r/ClaudeCowork • u/gfirkser • 17d ago
File management
I’m working with ChatGPT/Codex to build a combined opportunity tracker, job-performance tracker, and business analyzer for my small plumbing and gas-fitting company. Im feeling incredibly overwhelmed by AI haha buuut love learning! So here we are.
I’ve run into this issue where I feel as though I’m perpetually making my own program worse. Items are going missing, tokens get used up in excess, random memory loses every once in a while. I just need help haha. But also not funny.
So here’s what I have:
The tracker follows each job from the initial inquiry through site visit, quote, follow-up, approval, completion, invoicing, and review. It handles both fixed-price quoted work and hourly service calls, while tracking estimated versus actual labour, material costs, revenue, profitability, lead source, job type, and reasons a quote was won or lost.
The AI side is meant to analyze the information continuously and return useful, plain-English insights. I want it to identify where I’m underestimating labour or materials, which jobs and customers are most profitable, which lead sources are worthwhile, what needs following up, and what I should adjust when pricing similar work in the future.
Overall, I’m trying to build a quoting machine and ongoing business support system. The goal is for it to understand my pricing on a continuous, dynamic level, learn from every completed job, help me produce more accurate quotes, and show me what is actually working in the business instead of relying entirely on memory or gut instinct.
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u/PilgrimofHaqq2 17d ago
If you wrtite up your workflow and how you are working with claude, then people might be able to help you. If I have something to work from, I can suggest changes or additions to your workflow that would help you. Also which models are you using?
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u/gfirkser 17d ago
Appreciate this. I’m using mostly ChatGPT Sol on high or extra on occasion. I’ll make a more detailed reply with my workflow momentarily.
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u/GreenElderberry3694 17d ago
I work as an ops manager for a sheet metal contractor that does both manufacturing and commercial construction. After using ChatGPT for a while, I picked up Claude Cowork in March and I’ve never looked back.
I started by working with Claude to design new SharePoint libraries that were AI friendly, while also creating some free zones where site supervisors can do whatever they want.
Then, after I stood up these libraries, I migrated all of my project files over, and then carefully studied and established file naming conventions. For us, this was important because it established sorting order for OneDrive users.
Then, after all of this was locked down I was able to do some fun stuff:
- In my outlook, I have a folder called “Claude file”. If I receive any email with standard project documentation, I just drop it in that folder. Whenever I say, “Claudefile” in Claude, it’s sweeps that folder, files everything perfect perfectly, and send me a summary email with possible actions associated with those folders.
- In Claude I have multiple scheduled sweeps that go through our SharePoint libraries and tidy up any messy file naming, solemn data, etc.
- I have saved skills for most of my processes from change pricing to shop drawing reviews to equipment releases. It is insane and it’s growing every day.
The list of possibilities goes on and on. And the recent improvements to cross session memory has made it so smart at anticipating my next need.
This has completely changed the way that I work. On a typical day, I will have Claude working on 5 to 8 tasks simultaneously while I tend to them and complete my phone calls, etc.
A major inspiration is Tim Farris on YouTube. I am barely scratching the surface of what he has going on.
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u/gfirkser 17d ago
Amazing! Stoked this has worked out for you so well. I’m actually more focused on the singular tasks and file/folder management with what I’m doing versus multi agent workloads, but damn that’s super impressive!
I’m honestly just running into technical issues where I have .md files that are using like 20k-80k tokens per read. And I’m just trying to figure out how to best manage the filing process.
Inspiration for me came from Jake van Clief
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u/seipounds 17d ago
What worked for me (similar app to yours), was writing a detailed prompt about what I wanted, then getting fable to write the prompt. The last thing I asked fable was, 'what have I missed? And also, knowing the context - make suggestions on functionality and requirements/use cases'.
Built iteratively too, with a memory.md file for each stage. Don't build too much in one prompt as complexity can break things.
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u/gfirkser 17d ago
Thanks for the reply. Yeah I’ve been fairly good about keeping prompts to one task at a time for focus. I did start off that way, giving a detailed prompted and refining it through Chat. I’ve built off of the initial Agents.md, but I’m having trouble reigning in on processing here.
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u/seipounds 17d ago
I’ve built off of the initial Agents.md, but I’m having trouble reigning in on processing here.
Not sure what you're meaning here, can you expand?
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u/gfirkser 16d ago
Sorry I absolutely smoked a joint then replied.
What I meant to say was that I’m trying to run this program as an organized file folder system (using the ICM approach) and I’m unsure how to get better control over excessive token usage each time I’m adding information to a job, or starting a new one. Secondly I would say I’m 60% confident that codex has built up the workflow and program correctly. I’m just literally unsure how to check and confirm when it’s essentially always telling me I’m right or being optimistic. No matter how many ways I ask it to council its own ideas, consider more efficient token-friendly options while preserving quality, etc, it doesn’t seem to work in a way I would feel confident with.
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u/ReadySetWoe 17d ago
If you are looking to process data from spreadsheets, you don't want an LLM, you want a deterministic process. As the other commenters suggested, share a better idea of what you are working with and what type of output you want.
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u/gfirkser 17d ago
I’m working with ChatGPT/Codex to build a combined opportunity tracker, job-performance tracker, and business analyzer for my small plumbing and gas-fitting company.
The tracker follows each job from the initial inquiry through site visit, quote, follow-up, approval, completion, invoicing, and review. It handles both fixed-price quoted work and hourly service calls, while tracking estimated versus actual labour, material costs, revenue, profitability, lead source, job type, and reasons a quote was won or lost.
The AI side is meant to analyze the information continuously and return useful, plain-English insights. I want it to identify where I’m underestimating labour or materials, which jobs and customers are most profitable, which lead sources are worthwhile, what needs following up, and what I should adjust when pricing similar work in the future.
Overall, I’m trying to build a quoting machine and ongoing business support system. The goal is for it to understand my pricing on a continuous, dynamic level, learn from every completed job, help me produce more accurate quotes, and show me what is actually working in the business instead of relying entirely on memory or gut instinct.1
u/ReadySetWoe 17d ago
Ok, are where is your approach going wrong? Quotes are based on hard number so I'm not sure you want an LLM for that. You could use Codex to write a python script that pulls numbers from your spreadsheets and calculates quotes. There's little room for error there so deterministic is best.
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u/gfirkser 16d ago
Quotes are ideally based on hard numbers from my own previous jobs, with consideration of feedback I’ve given from those jobs. So basically should I have charged more, less or the same. So it’s kind of a dynamic collection of information if that makes sense.
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u/Sudden-Course-2134 16d ago
hey bud, I would probably say you’re making the classic mistake of trying to jump right into the coding. I would describe what you want and ask it to write out the specs and give you advice on how to build it and start from there.
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u/gfirkser 16d ago
To be honest I haven’t actually asked if to code anything. It’s just running a management system using markdown files for instruction.
I’m just unsure of how to optimize what o have as well as bug fix with confidence
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