ChatGPT offers a fresh perspective on ideation in the accounting world. Instead of racking your brain for hours, you can now use ChatGPT to stimulate creative ideas.

Not only does it provide you with innovative suggestions, but it also provokes your own thoughts, allowing you to build upon the insights it offers.

Check out the full video, 12 powerful uses of ChatGPT to be more productive in your accounting firm.

Practical Applications for Accountants

Growth Strategies

We can ask ChatGPT a simple prompt such as:

Give me 12 ways to grow my accounting firm in the UK

Within moments, ChatGPT can produce a list of actionable strategies:

Using this list as a starting point is a great way to brainstorm ideas for your firm. If you spot an idea you like, you can then ask ChatGPT to expand on that point:

Expand on idea number 1.

or

Give me a step-by-step guide for setting up a referral program.

Industry Research

If you have a particular niche or industry that you prefer to work with, ChatGPT is great at brainstorming ideas for ways you can better serve that niche.

Here’s an example prompt:

I’m an accountant based in the UK, and I want to move into the niche of tax planning for the health and wellbeing industry, including gyms, fitness centres, yoga clubs, diet consultants, and so on. Please give me a list of 50 ways I can help this niche of businesses to save tax and other expenses. All the businesses are based in the UK.

Here’s what ChatGPT’s response might look like:

And again, you could ask for any of these points expanding on to brainstorm further.

Offerings

We can use ChatGPT to help us improve our offerings for clients. First, I’ll show you an example prompt, and then I’ll explain how we can improve that prompt to get an even better response from ChatGPT.

Please create a list of potential services I can offer as a bookkeeper based in the UK who is using value pricing and delivering 3 tiered packages of services.

ChatGPT can give us a great answer to this prompt:

However, the key to getting the best responses from ChatGPT is to finetune your prompts…

Perfecting Your Prompt for Optimal Results

ChatGPT thrives on specificity.

First, let’s ask for advice on how to craft better prompts:

Give me advice on how to create the best possible prompt.

Now we can use the same service offerings prompt as before, but ask ChatGPT to refer back to its own list to help us create an even better prompt.

Please create a list of potential services I can offer as a bookkeeper based in the UK who is using value pricing and delivering 3 tiered packages of services. Ask me more questions with the above response in mind to help me improve this prompt before you respond.

Now we could answer these questions so that ChatGPT can provide us with a better prompt, e.g.:

1. Client base: I focus on the pet industry (vets, groomers, dog walkers, trainers, sitters etc.) 

2. Specialisations: No specialisations. 

3. Technology: QBO, Dext 

4. Complementary Services: Considering business advisory 

5. Package differentiation: Bronze, Silver and Gold based on the complexity of the service 

6. Location and remote work: I want to work completely remotely so will not offer in-person visits of any kind 

7. Regulations and certifications: No 

8. Value proposition: All of the above. I will allow clients to create bespoke packages by choosing the services that they find the most valuable. 

9. Additional support: I would be open to providing clients with resources as part of a service, but have no current plans. 

10. Scale and growth: I want to offer a select, high-quality set of services

Now that I have given ChatGPT the answers to those questions, it can provide a much more nuanced answer:

Final Thoughts

In this blog post we have explored 3 ideas for how you can use ChatGPT to help with brainstorming and ideation in your accounting or bookkeeping business.

Check out the full video on this topic for a more in-depth look at these ideas, plus even more use cases: https://www.youtube.com/live/BeHuRshLvWQ  

If you found this valuable and would like to learn more about value pricing, I run a free live online training session every month with a topic chosen by you. Attend live and you can ask me any questions you have. Click here to register and I will send you an invitation to the next session.

Wishing you every success on your pricing journey

Mark Wickersham

Chartered Accountant, Public Speaker and Author of Amazon No.1 Best Seller “Effective Pricing for Accountants”