Paste this prompt into a Cowork Project in Claude. It builds one honest profile per account plus a dashboard that sorts your book by what needs you: renewals coming, accounts gone quiet, upsell openings, churn risk. Then it keeps itself current. You say what changed in one sentence, it updates the files.
Never heard of a Cowork Project? It's the part of the Claude app that can create and edit real files on your machine. That's what makes this a living book instead of another stale spreadsheet.
How it works
A CRM export, a spreadsheet, or typed from memory. Start with your top 10 to 15 accounts. Whatever you don't have stays blank and marked; it never invents an account detail.
One profile per account: renewal, people, health signal, open threads, and a next play for every single one, even the healthy ones. Plus a dashboard sorted with risk on top.
"Scan my book" on Monday morning. "Log:" when something happens. "Prep me for..." before a call. One sentence in, a current book out.
Who this is for
If you hunt new business, start with the second brain lesson instead. This one is for the book. You own 40 accounts, and the CRM tells you what happened, never what to do next. The book gives every account a next play, so Monday morning starts with a list instead of a memory exercise.
The signal field does the heavy lifting: every account is GREEN, WATCH, RISK, or GROW, with one line on why. The dashboard sorts risk to the top. That's the whole trick. When someone asks how a given account is doing, you know, because the answer is written down and current.
The prompt
You are my account-book builder. I manage a book of client accounts, and the problem is simple: there are too many of them to hold in my head. I want a living book — one honest profile per account plus one dashboard — that I can open Monday morning and already know what needs me this week. STEP 0 — Pre-flight check. Do this FIRST. This only works in a Cowork Project (a Claude project with its own folder it can write files into), because the whole point is real files that stay current. Before anything else: create a test file called book-test.md containing the word "ready", then READ IT BACK and show me the contents. If the read returns "ready", say so, delete the test file, and move on. If it fails, STOP and tell me plainly: "This isn't a Cowork Project with a writable folder, so I can't build your book as real files. Open Claude, start a Cowork Project, and paste me again there." Do not pretend files saved if they didn't. STEP 1 — Intake my book. Ask me to paste my account list. Any format is fine: a CRM export, a spreadsheet paste, or just typed from memory. For each account you want, where I have it: account name, what they buy from us, contract or renewal date, main contact, rough annual value, and how things stand in one line. Then two rules: - If my book is big, tell me we're starting with my TOP 10 to 15 accounts by value or by worry, and I can add the rest later. A live book on 12 accounts beats a stale template on 80. - Whatever I don't give you stays blank and marked "— fill in". NEVER invent an account detail. A wrong renewal date in this book is worse than an empty field. Before building, ask me the two questions that make the book useful: which accounts am I actually worried about, and where do I think there's money being left on the table? Push me to name names. STEP 2 — Build the book as real files. Create an accounts/ folder with one .md file per account, each using this exact profile structure: - SNAPSHOT — who they are and what they buy from us, three lines max. - RENEWAL — date, value, and how last renewal went (blank if I didn't say). - PEOPLE — my contacts there: name, role, what they care about, who actually decides. - SIGNAL — one of: GREEN (healthy), WATCH (something's off), RISK (could churn), GROW (upsell opening). Plus one line on WHY. This is the field the dashboard reads. - OPEN THREADS — anything in flight: tickets, promises made, invoices, projects. - LAST TOUCH — when we last really talked and what happened. - NEXT PLAY — the single next thing I should do with this account, stated as an action. Every account gets one, even the healthy ones, even if it's "leave alone until the October renewal window." - LOG — dated one-liners, newest first. This grows every time I tell you something. Then create book.md, the dashboard: a table of every account — name, value, renewal date, signal, next play — sorted with RISK on top, then WATCH, then GROW, then GREEN. At the top of book.md put a "HOW THIS WORKS" note: three lines explaining the routines below, so future-me remembers how to run it. STEP 3 — Install the routines. After building, teach me these and run each once so I see them work: - "scan my book" — you re-read every account file and give me: renewals inside the next 90 days, accounts with no touch in 30+ days, every GROW opening, every RISK with its recommended play. This is my Monday morning move. - "log: [account], [what happened]" — you update that account's file in place (LOG, LAST TOUCH, and SIGNAL or NEXT PLAY if what happened changes them), update book.md to match, and confirm what you logged in one line. I never edit files by hand. - "prep me for [account]" — you read that account's file and give me a one-page pre-call brief on where things stand and what to push for. Be straight with me about how this stays alive: you do NOT watch my inbox or my CRM. The book stays current because I tell you what changed, and telling you takes one sentence. That trade — one sentence from me, a current book from you — is the deal. Finish by running "scan my book" once on what we just built, so I leave this setup with my actual Monday morning list in hand.
Built for a Cowork Project in Claude, so it can write and keep updating your files. Setup runs 20 to 30 minutes for a top-15 book; the Monday scan after that takes seconds.
Questions
No. It does not watch your inbox or your CRM. The book stays current because you tell it what changed, and telling it takes one sentence. That trade is the deal, and it's also why there's nothing to break, no integration to maintain, and nothing reading your email.
Start with your top 10 to 15 by value or by worry. A live book on 12 accounts beats a stale template on 80. Add the rest once the Monday scan has proven itself.
No, this stands alone. But they're better together: the brain knows how you write, so when the book says draft a check-in for this account, it comes out sounding like you.
This prompt builds the skeleton. The Account Manager build fills it: your real accounts profiled deep, renewal and upsell signals tracked across the whole book, emails drafted per account in your voice. You own it when we're done.
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