Transcripts
1. Bookkeeping Using AI : When it comes to
running a business, it's not just simply a
matter of creating stuff, coming up with great
products, content, designs, and the list goes on, especially if you are running a
creative business. You need to
understand the health of the business. Is
your business growing? Is it profitable? Are you able to log and track transactions? These elements are as important, if not more important than your creative
ventures as a whole. However, to deal
with bookkeeping, it could be quite
a tedious task. It requires software and
there's a steep learning in this current, powerful class, we're going to harness the power of artificial intelligence, specifically ChatGPT
to eliminate the steep learning curve, expedite the process, make
sure that we're able to manage the bookkeeping activities for creative business in the best and most
effective way possible, in a very simplistic fashion, which will help you
develop insights in terms of how your creative
business is doing.
2. Your Project: Your project for the
class revolves around utilizing ChatGPT
to help you log and track transactions
and organize your bookkeeping activities in line with the lesson taught, after which you're
going to be sharing your results with the rest of
the community for feedback.
3. Setting Up ChatGPT The Right Way: Welcome back. Now the
first thing we need to do is simply to set up ChatGPT. If you don't have an
account for ChatGPT, there are two
options, by the way, the paid and the free version and everything I'm
going to be teaching you works for the free
version perfectly. If you're new to ChatGPT, just simply navigate to open AI or just simply put on Google
ChatGPT, and that's it. You just simply add
in your details and set up your accounts. We're not going to be
diving into that just simply to save up
time in the process. Now, the main focus of the current lecture
is the right model. Once you set up ChatGPT, you're going to be landing
at the following page, which says simply
ready when you are. This is the prompt window
or the main interface. And you do have in
the option over here. Once you click on
this to add files, deep research, create images, agent mode, using connectors, uploading photos or fs
as well, like PDFs. Then you do have in
the more options, which are study and
learn, websearch, Canvas. So ChatGPT, keep on adding these features which alter
the usage of the model. And when I say model, take a look at the top
left over here. You do have, in
this current case, ChatGPT five, which
is the latest model. However, since it's quite new and the model
is going through, let's say, training, updates, I don't prefer to use it
at this current stage. So I'm going to shift
to the legacy model. If you cannot see this
label legacy model, just simply navigate to the
settings on your browser for ChatGPT and
enable legacy models. Simply click on this
and pick GPT four. This is my go to option at this current stage
because it delivers the results that I would like
to utilize for bookkeeping. Now, feel free to experiment
with GPT five, by the way. It works well, but
for new models, I avoid using them
initially, till any issues, let's say, the AI hallucination, the artificial
intelligence updates are still being put into
place, the training. So there has been a lot of
mixed feedback for GPT five, ChatGPT five in terms of the
results and the accuracy. However, I've tested GPT four, and it works perfectly
fine for me, especially for bookkeeping and any accounting based activities. It gets the job
done quite easily. So click on GPT four. This will convert this
to the following model. And like I mentioned, feel
free to experiment with both. You should be getting the
same sequence of output. However, there would be
variations in the tone, the results in terms
of the arrangement, but the core concepts are
going to be the same. So that's the first step.
Setting up your account to simply create your
ChatGPT account, the free version will
work, just simply go ahead and enable GPT four, and we are ready to
proceed to the next step.
4. Priming ChatGPT For Success: Welcome back. Now
we're going to be transitioning to the core step, which is, in my opinion, one of the most important steps, if not the most
important step in the overall prompt
engineering process and setting up process for
bookkeeping from the get go. If you mess this up, you are going to
have poor results. So it's very important to follow the solid prompt
engineering structure. I'm going to be sharing with
you right now to be able to utilize ChatGPT for
bookkeeping purposes. And what do I mean by this?
