Connecting Nominal to Your AI Assistant (MCP)

The connection uses MCP (Model Context Protocol), an open standard for connecting AI assistants to business systems. Because it's a standard, Nominal doesn't tie you to one assistant — the same connection works with whichever one your team has chosen.

It runs on your own Nominal login, so you see exactly the entities, data, and permissions you already have in the app. Nothing is exposed beyond what your user can already access.

Before you start

• An active Nominal account. You'll connect with your normal Nominal sign-in — there are no API keys to generate.

• An AI assistant that supports remote MCP connectors (Claude, Chat GPT, Cursor etc.). Support varies by product and plan, and on business or enterprise plans an administrator may need to enable or approve the connector for your workspace.

Whichever assistant you use, the setup comes down to the same two pieces of information: a name for the connection (use Nominal) and the server address.

Server address: https://api.nominal.so/mcp

When you sign in you'll be asked what level of access to grant — read only, or read and write. Read and write is what lets your assistant actually do the work: post adjustments, update close tasks, and sign off matches.

How to connect

Claude (web and desktop)

1. Go to Settings → Connectors.

2. Click Add → Add custom connector.

3. Name it Nominal and enter the server address above. Leave the optional OAuth fields blank.

4. Click Add, then Connect, and complete the Nominal sign-in.

Claude Code

Run:

claude mcp add nominal --transport http https://api.nominal.so/mcp

Then run /mcp, select nominal, and complete the sign-in.

Cursor

Add the server to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nominal": {
      "url": "https://api.nominal.so/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Then open Cursor Settings → Tools & MCP and click Connect next to Nominal.

ChatGPT

Custom connectors require Developer mode on an eligible plan (Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, or Edu), and on business plans an administrator has to turn it on first. Once it's enabled, add a custom connector using the server address above and complete the Nominal sign-in.

Any other assistant

Look in its settings for Connectors, Integrations, or MCP servers, then add the server address above as a remote MCP server. If you're not sure whether your assistant supports it, ask us and we'll check.

Once connected, start a new conversation and Nominal will appear in the list of available tools. You only have to set this up once.

Permissions and safety

• Your login, your data. The connection acts as you. It cannot reach entities or reports you don't already have access to.

• You choose the access level. Read only limits your assistant to looking. Read and write lets it create and update records on your behalf.

• Changes are confirmed before they happen. Any action that would change data comes back to you as an approval request first — nothing is written to Nominal until you confirm it. This is what makes it safe to grant write access.

• You can change your mind. Reconnect at any time to switch the access level, or remove the connection entirely.

Reporting and analysis

Your assistant can use all Nominal reports — P&L, Balance Sheet, Trial Balance, and any custom reports you've built — pull the data for any period and entity, and export it. Because it's reading the live report rather than a stale export, you can keep asking follow-up questions against the same numbers. Your assistant can perform any complex reporting capability that exists in Nominal (column view, period comparison, filtering, group by etc).

• "Pull the P&L for Acme US for July 2026 and show me every expense line that moved more than 10% versus June, with the amount and the percentage."

• "Get the Balance Sheet for all entities as of 30 June and put it in a table I can paste into a board deck."

Flux analysis

Flux explains the movement between periods using GL-level detail, so the answer is what actually drove the variance rather than just the size of it. Your assistant can pull a Flux report and its explanations, then let you interrogate them — narrowing to one entity, one account, or one driver, and pulling the underlying entries when an explanation needs backing up.

• "Pull the Flux report for Q2 and summarize the three largest movements and what's driving each one."

• "For the professional fees variance in the Flux report, show me the transactions behind it."

Investigating the numbers

Search journal entries by date, entity, account, type, or status, and open any entry with its full lines and dimension assignments. This is the fastest way to answer "why did this balance move?" without building a drill-down by hand.

• "List all journal entries posted to account 60100 in Q2 over $50,000. Show the date, amount, memo, and dimensions."

• "Accrued liabilities jumped in August versus July. Find what changed and show me the entries responsible."

• "Compare this month's marketing spend by dimension against the last three months and flag anything unusual."

Month-end close

Your assistant can see where a close period stands, read the activities and tasks underneath it, and act on them — creating and updating tasks, submitting them for review, and approving, declining or reopening them. It can also post the adjustments that come out of the close, so the finding and the fix happen in the same conversation.

• "What's the status of the July close? Which tasks are still open, and who owns each one?"

• "Where are the bottlenecks in this close — which tasks are overdue or blocking the most other work?"

• "This reconciliation is off by 4,200. Work out the adjusting entry and draft it for my approval."

• "Add a recurring task for the intercompany reconciliation and assign it to Dana."

Adjustments and journal entries

Beyond the close, your assistant can create, update, and delete journal entries, and bulk upload a file of adjustments. Ask to see the entries before anything is posted — and remember every write comes back for your approval regardless.

• "Here's my adjustments file for August. Load it as journal entries for Acme UK and show me the entries before you post anything."

• "Draft the accrual reversal for the September entries we discussed and show me both sides."

Bank and reconciliation

Query bank accounts, pull a bank transactions report with matching status, and upload lead sheets and reconciliation sources.

• "Show me unmatched bank transactions over $10,000 for the main operating account this month."

Chart of accounts and dimensions

Search accounts for an entity, look up account details, and browse dimensions and their values — useful when you're checking how something is classified before you rely on a number.

• "Which accounts roll up to Operating Expenses for Acme US, and which of them have no dimension rules?"

Tips for better answers

• Be specific about entity and period. "Acme US, July 2026" beats "last month".

• Name the report if you know it — otherwise your assistant will list what's available and ask.

• Let it chain steps. The most useful prompts ask it to find something and then do something — investigate a variance and draft the correcting entry, or check the close and update the tasks.

Troubleshooting

• Your assistant can't find Nominal, or the tools have disappeared. Connections expire after a period of time, and how long varies by assistant. This is normal and not a fault — open your assistant's connector settings, find Nominal, and reconnect.

• You don't see your data. Make sure you completed the Nominal sign-in step, and that you used the same account you use in the app.

• It won't make a change. You most likely connected with read-only access. Reconnect and grant read and write.

• Your assistant doesn't offer a way to add a connector. Support may not be available on your current plan, or an administrator may need to enable it for your workspace first.

Need help?

Reach out to your Nominal contact or contact support — including if you'd like help connecting a specific assistant, or if there's a capability you'd like to see added.