Write tools are in Beta: the Spendesk MCP can now act, not just read
26 write tools are now available in Beta: purchase orders, accounting exports, chart of accounts, suppliers, payables, analytical fields. What they do, how to turn them on, which actions cannot be undone — with three examples run on a demo account.
From "show me" to "do it"
Until now, the Spendesk MCP answered questions: show me the overdue invoices, compare this quarter with the last, list the open purchase orders. Every tool read your data and none changed it.
That has changed. The server now has 62 tools: 36 that read and 26 that act. With your permission, an assistant can create a purchase order, generate the month's accounting journals, add an account to the chart of accounts or update a supplier.
Reading is generally available. Write actions are in Beta, and every one of them is off until someone turns it on.
What the 26 write tools cover
| Area | What the assistant can do | Permission |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase orders | Create, cancel, close | Manage purchase orders |
| Accounting exports | Generate purchase and bank journals, as a preview or committed | Manage accounting exports |
| Chart of accounts | Create, update, archive accounts | Manage chart of accounts |
| Payables and settlements | Update accounting fields, mark as ready, mark as exported | Manage payables |
| Suppliers | Create, update, archive | Manage suppliers |
| Analytical fields | Create, update, delete fields and values | Manage analytical fields |
| Expense categories | Create, update, delete categories and the category field | Manage expense categories |
What is still not possible: approving or rejecting a request or an invoice, paying or scheduling a payment, creating or changing cards, users or cost centers, and reading budgets. See what the Spendesk MCP cannot do.
How to turn them on
Two steps, in this order.
- An Admin or Account Owner enables the permission on the connection. In Spendesk: Settings → Integrations → MCP, open the connection, Permissions tab. Each write permission is enabled separately.
- Each user reconnects and ticks it. Disconnect the assistant, connect again, and tick the permission on the Spendesk approval screen. Write permissions are unticked by default.
Refreshing the tool list is not enough: a connection keeps the permissions it was approved with. And a tool whose permission is not ticked does not show up as "forbidden" — it looks exactly like a tool that does not exist.
Three examples, run on a demo account
The exchanges below are reconstructed from tests run on a Spendesk demo account on 5 October 2026. The wording is rewritten for readability; the figures and outcomes are the ones the tools returned.
Preview the month's purchase journal
A preview changes nothing. It is the default, and the right first step before any export.
Using 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30. This is a preview: nothing is marked as exported.
| Invoice | Amount | Bookkeeping status |
|---|---|---|
| RE-2026-08842 | EUR 15779.40 | To prepare |
| RE-2026-11207 | EUR 10055.50 | To prepare |
Would you like me to list what is missing on these two payables before they can be marked as ready?
Add an account to the chart of accounts
I checked first, archive included: codes 699998 and 699999 are already held by archived test accounts, and 699997 is free.
Here is what I'm about to do — confirm and I'll proceed:
Archiving can be reversed by unarchiving. One thing does not come back: supplier and employee assignments released by archiving are not restored.
Create a purchase order, then cancel it
Before I create it, please confirm:
| Supplier | Amount | Cost center | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| OKKO (existing supplier) | EUR 120.00 gross, EUR 100.00 net (assuming 20% VAT, to confirm) | CSM | 2026-10-05 to 2026-10-31 |
To cancel PO-20 (OKKO, EUR 120.00): it is open with no invoice attached, so it can be cancelled. Cancelling cannot be undone. Go ahead?
What cannot be undone
Read this list before ticking a write permission.
| Action | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Cancel a purchase order | Final. Only possible while it is open with no invoice attached and no associated expense |
| Close a purchase order | Final, and its amount is rewritten to what was billed: the approved figure is no longer shown |
| Commit an accounting export | The payables and settlements included are marked as exported |
| Mark a payable or a settlement as exported | No tool moves it back |
| Mark a payable as ready | A bookkeeping step, not an approval. No tool moves it back |
| Delete an analytical field, a value or an expense category | No tool restores them |
| Delete the expense category field | Removes every expense category of the company |
Two safeguards are enforced by Spendesk on every call: your ticked permissions, and your role (Controller or Account Owner in the company concerned). A third one is an instruction to the assistant, not a lock: ask before acting. Keep your assistant's own approval on for write actions — in Claude, "Allow once" keeps a human decision on each one.
Where to start
- Start read-only. Reading is enough for analysis, month-end checks and invoice follow-up.
- Tick only what the job needs. Someone who manages purchase orders needs that permission, not accounting exports.
- Try it on a demo account first. That is what we did for this article.
- Use the ready-made skills. Three of them wrap these tools with the checks and confirmations built in: accounting export, chart of accounts and purchase order lifecycle.
Key takeaways
- The Spendesk MCP has 62 tools: 36 read tools (34 generally available, 2 that come with the Beta accounting export permission) and 26 write tools in Beta
- Each write permission is off by default: an Admin or Account Owner enables it, then each user reconnects and ticks it
- Previews are the default for accounting exports, and payables still "to prepare" are left out of the purchase journal without warning
- Cancelling or closing a purchase order, committing an export and marking entries as exported cannot be undone
- There is still no tool to approve, pay, or read budgets
- The full list, tool by tool, is in the MCP tool reference and in Assistant actions and safety
Related skills
Generate the month's purchase or bank journal as a preview, check what is excluded, and commit only on explicit request.
Create, rename and archive accounting accounts from the conversation, with the checks and side effects to know.
Create, cancel and close purchase orders from the conversation, with pre-checks and irreversible actions flagged.