Spend in Claude

Once Muin is connected to Claude (see Getting started with Muin in Claude), Claude can answer questions about what your organization owes and what a purchase needs. The tools read, except starting a Money Back Scan and drafting a purchase request, which each wait for your approval in your Muin Inbox. Paying a bill, approving it and submitting a purchase request happen in Muin.

What you can ask

• “Which vendor bills are due this week?” Claude lists bills with vendor, amount, status and due date.
• “Show me bill INV-7781.” Claude shows that bill’s detail.
• “Show our open purchase orders” or “Which quotes do we have from Acme?”
• “We want to buy a $20,000 van on our workforce grant. What do we need?” Claude checks the purchase against the award’s 2 CFR 200 rules: the band (micro, small or formal), the method, how many quotes, bids or proposals to keep, the contract clauses, and whether bonds apply.
• “Have we paid anything twice?” Claude reads your latest Money Back Scan: the total found, how many findings and one example, with a link to the full report in Muin. “Run the money back scan” starts a new one once you approve it in your Muin Inbox. The scan reads your books and saves findings; it never pays or changes a bill.
• “Which contract obligations are due in the next 30 days?” Claude lists them, soonest first, with the contract each belongs to.
• “Start a purchase request for two laptops for the youth program.” Claude prepares a draft with its lines and total. Once you approve it in your Muin Inbox it is saved as your draft. You review it and submit it in Muin, where the budget and fund checks run and it goes to its approver.

Who can use them

• Vendor bills, purchase orders and quotes need the vendor bills permission in your Muin role.
• The grant procurement check comes with Grant Compliance and the Spend module. It uses the micro-purchase threshold your organization certified in Muin, if any, and the federal default otherwise. When the award has no federal procurement rules on the date asked, Claude says the purchase was not assessed. That is not a pass.
• The Money Back Scan needs the Money Back Scan permission, and an owner agrees to its data use once in Muin before the first scan.
• Contract obligations need the vendor contracts permission.
• Drafting a purchase request needs the purchase requests permission, and a connection an owner or admin allowed to make changes.

The procurement check is a what-if: it saves nothing. When you submit the purchase order in Muin, the same rules run again and the quotes and decision are kept on the order.

The muin-spend plugin

For Claude Cowork and Claude Code, the plugin adds five skills that use these tools: vendor-bills, grant-procurement-check, money-back-scan, purchase-request and invoice-to-hold. invoice-to-hold finds an invoice’s bill, purchase order and approval status and sends you to Muin to record, match and approve it; it never pays. The plugin is waiting for Claude directory approval. Until it is listed, ask Claude directly and it uses the same tools.

If something goes wrong

• Claude says it cannot see vendor bills: an owner or admin adds the vendor bills permission to your role in Muin.
• Claude says grant procurement checks need Grant Compliance: turn on Grant Compliance and the Spend module in Settings → Billing.
• A draft or scan never appears: open your Muin Inbox under Waiting for your approval. Nothing runs until you approve it there.