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- 🧠 How I Used ChatGPT to Reconcile Transactions in Minutes (Without Spreadsheets or Stress)
🧠 How I Used ChatGPT to Reconcile Transactions in Minutes (Without Spreadsheets or Stress)
Let AI match your bank and GL data so you can skip the soul-sucking scroll.
☕ Morning! Welcome to The AI+ — the newsletter that helps you work smarter, faster, with more impact, and more importantly—stay in the game. 💪
Let’s be honest—monthly reconciliation feels like scrolling through a sea of transactions wondering if your sanity or $97.50 is missing.
But what if you could just hand it to AI and go do something useful? (Like refill your coffee or stare at the ceiling with purpose.)
Here’s what we have cooked up for you today:
⚡ 1 AI Hack: Let GPT reconcile your transactions while you sleep
🛠️ 3 Free Tools that clean, match, and explain your bank-to-book differences
🧠 1 News Byte: Why AI bookkeepers are replacing entry-level finance roles
😂 Meme of the Week (spoiler: GPT works harder than your intern)
🔗 3 curated links you can use today
And more…
Let’s break it down 👇
⚡1 AI Hack: Skill → Let GPT Reconcile Your Transactions While You Sleep
🧠 The Problem:
Use Case: Monthly reconciliation of bank and GL transactions
Result: Save hours + prevent carpal tunnel
🧰 What You’ll Need:
Your bank transactions in Excel or CSV
Your general ledger entries in Excel or CSV
ChatGPT Plus (with Code Interpreter / Advanced Data Analysis)
Example Data:
Bank.csv
Date | Description | Amount | |
|---|---|---|---|
2025-09-01 | Stripe Payout | 200.00 | |
2025-09-02 | Office Depot | -50.00 | |
2025-09-03 | Amazon | -30.00 |
GL.csv
Date | Description | Amount |
|---|---|---|
2025-09-01 | Stripe Deposit | 200.00 |
2025-09-02 | Office Supplies | -50.00 |
2025-09-04 | Amazon Purchase | -30.00 |
🪜 Step-by-Step Instructions
✅ Step 1:
Export both datasets as CSV from your accounting tools.
✅ Step 2:
Clean your data
Keep only Date, Description, and Amount columns
Remove duplicates or voids
Normalize vendor names (e.g., “AMZN” → “Amazon”)
✅ Step 3:
Open ChatGPT > Click Advanced Data Analysis
✅ Step 4:
Upload both CSV files
✅ Step 5:
Paste this prompt
You're a reconciliation assistant. Match transactions from these two files (Bank and GL). Identify exact matches, close matches (e.g., date off by 1-2 days), and unmatched items. Output three tables: Matched, Partial Match, and Unmatched.
✅ Step 6: Review the output
Matched:
Stripe → Stripe, Office Depot → Office Supplies
Partial Match:
Amazon vs Amazon Purchase, 1-day date difference
Unmatched:
You’ll investigate or adjust
✅ Step 7:
Follow up with prompts:
“Why did these not match?”
“Suggest journal entries to fix unmatched items.”
🔥 Why It’s Awesome:
No more Ctrl+F, VLOOKUP, or blurry eyes at 11pm. You’ll save 2–5 hours per cycle and impress your boss with clean, explained results.
🛠️ 3 Free AI Tools
ChatGPT Advanced Data Analysis
What it does: Read, clean, analyze spreadsheets
Why it helps: Let GPT do VLOOKUPs, matching, and summaries
FormX.ai
What it does: Extract data from scanned invoices and receipts
Why it helps: Get clean, exportable Excel files for recon
🔗 formx.ai
Table Transformer (by HuggingFace)
What it does: Clean and structure messy tables for AI
Why it helps: Makes exports usable by GPT or Python
🧠 News Byte: AI Bookkeepers Are Quietly Taking Over
Companies looking to boost accuracy and lower headcount are increasingly using GPT-style tools to handle reconciliation, variance analysis, and reporting. TechCrunch reports that AI “bookkeepers” are now embedded in many startups — running silently behind QuickBooks, Stripe, and Excel.
Startups are replacing entire accounting teams with internal GPTs — one for recon, one for reporting, one for invoice follow-up. While it’s not full automation (yet), these tools are fast becoming the new intern, without the coffee runs.
📚 What’s Happening
A user on r/Accounting walks through how they set up a workflow with ChatGPT that matches Stripe payouts to general ledger entries via Google Sheets. They share the prompt they used, how they handled “close match” logic (1‑day date shifts, vendor name variations), and a screenshot of the output.
Summary: Even users who are skeptical about AI in accounting are experimenting with it—this shows you’re not alone in trying GPT for reconciliation.
🤖 Substack – “The Real‑Talk Guide to Using AI Agents in Accounting”
A newsletter post explains how businesses are starting to use AI agents (not just humans) to handle repetitive finance tasks like reconciliation, forecasts, and close cycle operations.
Summary: The article outlines the typical architecture: ingest data → GPT agent analyzes → human reviews. It’s a model you can emulate in your workflow.
💻 Blog – “Revolutionize Bank Reconciliation with GPT‑4 AI Technology”
This article gives hands‑on tips for how GPT‑4 can be used in bank reconciliation: auto‑categorization, discrepancy detection, and more.
Summary: Signals that the tech piece is moving fast — tools that were experimental six months ago are becoming publish‑ready workflows.
Meme Corner 😂
✅ That’s a wrap on this week’s The AI+ - your unfair advantage in the finance trenches.
If this prompt saves you even one headache (or one cold coffee), forward it to your team.
And if you try it on your own data, reply and tell me what GPT flagged — I’d love to feature your story next week.
Until next time,
Stay sharp, stay semi-automated ⚙️😄
Shirley, Chief Nerd at The AI+
P.S. Want more tools like this?
👉 Check out my free prompt library
👉 Use my custom GPT: Finance AI Assistant
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