You can be closing deals, underwriting parcels, sending offers, and still be exposed to one thing, inconsistent cash flow between wins. And it’s not a skill problem. It’s a structure problem. Now imagine this: While your land pipeline does what it does best (big, slower, higher-margin wins) there’s a parallel system quietly handling the “in-between” gaps, something lighter, faster to turn over, and built around digital product-based ecosystems that operate without physical inventory headaches or constant manual effort. Not instead of land investing. Alongside it. Think of it as building a second lane that runs on: - scalable online storefront systems - automated product distribution models - internet-based value exchanges that don’t depend on waiting months for a deal to close This isn’t about replacing what works. It’s about removing pressure from it. Because the real risk in any deal-based business isn’t lack of deals, it’s relying on only one rhythm of income. The investors who last the longest aren’t just good at acquisitions, they’re good at building support systems around their acquisitions. Vacant land can remain your core strategy. But the question is: What’s quietly supporting your cash flow while you wait on your next close?

Following up on my previous post about automating month-end, I want to pull back the curtain on the project that really started it all. It involves a massive company reconstruction, a "manual hell" task, and a midnight breakthrough that tripled my productivity. The Problem: A Reconstruction Hangover On January 1, 2026, our company underwent a major reconstruction. Customers were assigned new sales reps, but the final list of who owned which account wasn't finalized until April. In the meantime, we kept invoicing as usual. The invoices were correct, but the Sales Rep field on the historical records was now wrong. To fix it, we had to go back and update thousands of already invoiced sales orders. The Manual Workflow (or: How to lose your mind): 1. Search for the Sales Order. 2. Click Invoice. 3. Click Rebill. 4. Change the Sales Rep. 5. Click OK. 6. Hit Esc to exit. 7. Repeat... hundreds (or thousands) of times. Enter Claude Code & Playwright I had just started using Claude Code on March 19th after watching @Jake Van Clief ’s videos. Two weeks later, this assignment landed on my desk in the middle of my usual accounting duties. Since I didn’t have backend API access to D365 F&O, I turned to the Playwright MCP. If I couldn't talk to the database directly, I’d have Claude "drive" the browser just like a human would. The Automation Logic: - Open Chrome to the D365 Sales Order URL. - Open the filters tab. - Add filter information (Customer account, dates for Q1 2026, and identifying which sales orders had the wrong rep). - Execute the "Rebill" click-path automatically. The "Aha!" Moment at 00:30 AM It worked, but it was real slow. D365 isn't exactly a speed demon. My boss was happy ("as long as we don't have to do it, I don't care how slow it is"), but I knew we could do better. Earlier that day, I was running it in one browser and it was taking forever. While the kids were finally asleep that night, I had an idea: Can I run this on more than one tab?

In Part 1, I was riding high. I had Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all running simultaneously, tripling my speed on a massive D365 rebilling project. I felt like I’d cracked the code to being "efficiently lazy." Link: Mini-Series Part 1: The "Manual Hell" Rebill Project · Clief Notes But the victory was short-lived. I was driving the car at 100mph, but I didn't realize how much fuel I was burning. The Crash: 3 Hours to Zero The next morning, I fired up all cylinders. It was beautiful—until it wasn't. In under 3 hours, I burned through my entire token allotment. I was dead in the water with a 1.5-hour wait until my limits reset. With the clock ticking and sales reps still needing updates, I had to go back to doing it manually. And that’s when the "Aha!" moment happened. The "Tab" Breakthrough While I was clicking and typing manually to pass the time, I realized something: I wasn't really using the mouse. I was mostly hitting Tab and Shift-Tab to navigate the D365 fields. I asked Claude: "Can Playwright just 'Tab' through the browser instead of searching for elements and taking screenshots for every move?" Claude’s answer: YES. My jaw dropped. From "Visual Driving" to "Macro Speed" The old workflow relied on Claude "seeing" the screen via screenshots to make sure it was in the right spot. It was accurate, but heavy. I had Claude rewrite the interior workflow to a deterministic loop: 1. The Setup: I open the URL, set the filters, and select the first row. 2. The Loop: * Tab to Invoice → Enter. 3. Repeat. I added small buffers (100ms between tabs, 4s for page loads) to ensure D365 could keep up. See the video for how the flow runs in real life! The Result: 90% Savings & 10x Efficiency I asked Claude to evaluate the two methods. The numbers were staggering: Old "Visual" Flow: - Tool Calls: ~500 calls per 50 orders - Token Usage: 100% (High Burn) - Logic: Screenshot-dependent (Slow)

This is my first major win applying what @Jake Van Clief ef teaches. Since subscribing to Claude Code on March 19th, I’ve been able to show so much progress that my company has now upgraded me to the Max 5x subscription. Looking forward to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and continuing to improve our processes! As a Finance Manager responsible for month-end closing, I wanted to see what Claude Code could actually achieve—and it delivered! Even without Azure or backend access to our ERP system (D365 F&O), I didn't let that stop me from being "efficiently lazy." Claude Code showed me how to use the Playwright MCP to control Chrome and handle the heavy lifting for me. The script now automatically downloads the monthly trial balance, populates an Excel template, identifies discrepancies via color-coding, and even takes screenshots to document numbers from various reports. I’m already tackling my next big automation project—a task that is notoriously tedious when done manually. Stay tuned for that post, as well as more month-end automation updates in the near future! I had Claude code describe the workflow: Common Reconciliation — Monthly Close Automation with Claude Code + Playwright MCP Every month-end I run a single slash command (/mec-common) and pass it a month number. Claude then drives the entire reconciliation process end-to-end, touching both a live D365 ERP system and a multi-sheet Excel workbook — no manual steps. The workflow in three phases: Phase 1 — Trial Balance Claude navigates to the D365 Trial Balance page, clears any stale filters, sets the correct date range, triggers a recalculation, and downloads the export. The Excel file is placed in the right folder, and the data is pasted (values only) into the reconciliation workbook's Trial bal D365 sheet. A full workbook recalculation is then forced before anything is read. Phase 2 — Revaluation Check Claude loops through ~50 reconciliation sheets. On each sheet it finds the last row where column C says "Revaluation" (there are two — the second one holds the actual diff) and reads the value in column G. If the diff is outside ±1, the sheet tab is colored red. One sheet (150070) is always flagged red and requires manual review regardless.

Completed a HABIT Tracking app. “Set your daily HABITS you want to improve on and let the 8th wonder of the world, COMPOUND INTEREST , prosper you in achieving goals and creating new BETTER habits. OPTION MENU Displays your analytics from results of a week, month, quarter, etc. Steps: 1. told Claude chat what I wanted. I said it needs to be a free setup, no subscriptions or fees to start and it recommended I use GitHub, vercel and Supabase. This is to store the data it records when users check off tasks for their daily habits and tracks results. I wanted Oauth so people can login with email. Daily quotes revolving in the ui to keep up motivation. 2.told Claude chat to make me a plan to effectively build this organized and as a pro engineer. 3. Converted the chat into a short Claude Md file and a context file. 4.told it to give me a pro CS Eng folder structure and save it to my docs. 5. Pushed it to git hub and I told it to build. All from VScode we went to work…. And had more than 50% worth of tokens left, as I even used it for other ideas while it was building out task app. This was amazing. Thank you @Jake Van Clief !!! Looking forward to more content of yours. Now time to work on the UI.