AI Prompts for Finance
48 free, copy-paste-ready prompts for finance. Pick one, paste it into ChatGPT or Claude, and put it to work.
Write a Grant Application Budget Justification
Use this prompt to draft the budget justification section of a grant application. Replace the placeholders with your actual requested amount and itemized costs before running it.
Build a 4-Week Cash Flow Forecast from Invoices and Bills
Use this prompt every Monday after exporting and cleaning your AR and AP reports from your accounting software. Paste your cleaned data above the prompt, then paste the prompt itself to generate a 4-week cash flow forecast, a risk summary, and a list of overdue invoices to chase.
Rewrite Price Increase Letter for a Trade Business
Use this as a follow-up instruction when the AI's draft sounds too corporate or formal for a trade or hands-on service business. Swap in your own business type as needed.
Shorten a Price Increase Letter Draft
Use this as a follow-up instruction when the AI's first draft of the price increase letter is too long and needs to be trimmed.
Price Increase Letter With a Firm, Non-Negotiable Tone
Add this to the base price increase prompt when writing to a client who is a slow payer, difficult to work with, or someone you want to set a firm boundary with around the new rate.
Price Increase Letter for Project-Based Clients
Add this to the base price increase prompt when writing to a project-based client you work with occasionally rather than on an ongoing retainer.
Price Increase Letter for Long-Term Retainer Clients
Add this to the base price increase prompt when writing to a long-term retainer client who sends referrals or has a close working relationship with you.
Write a Price Increase Letter to a Client
Use this prompt when you need to write a personalised price increase letter to an existing client. Fill in the bracketed fields with your specific details before sending to the AI.
Categorize Bank Statement Transactions for Monthly Bookkeeping
Use this prompt at the end of each month after downloading your bank statement as a CSV. Upload the CSV to ChatGPT or paste it into Claude along with this prompt to get a categorized expense summary table your accountant can actually use.
Chase a Long-Term Client for an Overdue Invoice
Add this line to the main invoice sequence prompt when the overdue client is a long-standing one and you want to maintain the relationship while still being direct about the outstanding payment.
Stop AI Writing Apologetic Invoice Chasing Emails
Add this line to the main invoice sequence prompt if the initial output contains hedging language like 'I hope this finds you well' or 'I just wanted to follow up.' Can also be added to any individual email rewrite request.
Rewrite Invoice Chasing Email to Sound Firmer
Use this follow-up prompt if the AI-generated Email 3 still sounds too apologetic or soft after the initial sequence generation. Paste it into the same chat session immediately after reviewing the output.
Write a Four-Email Overdue Invoice Chasing Sequence
Use this prompt once to generate a complete four-email overdue invoice chasing sequence. Fill in your business details before sending, then save the output as reusable templates for every future overdue invoice.
Compare Two Months of P&L Data Side by Side
Use this prompt when you have P&L data from two or more months and want to identify meaningful changes between periods. Paste both months of data into the same chat window, labeled clearly, before running this prompt.
Summarize a P&L Statement in Plain English
Use this prompt after uploading or pasting your monthly P&L export from accounting software. It gives you a plain-English breakdown of your financial statement, including margin calculations and any flagged anomalies.
Identify Products With Missing Cost Data
Use this troubleshooting prompt if your profitability results look off. It identifies which products are missing cost data so you can fill them in and re-run the profitability calculation.
Track Month-Over-Month Profit Trends by Product
Use this as the fourth prompt to see whether your most profitable products are trending up or down over the 90-day period, rather than just looking at a snapshot ranking.
Find Profit Traps and Hidden Winners in Your Product Range
Use this as the third prompt immediately after generating the profitability table. It surfaces which high-revenue products are actually poor performers and which low-revenue products deserve more attention.
Calculate Product Profitability and Gross Margin
Use this as the second prompt after confirming the AI can read your file. It generates the core ranked profitability table showing gross profit and margin for every product.
Check Your Sales CSV File With AI
Use this as the first prompt after uploading your sales CSV to verify the AI has correctly read your file and identified all products before running any calculations.
Weekly Cash Position and Payroll Check
Use this every Monday morning to get a two-minute read on whether your business can make payroll. Fill in your five numbers — current bank balance, outstanding invoices due in 14 days, bills due in 14 days, and next payroll total — before pasting.
Simulate a Tough Banker Interview With AI Feedback
Use this prompt after reviewing your Q&A prep sheet to simulate a real banker interview. Answer each question as you would in the actual meeting, and the AI will give you specific feedback on what landed well and what sounded weak or vague.
Rewrite a Loan Brief in Plain Business Language
Use this prompt after reviewing the AI-drafted loan brief if the language feels overly formal or generic. It produces a version that sounds more like you, which is important since you'll be handing it to a loan officer with your name on it.
Model Alternative Loan Structures for a Weak DSCR
Use this follow-up prompt if your initial DSCR calculation comes back between 1.0 and 1.25. It helps you model alternative loan structures and prepares you to address a weak coverage ratio before the lender raises it.
