Module 5 · Administrative & Finance

Prompt it: admin wins you can have today

Everything in this lesson works in a plain chat window — ChatGPT or Claude, no setup, no subscription beyond the chat tool itself. You paste in text or numbers; you get back finished busywork. Six wins, roughly in the order they’ll save you time.

Win 1: Sort a month of expenses in one paste

The month-end chore that never gets smaller: a pile of transactions that need to become categories. Paste the list; get back a clean table with totals — plus a flag on anything that looks off. One habit from Module 0 applies here: check your AI tool’s data settings before pasting financial statements, and prefer a business plan with training turned off.

Here is a list of business transactions from my bank and card statements, one per line, as "date — merchant — amount".

Categorize each one into standard small-business expense categories (Software & Subscriptions, Meals, Travel, Office Supplies, Contractors, Marketing, Insurance, Utilities — adjust the set if a better fit exists for my business type: [YOUR BUSINESS TYPE — for example: "two-chair dental practice"]).

Return a table with date, merchant, amount, and category, plus a total per category at the bottom. Then flag anything worth a second look in a short "review" list: possible duplicates, amounts that jumped for a merchant I pay regularly, and subscriptions I may have forgotten about.

Data: [PASTE YOUR TRANSACTIONS]

Win 2: Chase the money you’re owed — without souring the relationship

AI will happily draft the invoice text itself, but the real pain isn’t writing invoices — it’s chasing them. The awkwardness of asking for your own money is why overdue invoices sit. So take the awkwardness out once: generate the full escalating sequence, save it, and never start a reminder from a blank page again.

Write me a three-email reminder sequence for an overdue invoice, so I can send the right one depending on how late it gets.

The details: client [CLIENT NAME — for example: "Acme Dental"], invoice #[NUMBER], amount $[AMOUNT], originally due [DUE DATE]. My tone: professional and warm — these are ongoing relationships I want to keep.

Email 1 (a few days late): a friendly nudge that assumes they missed it.
Email 2 (about two weeks late): still warm, but direct — restate the amount and due date, and ask them to confirm a payment date.
Email 3 (about a month late): firm and clear — payment is expected, and state my policy plainly: [YOUR POLICY — for example: "work pauses on accounts more than 30 days overdue"].

Keep each email under 120 words, ready to send.

Win 3: Get a first read on a contract or lease

Before you sign anything — a lease, a vendor agreement, a partnership contract — paste it in and ask: “Explain this in plain English, section by section, and flag anything unusual, one-sided, or worth negotiating.” Ten minutes later you understand the document instead of skimming it.

Your attorney still reads it before you sign. The point of the first read is that the attorney conversation gets shorter and sharper — you arrive with the three clauses that matter already circled, instead of paying hourly rates for the walkthrough.

Win 4: Ask the tax questions you’d feel silly asking

There’s a whole layer of tax knowledge owners are embarrassed to admit they don’t have — and AI is the judgment-free place to get oriented. “What categories of deductions do businesses like mine typically have?” “Explain this IRS notice like I’ve never seen one.” “What should I have gathered before my year-end meeting with my CPA?”

Frame every one of these as preparation. You’re not asking AI to do your taxes — you’re walking into your accountant’s office informed, with the right documents and the right questions.

Win 5: Draft the letters and policies you keep putting off

Price-increase letters, refund policies, late-fee terms, a one-page employee handbook section — the documents that stall for months because the blank page is uncomfortable. The price-increase letter is the classic: most owners undercharge for years partly because writing that letter feels hard. Here’s the worked example.

Draft a price-increase letter to my existing clients.

My business: [WHAT YOU DO — for example: "residential cleaning, most clients on a monthly schedule"].
The change: [THE INCREASE — for example: "standard clean going from $140 to $155, effective March 1"].
The honest reason: [WHY — for example: "supply costs and wages are up; this is my first increase in three years"].

Tone: appreciative and confident — no over-apologizing. Include one line that reminds them of the value they get, and end with what happens next (nothing required from them unless they have questions). Keep it under 200 words. Give me two versions: one warmer, one more matter-of-fact.

Win 6: Build your year-end checklist once, reuse it forever

Ask AI for a year-end prep checklist tailored to your business type: the statements to export, the forms to expect, the documents your accountant will ask for, the deadlines by quarter. Save the result. Next January, the scramble is a checklist instead of a memory test — and your accountant gets a client who shows up organized.

One honest limit before you move on: every prompt in this lesson forgets you the moment the chat ends. You re-paste the data every time, and nothing runs on its own. That ceiling is exactly what the next two lessons remove — platforms that watch your accounts continuously, and tools you own that remember your rules.

Watch this step

Using AI to first-read a contract is delicate — this sober bar-association session shows how, with the same human-checks-everything caveats this lesson insists on. It’s from an independent creator — credited below, so go give them a follow.

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