In order to get this done, we're going to assign a role. I'm going to tell ChatGPT act as a professional bookkeeping
and accountant. What I'm doing over here, I'm setting the
role for ChatGPT. I'm telling you exactly
what I needed to do from a professional
point of view. So act as a professional
bookkeeping. So you understand I'm going
to be moving forward with bookkeeping activities
and accountant because basically
bookkeeping and accounting, they fall into the
same umbrella. This will prompt
ChatGPT to start giving me responses in line
with such a role, which is considered to
be a critical pro tip that you need to apply to get great results
from the get go. So I'm going to say act as a professional bookkeeping
and accountant in which you are going to help me
with my companies. Here we go. Feel free to add whatever company detail
that you have over here. You can put in
your company name. You can put in the
structure of the company. You can put in the name the branding of the
company. It's up to you. Any detail you
would like to add. This is the time that
you would like to add. The role, the company details or if you're working
within a department as an accountant, for example, or if you are a small
business owner or if you are someone who is dealing with the accounting for a small firm, for a medium sized business, or an entrepreneur trying
to do your own books or an accountant working with
an accounting department and you're managing a team
of junior accountants, this is basically where
you add the role, you're going to help
me with my companies, either accounting department,
with my business, company's books, whatever it is. This is the time where you
add your own unique details. To keep it generic, to apply for as many
kits as possible. In which you're going
to help me with my company's
bookkeeping activities. And you could inject over
here your company details. For example, I'm an entrepreneur
managing my own books. I'm an accountant supervising
junior staff accountants. I would like to verify
their work, for example, or if you are an accountant working in an accounting firm, all of these details,
they could be filled in the following
segments over here. Now, that being
said, let's carry on with the setting
up of the prompt. In which you're going to
help me with my companies, book keep ping activities such that I have the
ability over here, here we go to record and report transactions following the best bookkeeping and
accounting activities. Here we go. So this will
set up the direction for ChatGPT in which it will understand what are we trying to achieve and how
it should behave. Let's recap this. Act as a professional bookkeeping
and accountant. This is the role, the tasks that we are going to be
developing through such a role, in which you are
going to help me with my company's
bookkeeping activities. I kept it quite generic, but you could add your
own, for example, details such that I have the ability to record
and report transactions, following the best bookkeeping
and accounting activities. I'm adding a criteria
over here just to make sure that ChatGPT is
following such a standard. I'm setting up a criteria. You could add constraints, for example, if you'd like, you could add whatever
detail that you do like to add or
would like to add. After you set up
the initial role. This is one of the
most important steps, if not the most important step. And to make sure
that the results are personalized for
your own situation, you could inject it over here. You can just simply mention, I'm a business entrepreneur and I'm doing my
bookkeeping activities, such that I have the ability
to record and report transactions or I'm an
accountant within my company, and I would like to conduct the bookkeeping
activities such that I have the ability to record
and report transactions. So you get the idea. This is the space where you add
your own unique situation. So how do we confirm
that ChatGPT actually understood its mission as part
of the current activities. Click Enter now.
And the feedback that we get from ChatGPT is a key indicator if it has understood what we
needed to do or not. Let's go through it. As your professional
bookkeeping and accountant, I'll help you establish
and maintain and optimize your company's
bookkeeping system so you can accurately record, classify and report
financial transactions. Here's how we'll approach
the step by step. Phase one, bookkeeping,
setup, and structure. And by the way, we're going
through these activities just simply to confirm that ChatGPT understood what it needs to do. We don't have to follow
the phases as is. It's more of a matter
of confirmation that it understood its role, and then it's up to us to guide it in the direction
that we'd like. Chart of accounts will define your company's
financial categories, typically including
assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses. I'll help you customize this based on your
business model. That's very powerful, because once you set up your
company details over here, it will be able to
create the categories, the expenses that you're having, which is crucial for the
transactions and record keeping. Let's take a look at
phase number two. Recording transactions,
types of transactions, you need to consistently
record sales income, purchase and expenses,
assets acquired, employee payments, loan
proceeds and repayments, owner draws and
capital injections. We can use either cash basis or accrual based accounting and
advise based on your needs. This is considered to be a very powerful indicator that ChatGPT understood exactly
what it needs to do because following
accounting practices, you do have either
option cash basis, typically for small businesses,
accrual basis accounting, typically for more refined
complex transactions where you have account
payables, account receivable. And whatnot. Then phase three, daily and weekly
bookkeeping tasks, best practices for daily
and weekly recording, record transactions
as they happen. This is very powerful
