Can Claude build financial models?
Partly. Claude can scaffold a model, write and explain Excel formulas, lay out an LBO or a three-statement structure, and audit an existing model for broken logic. What it does not do is replace a proper modeling tool or a person who knows the deal.
It is genuinely good at the reasoning around a model: what drives this return, where is this circular reference, explain this tab to a new associate, what assumptions is this hiding. That saves real time on work that used to mean squinting at someone else cells.
It is weaker at producing a clean, linked, audit-ready workbook from scratch. Language models still slip on arithmetic and large interdependent calculations, and a confident wrong number in a model is worse than no number at all.
The right setup for serious modeling is a finance-aware tool or a custom agent where the math is handled by code, not by the model guessing. Use Claude to think about the model and check it, not to be the spreadsheet.