Claude and ChatGPT, on your own books
Using AI with Sage 100 Contractor
Claude and ChatGPT can answer questions about your Sage 100 Contractor company, as long as they can see the data. The simplest way is to export a report and paste it in. A better one for regular use is a read-only Twinn connection, so your own assistant reads live records and runs reports when a question needs them. If your team does not use an assistant yet, Ask Twinn does the same job inside the Twinn web app. This page compares them, lists questions they can answer, and shows how to check the numbers that come back.
For Sage 100 Contractor, the construction accounting product formerly called Sage Master Builder. Not Sage 100 ERP.
Why an assistant cannot reach Sage 100 Contractor on its own
Sage 100 Contractor keeps each company in a Microsoft SQL Server database on your own server, and Sage offers no cloud API for it. Claude and ChatGPT run in the cloud, so something has to sit between them: either a person moving files, or a service on your network that the assistant can call. That choice is the whole difference between the options below.
The options, side by side
| Question | Export and paste | Your own assistant, connected (MCP) | Ask Twinn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where you ask | Claude or ChatGPT | Claude Desktop, claude.ai, Claude Code or ChatGPT | Inside the Twinn web app |
| What it reads | The file you uploaded | Live records and Twinn reports, through the Twinn service on your network | Twinn reports, run live as the person asking |
| How fresh | As of the export, and out of date at the next posting | Read at the moment you ask | Read at the moment you ask |
| What the AI provider receives | The whole file, every column | Your question and what the tools returned for it | Your question and the report results it needs, sent to Anthropic |
| Who controls access | Whoever has the file | An administrator ticks the kinds of data each connection may read | The asker’s own Twinn report permissions |
| Can it change Sage | No | No. The server refuses any key able to post | No |
| Setup | None | About five minutes per person or tool, by a company administrator | None |
| Cost | Your assistant subscription | Included in every Twinn plan, from $3,000 a year | Add-on to any plan, $1,500 a year (early access) |
Export and paste
Fine for a one-off question about a single report. It breaks down once a question needs a second report, or the data has moved since the export. A file that holds payroll or personal details should not leave the building at all.
Your own assistant, connected
Suits a team that already works in Claude or ChatGPT and wants Sage 100 Contractor next to their email, documents and spreadsheets. The assistant reads the list of Twinn tools, picks the ones a question needs and calls them. Setup and the security model are on the Sage 100 Contractor MCP server page.
Ask Twinn
Suits a team that does not use an AI assistant today. It uses the same tools, so it gives the same answers, and each answer names the report, the criteria and the time it ran, with a link to open the full report. See Ask Twinn for an example answer.
What you can ask
Each question below is one the Twinn tools are tested against, or the question a Twinn report was written to answer. Where a report is behind it, the link shows how that report calculates its figures. Northbank Distribution Center is a job at Ridgeline Mechanical & Plumbing, the company on the public demo, so you can ask these there as written.
Jobs and job cost
- “Which jobs are over budget right now?” Budget vs Actual by Cost Code
- “What is the cost to date on the Northbank Distribution Center job?”
- “What was our largest job by cost this year and last year?” Job Cost Totals
- “How much is committed but not yet billed on each active job?” Committed Costs
Billing and the WIP schedule
- “Show me the WIP schedule as of the end of last month.” Job Performance (WIP)
- “Which jobs are underbilled as of today, largest first?” Over/Under Billings
What you owe and what you are owed
- “How much do we currently owe this vendor, retention included?”
- “What is our total payables more than 90 days past due today?” AP Invoice Aging
- “Which clients owe us more than 60 days past due?” AR Invoice Aging
The ledger and the calendar
- “Which fiscal year and accounting period are we in right now?”
- “How many accounting periods are still open?”
- “What is our net income for the fiscal year to date?” Income Statement
All 45 Twinn reports are available to a connection that is allowed to run them. Browse the reports.
How to check an answer
An assistant can misread a question even when the data is right, so the useful habit is to ask where a number came from. With a Twinn connection, every report answer names the report version that ran. Ask Twinn also gives the criteria and the time, with a link to the same report in the browser. If an answer was built from records rather than a report, ask the assistant which records it used.
Two things worth knowing before you trust an aging or a WIP figure from any source:
- The AR and AP agings use current balances. The as-of date sets the age of each invoice, so a past as-of date does not give a historical aging.
- The WIP and over/under billing figures add approved change orders to the budget and contract. If your company already posts approved change orders into them, the report has a setting for that; without it they are counted twice.
What the controller and IT should know
Read-only
A Twinn AI connection cannot post, edit or delete anything in Sage 100 Contractor.
Data by kind
Each connection reads only the kinds of data an administrator ticked: everyday records, money, payroll or personal details. Fields it may not read are left out of every answer, and the assistant is told they were held back.
One key per person or tool
Revoke one connection and the others keep working.
Recorded
Each tool call is counted against its connection, and the dashboard shows which reports each one ran. Ask Twinn records each question against the person who asked.
No copy of your data
Twinn keeps no warehouse or nightly copy of your Sage data. The database stays on your server, and the Twinn service there makes outbound connections only.
Small answers
Reports return totals by default and long lists are capped, so an assistant cannot pull the whole ledger by accident.
The deployment detail for your IT lead is on Security for IT.
What it costs
Connecting Claude or ChatGPT is included in every Twinn plan, starting with the Reports plan at $3,000 a year, which also covers Twinn Reports and read-only API access. Ask Twinn is an add-on to any plan at $1,500 a year. Every plan starts with a free 30-day trial on a demo company: a real Sage 100 Contractor database on our servers with books dated to the current month, so questions about what is overdue have real answers. See pricing.
Questions about AI and Sage 100 Contractor
Can ChatGPT connect to Sage 100 Contractor directly?
Not directly. Sage 100 Contractor has no cloud API, so ChatGPT needs a connector it can call. Twinn provides one: you add it as a custom connector with the server address from the Twinn dashboard, and sign in with your Twinn account.
Is Claude or ChatGPT better for this?
Both work with the same Twinn connection and the same tools. Ask Twinn uses Claude, made by Anthropic. Use the assistant your company already has an agreement with.
Can the assistant change anything in our books?
No. AI connections are read-only, and the server refuses any key that is able to write.
What does the AI provider see?
Your question and what the tools returned for it, which is only data that connection may read. It goes to the provider of the assistant you use, under your agreement with them.
Can we try it without connecting our own company?
Yes, two ways. The public demo is Ridgeline Mechanical & Plumbing, a made-up mechanical and plumbing contractor you can connect Claude or ChatGPT to right now: add https://demo-mcp.twinn.engineering/mcp as a custom connector and sign in. Or we set up a demo company of your own for up to 30 days, deleted completely when the trial ends.
Bring the questions you ask at month end
Put them to the public demo in Claude or ChatGPT today, or tell us what you would ask and we will set up a demo company of your own.