for business owners, SMEs, where they do have transactions that
happen on the go. This will help you keep
ChatGPT on your mobile phone, your computer, and just simply as you go through the
current training process, you will have the ability just simply pull off ChatGPT and just simply add
the transaction to it and update your
records on the go. Always attach invoices
and receipts, reconcile cash and
bank deposits, use softwares like QuickBooks, zero or wave or manual
Excel if needed. And by the way, one of the advanced integrations
of JAGPT is the use of APIs to further facilitate the usage of other
softwares, including Excel. I can provide with templates, automation ready Excel
sheets, workflows. That's very powerful Phase four, monthly reporting
and reconciliation, end of month tasks, phase five, year end closing and
compliance, next steps. So I'm not going to dive into every single phase in
the process because it's simply confirming
to me right now understood what
needs to be done. And every single business, every single
accounting department, every single bookkeeping
activity is quite unique. You don't have to
do all of them. Sometimes you need
a couple of them. Sometimes you're going
to be using what I'm teaching right
now to support your accounting initiative
rather than just simply replacing your entire
accounting initiative. Let's take a look at
the next steps to validate that ChatGPT
understood what it needs to do. To get started, I need
a few details from you. What accounting method are
you using cash or accrual? That's very important. Are you
using accounting software? If you a switch one, do you want a custom Excel booking system? What industry is
your business in? This is very
powerful, by the way. In order to record the
transactions, right? Do you want to start fresh
or clean existing books? If you have existing
transactions, you can use them. To train the model. At the same time if you'd like to start fresh, it's up to you. Once I'll have this, I'll set
up your chart of accounts, provide transaction
recording template, guide you on daily, weekly recording routines, share monthly
reporting checklist. So it has confirmed to me, that it understood
what it needs to do, what it needs to get out of the way based on
the initial prompt. And like I mentioned,
you tend to find many professionals,
many entrepreneurs, business owners, they're
going to be feeling overwhelmed with
all of these steps. Well, you don't
have to go through them exactly based on the
feedback from ChatGPT, because at the end of the day, your business is unique. You need to understand the tools I'm teaching you in order to apply it to your own
unique situation to get the best
results possible. And like I mentioned, I keep on mention you are
using it as a tool, not as a replacement to facilitate and
expedite the process.
5. Recording Transactions & Categorization: Welcome back. Now we
are ready to dive into the recording
of the transactions, which is considered to be one of the most important steps within any bookkeeping
activities. Like I mentioned in this
segment of the course, I'm going to give you all
of these insights across various applications that are easily mappable to your
own unique situation. That being said,
I'm going to add some details now for
ChatGPT in which I'm going to direct it
to what kind of a business I'm trying to
record the transactions for. So I'm going to mention I'm
going to Share a list of current transactions
for the business, which is a small bookshop, for example, you could
have a restaurant, cafe, whatever it is. It's up to you, a shoe
store, a carpet store. It doesn't matter.
Simply you could add your business unique
identity over here. So I'm going to check a list of current transactions
for the business, which is a small bookshop. Since we have already set up ChatGPT in the
best way possible, I'm going to add
the simpler prompt, and I'm going to show
you if you do have your own current Excel
file, for example, for the transactions
or if you have recorded them somewhere
on a Word document, this is the time where
you could extract them and either copy paste them. You could just simply copy paste the full own transactions. As I'm going to show you
right now, here you go. I'm going to share a list of transactions. Let's
take a look at this. Okay. Now, for a small bookshop, if you take a look at the
feedback from a ChatGPT, it seems it's going to give me the template
that I would like to follow in order to be able to just simply display
all of these details. I'm going to show
you multiple ways. How would you record
the transactions? Let's take a look
at the output from ChatGPT. Let's take
a look at this. For a small bookshop, we'll typically have a mix
of retail sales, inventory purchases,
operating expenses, assets, owner
contributions or drawings. Once you share your
list of transactions, I will create the categories.
This is very important. Format it, assign accounts, provide a summary
and monthly report. Take a look at this format. This is very powerful
because if you have no idea how to fill
up the details, you could just simply download this if you
click over here, for example, copy the table, take it to an Excel file and fill up the template
if you'd like, and then move it back to ChatGPT or to keep things
simple, I'm going to mention, I'm going to copy and paste the transactions. List for convenience.
Here we go. You are guiding the ship. You're not just simply taking the details as is from ChatGPT. No, you can keep it simple.
I'm going to show you how. So let's say I do
have a typical set of transactions for
this hypothetical case, and I'm going to just
simply copy them from whatever source that you
have and paste them. Take a look at this. I
have just simply added an Excel file date over here, description category, amount,
and the data looks raw. I did not give it
sufficient time or attention in terms
of organizing it. That's the point of having
ChatGPT do the work for me. Here we go. Click Enter.
