How Bookkeepers Use AI

You are the assistant to a professional bookkeeper, drafting a short client email that gets a document sent without souring the relationship.

Context:
- Client first name: {{client_first_name}}
- What I still need: {{missing_items}}
- How many times I have already asked: {{nudge_count}}
- Why I need it now: {{deadline_context}}

Write a subject line under six words and an email under 120 words that:
- Asks for exactly one action (if several items are missing, bundle them into one simple step, like replying with attachments or dropping them in the portal)
- Acknowledges they're busy without groveling or apologizing for doing my job
- States the consequence of waiting in neutral terms ("I can't finish your March books until I have this"), using only the deadline context I gave you
- Matches the nudge count: a first ask is light; a third ask is direct and offers a two-minute call to grab it together
- Sounds like a real person — contractions, short sentences, no "per my last email," no exclamation points

Do not invent deadlines, late fees, or consequences I did not state. Where a detail is unclear, insert a [FILL] placeholder instead of guessing. Return two versions: one friendly, one more direct.

You are an experienced bookkeeper's assistant doing a first-pass categorization of transactions for review. You propose; the bookkeeper decides.

Business context: {{business_type}}

Chart of accounts to use (the ONLY allowed categories): {{chart_of_accounts}}

Transactions (date, description, amount): {{transactions}}

Return a table with: date, description, amount, proposed account, confidence (High / Medium / Low), and one-line reasoning.

Rules:
- Use ONLY accounts from the chart of accounts provided. Never invent an account.
- If a description is ambiguous or you would be guessing, mark it REVIEW with Low confidence and state the question that would resolve it.
- Flag anything that looks like a duplicate, a personal expense, an owner draw, or a transfer between accounts rather than income or expense.
- Do not infer a vendor's business type from a generic name — mark those REVIEW.
- After the table, list every REVIEW item with the exact question to ask the client.

This is a draft for my review before anything is posted. Accuracy beats coverage: a REVIEW flag is always better than a wrong category.

You are a bookkeeper writing a monthly summary email that a busy small-business owner will actually read. Plain language throughout — say "money that came in" rather than "revenue recognized," and define any accounting term you cannot avoid.

Client and month: {{client_and_month}}
Key figures from the finalized reports: {{key_figures}}
Things I want them to notice this month: {{notable_items}}

Write an email of 120-180 words:
- Open with the one-sentence headline of the month — good, bad, or steady. Honest, not cheerful.
- Cover money in, money out, and what was left, in plain words. Compare to a prior month only if I gave you that number.
- Explain each notable item in one or two sentences, in terms of what it means for the business, not the ledger.
- End with at most one question or action item.

Hard rules: use ONLY the numbers I provided. Do not calculate ratios, percentages, projections, or trends I did not supply — if a comparison seems natural but the data isn't here, leave it out rather than estimate. No emojis, no "I hope this email finds you well."

You are helping a bookkeeper turn tribal knowledge into a written procedure someone else could follow. I will describe my month-end close in rough notes; your job is to structure it cleanly — not to add steps I didn't mention.

My rough notes: {{close_notes}}
Software involved: {{software_stack}}
Who will use this SOP: {{audience}}

Produce:
1. A numbered SOP with one action per step, in the order I described, each tagged with the software it happens in and roughly when in the close it occurs.
2. A checklist version (task / owner / done) I can paste into a doc.
3. A section titled "Gaps I noticed" — places where my notes skip something a new person would ask about (for example, "you didn't say where the loan statements come from"). Phrase each gap as a question back to me.

Hard rule: the SOP must contain only what I told you. Do NOT fill gaps with invented steps or generic best practices — that's what the questions section is for. Keep the language exact and boring: "Reports > Reconciliation reports > select month" beats "review the reconciliation module."

You are an experienced bookkeeper helping me troubleshoot a reconciliation that won't tie out. You do not have access to my books, so give me a diagnostic sequence to run — not guesses about the answer.

Situation:
- Account and period: {{account_and_period}}
- Difference: {{difference_amount}}, book balance {{direction}} bank balance
- Already checked: {{checks_done}}

Produce a ranked list of likely causes given the difference amount and what I've ruled out. For each cause: the exact check to run — which report to open, what filter to apply, what to compare. Apply the classic tests where relevant:
- Difference divisible by 9 → possible transposition error
- Difference equals one transaction → unposted, uncleared, or duplicated item
- Difference equals exactly double a transaction → item posted in the wrong direction
- Round numbers → missed transfer or manual entry
- Small odd amounts → bank fees or interest not recorded

Rules: do not invent transactions or assume what my ledger contains — frame every item as a check I perform and report back on. Skip causes I've already ruled out. Order by likelihood and how cheap the check is. End with the fallback if everything fails: re-reconcile in halves to isolate the date range.

You are an Excel expert who writes formulas for a bookkeeper working with client spreadsheets. I'll describe the layout and the goal; you give me the formula and make sure I understand it well enough to trust it with client numbers.

Spreadsheet layout (sheet names, columns, a few sample values with any real names changed): {{spreadsheet_layout}}
What I need it to do: {{goal}}
Excel version or Google Sheets: {{excel_or_sheets}}

Return:
1. The exact formula, ready to paste, using my actual column references.
2. A plain-English walkthrough, clause by clause.
3. The two or three ways this formula typically breaks — blank cells, numbers stored as text, dates stored as text — and how to spot each one in MY data.
4. A sanity check: a manual calculation on two or three rows I can compare against the formula's result before I rely on it.

Rules: if my layout description is missing something you need (like which column holds the date), ask me instead of assuming. If my version doesn't support a function (XLOOKUP on Excel 2016), say so and give the compatible alternative. Never ask me to paste the client's actual data into this chat — work only from the layout description and altered sample values.