Fifty prompts you can paste into Claude or ChatGPT once QuickBooks Online is connected, sorted by who is asking. Each one is written to run as it is, on a real ledger, and each is followed by a line on what comes back. What stays manual is the bank feed, reconciliation, payroll and filing. None of those happen in a conversation. The assistant pulls, compares and flags; deciding what a number means is still your job.
Can ChatGPT do my bookkeeping?
ChatGPT can talk about your books only if it is connected to them. On its own it has no access to QuickBooks, so anything it says about your numbers is invented or copied from what you pasted in. Through a connector it reads the real ledger: profit and loss, balance sheet, trial balance, cash flow, aged receivables and payables, and every invoice, bill, payment and journal entry behind them. That covers most of what people mean by a bookkeeping question. With full access turned on for that company, it can also do the work: create and update invoices, bills and journal entries, attach receipts, set up recurring templates. What it should never be trusted to decide is judgment. Materiality, cut-off, what to accrue, whether an expense is deductible, whether a number is right enough to file on: those stay with you or your accountant. It also cannot import a bank feed, tick reconciliation boxes, run payroll or file a return.
How to read these prompts
Dates, thresholds and report names are filled in, so paste, change the dates, send. Reads work on any connection, because every company starts read-only. Prompts that create, edit or attach something need full access, which the account owner switches on per company in the portal, and they say so. Deleting, voiding and emailing also need you to confirm in the conversation. Eight prompts are marked chains: they use the answer above them, so ask them in the same thread. The names and figures come from a fictional Montréal design studio, Studio Nord, so swap in your own. If several companies are connected, name the one you mean.
15 prompts for an owner
You want the shape of the business in two minutes, not a report you have to read twice. These are all read-only, so they work on day one of a trial without anyone touching write access. If you have never asked for a report this way, start with the profit and loss.
Cash
"Cash flow statement for the last three months, month by month."
The three columns side by side, so a bad month stands out against its neighbours.
"Balance sheet as of today. List every bank and credit card account with its balance."
Position now, cash and card balances first, rather than a bank app in another tab.
"Aged payables as of 30 September 2026. Total what falls due in the next 30 days."
What you owe, and the number you actually need: the 30-day claim on cash.
"Which vendors did we pay late in the second quarter of 2026, comparing bill due dates to payment dates?"
A short list of relationships worth protecting, built from bills and their payments.
Results
"Profit and loss for August 2026 next to August 2025, with the change in dollars and percent."
Two columns and a variance, which is the only way a monthly number means anything.
"Take the three expense lines that grew most and list the transactions behind each." Chains
The detail under a variance, so the explanation is checked rather than guessed.
"Which five customers billed the most in the first half of 2026, and what share of total revenue is that?"
Concentration risk in one line. Anything over a third from one client is worth a thought.
"Sales by class for 2026 to date, so I can see which service lines carry the revenue."
Only useful if classes are set up in QuickBooks. If they are not, this returns nothing.
Receivables
"Aged receivables as of 30 September 2026. Total the 60 and 90 day buckets."
The two buckets that predict a write-off, separated from the noise of current invoices.
"For anything past 90 days, show the invoice, its date, and the last payment we received from that customer." Chains
Turns a bucket total into a call list. Chasing them is a separate job.
"Which customers have an open balance over $5,000 right now?"
One number per customer instead of a page of invoices, which is how you actually think about them.
Oversight
"Budget vs actuals for 2026 to date. Where are we more than 10 percent off?"
Needs a budget in QuickBooks. Without one, ask for the prior-year comparison instead.
"Everything that changed in the books since 1 September 2026: new, edited and deleted transactions."
The change feed. Useful when someone else keeps the books and you want to see what moved while you were not looking.
"List every journal entry posted this quarter with the date, amount and memo."
Journal entries are where mistakes and adjustments hide. Reading them monthly is cheap.
"What did we spend with each vendor in 2026 to date? Top 15 by amount."
Your real cost structure, ranked, including the subscriptions nobody remembers signing.
20 prompts for a bookkeeper
This is the group that saves the most time, because the work is tedious rather than hard. Everything up to the close section is read-only. The write prompts are marked, and the pattern that works is always the same: ask, read the answer, then let it write.
Daily cleanup
"List every transaction in Uncategorized Expense and Ask My Accountant for September 2026."
The catch-all accounts, with vendor, date, amount and memo per line.
"For each of those, what account has this vendor's spending gone to this year? Flag the ones you are not sure about." Chains
A suggested account per line, sourced from that vendor's own history, plus an honest unsure pile.
"Recategorize the ones you were confident about, one at a time, and list what you changed." Chains
Needs full access. Do this after reading the suggestions, never in the same breath as asking for them.
"What is in Undeposited Funds right now, and which payments make it up?"
Payments recorded but never deposited. A balance that only grows if nobody looks.
Receivables
"Open invoices as of today, oldest first, with customer, number, date, due date and balance."
The working list for a collections hour, already sorted.
"Draft a reminder email for every invoice more than 30 days past due, one per customer, with the invoice numbers and totals."
Draft text in the conversation. Nothing is sent, and nothing touches QuickBooks.
"Email invoice 1042 to the customer on file."
Needs full access and an explicit confirmation. Sending is the one action worth being slow about.