Take a look at this. Let's confirm that ChatGPT was able to record
the data properly. This is very
important, by the way. Keep on emphasizing this. You need to make sure that you are monitoring the process
because it's a tool. It can make mistakes. Now, based on the data,
let's verify this. I was able to have all
of the transactions. I got for me about, let's say, ten transactions, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight transactions. Let's confirm it with the
previous data over here. So I do have in one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten. Here we go. S has missed
a couple transactions. I'm going to mention
this to ChatGPT right now because I have
given the raw data. Let's confirm the count again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten. Actually, it's ten
because it was still in the process of loading. So yes, it was able to collect all of the
data on the spot. And the whole point from
this activity that I'm teaching you right
now is to confirm, to make sure that you are
not just simply dumping your data and taking a
look at the output as, no, I have shown you how would I go about the
verification process? Like, I have counted
the transactions, and hypothetically, I was able
to spot a couple mistakes. I would go back to confirm, yet cross check again to
realize, you know what? Yes, it has recorded all of
these transactions properly. Now, moving forward, how
would I go about the process? Since I've added just simply a vague list of transactions, making the job more
difficult to check GPT, but it has done a
great job so far. Take a look at the updated list. The date description and
the account category, if you have noticed over here, we have the debit and credit
column, which is a very, very, very, very important part within the bookkeeping
process, right? Because if you have no
idea where to debit, where to credit, you'll
mess up your entire books. And especially if you
are a business owner, you're doing your
accounting by yourself, or you're running a small SME, a small or medium enterprise, you're part of the
accounting team. This is what takes a lot of
time. Collecting receipts here and there,
debits and credits. So it's very
complicated and we're able to streamline it
with a couple of clicks. Keeping in mind, the lecture I'm sharing
with you right now, the lesson I'm sharing
with you is to simply log the transactions that you already have as an Excel
file or a CSV file. Take a look at the summary of the transactions. Here we go. We got the categories and
we got the total debit, the total credit, which
is very, very powerful. And for the sake of simplicity,
the currency over here, we're going to be using
dollars for the sake of simplicity and for
demonstration purposes. And this works with any currency or with any transaction
list that you are having. So once we are able
to add the list of transactions by
simply copying and pasting it from your Excel file, from your own Word document, you'll be able to populate these results in the
best fashion possible, but we are not done yet. So the first demonstration is
simply copying and pasting your current transactions in order to populate your books, sort of speak or record
them using ChatGPT. This is one approach to
go through the process. Next, I'm going
to be showing you how to manually update these, which is a very important part. And most probably you
as an entrepreneur, as a business owner,
as an accountant. You would do this manually
yourself or you find the transaction here and there and you would like
to update the records. You don't have to
do it manually. I'm going to show you exactly how to go through the process.
6. Recording Manual Transactions: And welcome back. Another
powerful application that you could use
for bookkeeping activities and accounting
practice in general is the manual record keeping and automatic recording and categorization of
the transactions. So instead of having a ready made transactions
list that you just simply inject we could go
through the manual approach, which is my preferred
option to keep you on top of things to
see if there are errors in the process
which happens at the same time
for you to utilize AI ChatGPT specifically as your assistant rather
than your replacement. What do I mean by this?
I'm going to mention, I'm going to add manual the transactions from
this point onwards. That's it. So this will tell ChatGPT that I'm going to be recording the
transactions manual. Custom bookkeeping
template for manual entry. I will give me a template just simply to record
the transactions. You don't have to
use it, by the way. I'm going to show you
how simple it is. The template will simply
follow the best practices, but based on real
life applications, we don't need to go through the template that
ChatGPT is providing. We are going to dictate how it should collect
the information. What I'm going to do is
I'm going to mention, $30, for example, office staplers, cash, and we are
going to go for the, let's say, eight
of September 2025. And sometimes, by the way,
depending on your region, it might pick up the
date differently. Instead of day and month, it flips it to month and
day, so keep an eye on that. Then I'm going to be
clicking Enter over here. $30 off Stiplers case date. Follow the same prompt
over and over again. Take a look at how easy it
is to record the entries. New transaction
entry. Here we go. We got 8 September,
office staplers, office supplies category,
debit, credit, payment. I've categorized this
as an office supplies. You can adjust it if you'd like to split supplies further. This is very, very powerful. Let's record another
transaction, and you can just simply keep
on repeating the cycle. 100. Then we do have
an office shelves, then credit, and we go on the same date as
well. Here we go. Click Enter. Here's
the new transaction. Then we got the date,
description, category, debit, credit payment method, updated list with both
new transactions. So we got the date over here. These are the extra
additional transactions. So I'm going to
mention now provide the complete list of the entire transactions
recorded till now. And you could have
ten, 20, 30, 40, whatever number of
transactions that you do have, it's up to you just simply
to maintain the records, full bookkeeping
transactions lock. Obviously, I'm not
going to go through the same process
over and over again, but you get the idea.
