwind's GST/HST filing to quarterly.”

It reads deadlines and your day, clients, jobs and their steps, document requests, setup issues the deadline engine finds, firm settings, your team and your own access, and runs the same custom reports as Clerra’s report builder. Every answer links back to the record in Clerra.

Before you connect

• A Company Admin turns on Settings → AI assistants in Clerra. It’s off until then.
• Your role needs Use Clerra in AI assistants. Company Admins have it; an admin can give it to other roles in Settings → Roles.
• Clerra in AI assistants is available on paid plans (not during the free trial).

Connect Claude

1. 1Press Add to Claude (or in Claude: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector) — the address is https://app.clerra.ca/mcp.
2. 2Press Connect, sign in to Clerra, review what Claude may do, and press Allow.
3. 3On Claude Team or Enterprise, an Owner adds the connector once for the organization; then each person connects for themselves.

Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http clerra https://app.clerra.ca/mcp, then run /mcp to sign in.

Connect ChatGPT

1. 1In ChatGPT, open Plugins in the sidebar, press Add (top right), then Add custom MCP server.
2. 2Paste https://app.clerra.ca/mcp, confirm, name it Clerra, and press Create as a plugin.
3. 3Sign in to Clerra, review what ChatGPT may do, and press Allow.

What it can change

Only if your role has AI assistants can make changes (Company Admins by default) and the normal permission for that change, and only after you allow it on the sign-in screen. Your assistant asks you before each change, and each one is recorded in your firm’s activity log with its old and new value.

• A client's contact details, owner, and status (active or onboarding).
• A client's filing set-up: fiscal year-end, GST/HST and PST filing, payroll remittance and pay frequency, instalments, CCPC, T4/T5 slips, self-employed — the filing calendar rebuilds from the new details.
• Your own time zone; the firm's time zone and whether timesheets need approval (with those settings permissions).
• Add a client note, a to-do (for you, or others if your role assigns work), or your own time — billable or not is always asked.
• Start a job (from a template or blank), move it between working statuses or send it for review, and tick off its steps. Finishing every step sends the job to review; jobs are never marked done or filed from a chat.
• Add a new client — only with its entity type, province and fiscal year-end, so its deadlines are built straight away.

What it never does

• Delete anything — clients, files, records or accounts — or mark a job done or a return filed.
• Change who a client is: names, entity type, business, GST/HST or payroll account numbers, province, incorporation details.
• Email or message clients, move money, or change billing rates.
• Change roles, permissions, security, connections or the vault.
• Show SINs, dates of birth, bank details, pay rates, phone numbers or file contents; long account numbers show only their last three digits.
• See anything you can't see in Clerra — another person's time, the firm's invoices or settings follow your role exactly.

For your clients

A firm’s clients can connect their own Claude or ChatGPT too — it’s their file and their choice. A client connects from their Client Center profile and can ask what you still need from them, when things are due, how their work is going, what’s waiting for their signature and what they owe. It sees only what they see in their Client Center, can’t change anything, and links them back to upload, sign or pay.

Privacy and your clients’ data

What your assistant reads from Clerra is sent to Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI (ChatGPT) and processed in the United States, under your firm’s or your own account with them — not Clerra’s Canadian storage. Turning AI assistants on asks a Company Admin to confirm the firm has assessed this for its clients. Clerra records which tool was used, when and by whom, never the content. Details are in our privacy policy.

Disconnect

In Clerra, open your profile → Connected accounts and press Disconnect; a Company Admin can disconnect anyone, or everyone, in Settings → AI assistants. Access ends immediately. Disconnecting doesn’t remove what the assistant already read from its own service. Connections renew every 180 days.

Help

Write to support@clerra.ca.