Prepare a Full Bank Loan Application Brief
Use this prompt at the start of your bank loan meeting prep session. Paste in your raw financial data — 12 months of revenue, monthly expenses, existing debt payments, loan amount requested, intended use of funds, and business assets — to get a DSCR calculation, a 5 Cs evaluation, a one-page loan brief, and a Q&A prep sheet in one response.
Analyze Weekly Sales Data and Spot Trends
Use this prompt weekly after exporting sales data from Square, Shopify, or a Google Sheet. Paste the prompt first, then paste your copied sales data directly below it in the same message to get a plain-language weekly sales report.
Price Increase Letter With Lock-In Offer for Large Increases
Use this prompt when communicating a larger rate increase of 15–20% that requires stronger justification. It includes a lock-in option to give clients an incentive to stay and can help retain clients who might otherwise leave.
Rate Increase Email for Newer Clients
Use this prompt when notifying a newer client (under 12 months) of a smaller rate increase of 5–10%. It produces a short, professional email that gets to the point quickly without over-explaining.
Price Increase Letter for Long-Term Clients
Use this prompt when writing a price increase letter to a long-term client (2+ years) for a moderate rate increase of 5–15%. It produces a warm but direct email that acknowledges the relationship without being apologetic.
Diagnose the Root Cause of a Cash Flow Gap
Use this when your forecast shows a cash gap and you want to identify the specific item causing it and understand how much flexibility you have to fix it.
Update Your Cash Flow Forecast With Real Numbers
Use this every two weeks to update your forecast with real numbers. Paste your previous forecast table into the chat first, then send this message with your actual inflows and outflows filled in.
Find Forgotten Expenses in Your Cash Flow
Send this after receiving your initial forecast to catch expenses you may have overlooked, such as quarterly tax payments, annual software renewals, or irregular payroll cycles.
Stress Test Forecast for Late Client Payments
Use this as a follow-up after receiving your initial forecast. It stress-tests the forecast for late client payments, which is the most common cash risk for service businesses on net-30 or net-60 terms.
Build a 90-Day Cash Flow Forecast
Use this as your starting prompt to build an initial 90-day cash flow forecast. Replace the bracketed sections with your actual numbers before sending.
Force AI to Process One Receipt at a Time
Use this short prompt when uploading receipts individually to prevent the AI from merging two visually similar receipts into a single row — a known issue with batch image uploads.
Flag IRS Compliance Issues in an Expense Report
Use this prompt after all receipts have been extracted and consolidated, before exporting the final CSV. It surfaces compliance gaps and data quality issues that need manual attention before finalizing the expense report.
Consolidate All Receipt Rows into One CSV Table
Use this prompt after all receipt batches have been processed in the same chat session. It consolidates every extracted row into one clean CSV block with headers, ready to copy into a spreadsheet.
Process Multiple Receipts in One Batch Upload
Use this prompt when uploading a batch of 5–10 receipt images or PDFs in the same chat session where you already ran the single-receipt extraction prompt. It tells the AI to apply the same format to multiple documents at once.
Extract Expense Data from a Receipt into CSV
Use this prompt after uploading a single receipt image or PDF to ChatGPT or Claude. It extracts structured expense data from one document and returns it as a CSV row ready for pasting into a spreadsheet.
Add Trend Analysis to a Quarterly Business Summary
Add this line to your main prompt when producing a quarterly or annual summary instead of a monthly one. Pair it with three months of figures and trend data pasted above.
Frame Negative Business Results Honestly in AI Reports
Add this line to your main prompt when the business had a bad month. It prevents AI from defaulting to overly diplomatic framing and ensures challenges are explained honestly alongside a response plan.
Write a Monthly Business Performance Summary
Use this prompt after pasting your six key financial figures and bullet-point operational notes into the chat. It converts raw monthly business data into a clean, readable partner update without accounting jargon.
Write an Overdue Invoice Payment Reminder Email
Use this prompt once per client who needs invoice follow-up each week. Fill in the bracketed fields with the client's specific invoice data and relationship details before pasting into the AI tool. Run it each time a client crosses a new overdue stage threshold.
Clarify Ambiguous Transactions Stuck in Other Expenses
Use this when many transactions have landed in 'Other Expenses' due to vague descriptions. Paste the flagged rows back into the chat alongside this prompt to get the AI to tell you what context it needs to categorize them correctly.
Generate Final Tax Summary Table for Your Accountant
Use this as the final step to generate a clean, copy-ready table formatted for your accountant, with depreciation-flagged items separated out.
Correct Miscategorized Transactions in Schedule C Summary
Use this after reviewing the initial categorized output to correct any transactions the AI placed in the wrong Schedule C category.
Categorize Bank Transactions for Year-End Tax Summary
Use this as the opening prompt before pasting any transaction data. It sets the AI's role and output format so the resulting summary is structured for a CPA rather than a casual list.
Write Compensation and Pay Schedule Section for Handbook
Use this prompt to draft the compensation section of your handbook. Keeping wage rates out of the handbook and in offer letters instead is a deliberate best practice built into this prompt.