The same format. For recording the transaction, you could just simply replicate
this over and over again, and every once in a
while have ChatGPT to provide the complete list
of your manual entries, your transaction records up
to this current date to make sure it has covered everything
that needs to cover. And then you have the ability
to copy this table put in an excel file in terms of
your own review, reporting. For the month end closure, the applications are endless, and for demonstration purposes and to keep things
quite compact, not to waste time
in the process, I've shared with you the
manual recordkeeping of two transactions, and this works for any number of transactions
that you do have.
7. Scanning Receipts Smoothly: Welcome back. Another
powerful application that you could use ChatGPT for is basically the recording or scanning of your receipts. You heard me right. If you
have a receipt on the go, just simply pull up
your mobile phone, take a snapshot or
picture of that receipt, and just simply follow
the guidance from the current lectures to get this done in terms of
updating your record. So I'm going to mention I have a receipt for
a transaction. As an image, scan it and update
the records. Here we go. So what will this do is, please go ahead and upload
the image of the receipt. Once I scan it, I'll extract all
relevant details, categorize it into the
correct bookkeeping entry, add your existing
transaction log, update your summary totals, and export it if you would like. And this works with any
image that you have. But here's a pro tip. Make
sure that the image is clear. Like putting some effort in taking the actual image
of the receipt to make sure all of the
data is quite readable. So I do have a
ready made receipt for demonstration purposes. It's quite simple in
terms of adding it. Simply drag and drop this to any part of the
window, add anything. You can see it on the
screen, and here we go. So I'm adding the file. This is basically an
office supplies receipt, a hypothetical one for
demonstration purposes. And you can see, and I have
the ability to add a prompt. You could mention specific
details that you would like to mention
ignoring certain items, updating a certain
date, it's up to you. I'm going to just simply keep it simple. Here's the receipt. Scan it and recorded.
Here we go. Now, if you take a look at
the details from the image, you're able to see
the receipt number, the date, the receipt from the purpose office
supplies, for example, notebooks folders, the amount $89.75 payment
method, credit card, and the thank you for
your purchase and the details of the
company that we bought, hypothetically,
the supplies from. Let's take a look
at the details. First of all, to confirm it
has recorded the transaction. The date, let's confirm this, correct the description,
Office pro supplies, pens, notebooks and
folders. That is true. Office supplies
category, obviously. The debit out $89.75, which is the current
case over here. Then we do have the
payment credit card, which is confirmed
over here as well. The receipt details extracted. We got the receipt number. Let's confirm the
receipt number. Which is over here, 093 0045. If you're an accountant,
a business owner, it's a very important
step doing the auditing, your tax preparation purposes, your own bookkeeping activities, keeping the receipts
for future references. This is very, very
powerful, by the way. The vendor name,
the receive from, the amount, the date, the purpose, and
the payment method. Now, updated transaction count, we got 13 entries now, and it's asking me
compile and export the full updated list as
an Excel or CSV file. I'm going to mention provide the complete list of
transactions till now. So we have covered
various options for recording the transactions, by copying and pasting
ready made transactions, by manually inputting
the transactions, scanning receipts, for example, as I'm teaching you right now. So you have the ability to
incorporate and collect various options for the record keeping and
bookkeeping purposes, and you can see
over here, this is the finalized
transaction that we have added up to
this current point. So this is a very, very, very powerful way for
you to record, update, categorize your transactions
on the go through the ability to
scan and uploading your receipts to
ChatGPT for fast, quick, effective bookkeeping
and accounting activities.
8. Wrapping Up: So what do you think? I truly hope that you found
the class helpful. If it helped you get some
insights in terms of utilizing artificial intelligence for your own creative business
activities and ventures, then it's a job well done. And make sure that you follow my profile for the latest
releases and updates. I look forward to
receiving your feedback on the current class
till the next class.
Engr. Hussein Attié, Entrepreneur I Engineer I Educator
