AI and Chat GPT is already revolutionising the world of finance, and accountants from all walks of life (from Financial Controllers to FP&A Managers) are using it to make their lives easier.
Many have found that ChatGPT saves time by automating routine tasks such as data entry, financial modelling and report generation, allowing time to focus on more strategic tasks. When you start to use it you’ll see that quick and accurate answers to your questions allow you to make decisions faster and more efficiently.
By analysing large amounts of financial data Chat GPT can provide insights that may be difficult for humans to uncover. This helps financial professionals easily identify trends, patterns, and opportunities that may be missed using traditional methods. Then there’s the help with clerical tasks. For many, Chat GPT has been our late-night saviour, authoring last-minute reports, improving emails, editing minutes and generally generating better communications with clients and suppliers when we were too tired to think straight.
Not every finance professional knows how to harness the power of Chat GPT as a tool to automate routine tasks, improve their productivity, and make better data-driven decisions to provide more value to their clients.
Whether it’s to increase productivity, save time or support your decision-making processes, read on to find out how you can use Chat GPT to augment your capacity!
If you use the right prompts to generate the desired output, Chat GPT will respond and generate scenarios based on financial data. Here are ten ways for all finance professionals, from assistant accountants to financial controllers, to use Chat GPT and a few examples of the kind of clear prompts you’ll need. Please note that prompts can be repeatedly refined and improved upon.
- Generating reports
With ChatGPT, a financial controller can automate the time-consuming process of report generation. Before you even get into the numbers, Chat GPT can correct, summarise, translate, simplify or rewrite any text. It can also research terms and definitions (like accounting guidelines) saving you the time it takes to search them out.
Chat GPT can then take your structured data about your company’s financial performance and produce a written summary detailing key points, trends, and observations.
Here’s an example of how you would prompt Chat GPT:
“I would like you to use the attached structured financial data to generate a detailed report. This report should include an analysis of key performance indicators, identification of trends, and observations about our company’s financial performance over the last quarter.”
- Information retrieval:
- When you need quick and precise insights you can ask,
“What was the total revenue last quarter?” It can generate responses based on the data it has been trained on.
Or you could prompt as follows:
“I have a dataset that includes financial data for ABC Corp. Based on this data, could you answer the following questions: What was the total revenue last quarter? Are there any observable trends in the operating expenses over the past year?”
- When you need to retrieve information quickly from various sources, such as financial databases, research reports, news articles, and regulatory filings. It can even provide real-time updates on stock prices, market trends and economic indicators.
- Financial analysis:
- Chat GPT can perform various tasks such as financial modelling, ratio analysis, trend analysis, and valuation calculations. It can help you to interpret financial statements, identify key performance indicators and generate insights from complex data sets.
- Interactive data analysis
- Chat GPT will respond based on the data it has access to and perform specific analyses, request visualisations, or queries about various metrics.
An example of a prompt might be:
“I have financial data for two companies, XYZ Corp and QRS Inc. Could you perform an analysis that compares the revenue performance of these two companies over the last five years? Also, suggest some visualisations that would effectively illustrate this comparison?”
- Analysing text data
- ChatGPT can analyse text data from articles and posts to glean financial data and extract useful insights for financial decision-making.
Example prompt:
“I have a set of news articles and financial reports related to the tech industry. Can you analyse these texts and extract insights that indicate the overall market sentiment towards this sector?”
- Risk management
- Chat GPT is handy when you need to analyse historical data and market conditions to assess potential risks and it can suggest risk mitigation strategies. You can use it to understand and apply risk management frameworks, stress testing methodologies, and scenario analysis. You can also use it to generate break-even analysis, compare two scenarios, change of price and impact on demand (elasticity), hourly rate, the effect of inflation and business case ROI
- Investment research:
- Chat GPT can provide comprehensive company profiles, industry analysis, and evaluate investment opportunities. You can use it to analyse market trends, identify potential investment risks, and evaluate the performance of investment portfolios.
- It can also generate a financial news brief offering a quick insight into the financial world analysing financial news, stock movements, market trends, and economic indicators. This is especially valuable for traders and investors who need to stay updated with market conditions and changes.
You might prompt Chat GPT in the following way:
“Based on the latest financial news articles, stock market data, and economic indicators, can you generate a summary that provides insights into the current state of the financial world?”
- Decision-making support:
- Chat GPT will provide insights, analyse alternative scenarios and assist in the evaluation of potential outcomes. You can also use it to consider various factors, such as market conditions, regulatory changes, and financial implications.
- Compliance and regulatory support
- When you need guidance with compliance requirements, regulatory changes, and best practices, Chat GPT is your best friend. It can also help you to understand and interpret financial regulations, such as tax laws, accounting standards, and industry-specific regulations. Simply ask!
- Forecasting narratives
- While ChatGPT itself doesn’t perform predictive analytics, it can be used alongside predictive models to generate narratives around forecasted financial data. If a predictive model forecasts a company’s sales for the next quarter, for example, ChatGPT could generate a narrative explaining the forecast in layman’s terms, helping non-experts understand the implications.
You could use the following prompt :
“I have a forecast from a predictive model indicating that sales for X Corp will increase by 10% next quarter. Could you generate a narrative that explains this forecast in layman’s terms?”
Training and Simulation
- Training and simulation
Chat GPT can be used to simulate a range of scenarios which prove very useful when training new analysts and when simulating different financial situations for strategy development. You can use it like a virtual coach that’s available 24/7.
An example of a prompt would be:
“Could you generate a hypothetical scenario involving a sudden downturn in the stock market? Then, guide how a financial analyst might navigate this situation.”
In addition to all of the above, Chat GPT houses valid tutorials for Excel, PowerPoint, Word, PowerBI, SAP and Quickbooks all of which would be incredibly useful for a financial controller looking to train staff.
You can also use Chat GPT to create finance procedures such as closing checklists, standard operating procedures, internal control, step-by-step guides to making a task, dunning procedure and letters and finance guidelines.
You probably can’t wait to get started, but before you do, it’s worth noting that Chat CPT does have some limited understanding of financial context. Although it can generate human-like responses, it may at times struggle to fully grasp the complexities and nuances of financial concepts. This can lead to inaccurate or incomplete information being provided, which can be problematic as a financial controller will need reliable, precise and accurate data.
At the end of the day, it’s worth remembering that Chat GPT is a tool, and although it can save you a lot of time and effort, it can never replace your professional expertise and judgment!