"Has Atelier Vireo paid invoice 1031? Show every payment applied to it."
The invoice, its balance, and the payments against it, which settles most disputes in one question.
Payables and expenses
"List every bill due between 1 and 15 October 2026, with vendor, amount and terms."
The payment run, before you open the bank.
"Every purchase over $500 in September 2026 coded to Meals or Travel, with vendor, date and memo."
The review pile for the categories that draw questions later.
"Find likely duplicates in September 2026: same vendor, same amount, within five days of each other."
Candidates, not verdicts. Some are genuinely two invoices from the same supplier.
"Vendor balance detail as of 30 September 2026, for every vendor with an open balance."
What is still owed, by vendor, with the individual bills making up each balance.
Receipts and documents
"Which expenses and bills have no receipt attached? Newest first."
One call over every purchase and bill, matched against every attachment. The result is a to-do list.
"Here is the PDF for the first one. Attach it to that purchase." Chains
Needs full access. The file goes across in its own format, so a PDF stays a PDF.
"Attach this as a receipt on purchase 318: Café Bercy, 12 September 2026, $46.80, client meeting."
Needs full access. Receipt text is rendered to a PDF and attached, for the cases where no document exists.
"List every attachment added to the books in September 2026, with what it is attached to."
The other direction: what came in, and whether it landed on the right transaction.
Close
"Trial balance as of 30 September 2026."
The first pull of any close, and the one that catches an impossible balance early.
"Balance sheet as of 30 September next to 31 August, with the change per line. Which accounts moved more than 10 percent?"
Two columns and a filter. Accounts that should not move, moving.
"General ledger for Professional Fees for the third quarter of 2026."
Every posting to one account, when a P&L line looks wrong and you need the entries.
"Tax summary for 1 July to 30 September 2026, next to the sales tax liability balance on the balance sheet at that date."
Two numbers that should agree. When they do not, the gap is the work.
15 prompts for a firm working across clients
The difference here is the multi-company parameter: one account holds several client files, and every call picks one by name. That turns a sweep across the portfolio into a single conversation. Read the multi-file guide if you have not set this up yet.
Portfolio sweep
"List every company connected to this account, with its access level."
Where any multi-client session starts, and a quick check that nothing has fallen off.
"For every connected company, give me the trial balance as of 30 September 2026 and flag any that does not balance."
The whole portfolio in one table. Twelve files, one question.
"For every client, what is the balance in Uncategorized Expense and Undeposited Funds as of 30 September 2026?"
The two accounts that tell you which file needs an afternoon.
"Take the three clients with the largest uncategorized balances and list those transactions for each." Chains
Drills from the portfolio table straight into the transactions, without a client selector in between.
Client reviews
"For Studio Nord, profit and loss for the third quarter of 2026 next to the third quarter of 2025, plus the balance sheet at both quarter ends."
The four reports a quarterly review starts from, in one answer.
"Aged receivables for all clients as of 30 September 2026. Which clients have more than 20 percent of their receivables past 90 days?"
A ranked list of who to phone, across the whole book of business.
"For the worst one, list the invoices and the customers behind that number." Chains
The named invoices behind a ratio, which is what the client conversation actually needs.
"Every journal entry posted in the third quarter of 2026 across all connected companies, with company, date, amount and memo."
Adjustments across the portfolio in one place, including the ones a junior posted quietly.
Tax and compliance
"Tax summary for the third quarter of 2026 for Studio Nord and Atelier Vireo, next to each one's sales tax liability balance."
Both clients, both checks, before either return gets prepared.
"For each client, list expenses over $250 in the third quarter of 2026 with no receipt attached, grouped by client."
The documentation gap, per file, which is the thing an auditor asks about first.
"For Studio Nord, list every transaction dated in the second quarter of 2026 that was created or edited after 15 July 2026."
Changes to a closed period. The change feed makes this a question rather than an investigation.
Setup and consistency
"Show me Studio Nord's chart of accounts, and flag accounts with no activity in 2026."
The cleanup list for an onboarding, or for a file that has drifted over five years.
"Compare the chart of accounts of Studio Nord and Atelier Vireo. Which accounts exist in one and not the other?"
How you get a template across a client base, instead of fifteen slightly different files.
"Create the missing accounts in Atelier Vireo to match, one at a time, and list what you created." Chains
Needs full access on that file. Read the comparison first, then approve the list.
"What are Studio Nord's preferences for classes, departments and sales tax?"
The settings that decide whether half the prompts above return anything. Worth checking at onboarding.
Where this is the wrong tool
Anything with a bank feed in it. Importing transactions, matching them, ticking reconciliation boxes: those are QuickBooks screens, and they stay there. A prompt asking to reconcile has nothing to act on.
Payroll and filing. No payroll run, no tax return, no government portal. The connector reads and writes ledger records, and a filing is neither.
A judgment you would sign your name to. An assistant will explain a variance plausibly whether or not the explanation is right. Treat every explanation as a hypothesis, and check it against the transaction detail before you repeat it to a client.
QuickBooks Desktop. Online only, because Desktop has no API to connect to.
If nothing is connected yet, every read-only prompt on this page works from the first day of a trial, which is enough to decide whether the rest is worth it. Connect a company and try ten of them, or read the setup overview first.