AI Masterclass 1.9

3 ways AI can take the hassle out of business admin

• Using AI automation and accurate prompts can drastically reduce the time you need to spend on business admin.
• Harnessing AI to help with reporting can quickly highlight sales trends and efficiency operations.
• Prompting AI to supply step-by-step instructional guides can aid you in cycling through unknown tasks.

The problem: You spend hours in spreadsheets

The timesaver: Use AI to help structure spreadsheets and formulas that support bookkeeping

Staring at rows in a spreadsheet is a brain drain but there are effective AI automations that can assist. These tools are able to produce weekly cash-flow templates, recognise trends and problems in complex data or write formulas to accelerate the inputting of numbers. It can even clean up dirty data.

Details downloaded from your point-of-sale system can be messy, with random spacing and style inconsistencies. You can ask ChatGPT to write a formula for you to clean up the data in one go.

“I now use ChatGPT for creating spreadsheets for product costings,” says May Pike, owner of gourmet confectionary company Cloud Theory. “I still have to check and refine the outputs but it has saved me hours of admin time.”

Just remember: never paste sensitive data like customers’ bank details or private bank statements into AI. Stick to de-identified numbers and template structures.

The problem: You don’t know where to start

The timesaver: Ask AI for a step-by-step guide

As a business owner you wear many hats – which you weren’t necessarily trained for. Instead of floundering around looking for answers, ask AI where to start. May has found this approach to be a lifesaver when redesigning the Cloud Theory website.

“I was creating a new landing page and gave ChatGPT the specifics, like what needs to be on the page, who the target audience is and what we thought the right hierarchy of messaging was,” says May. “It’s given me the optimal structure for the page, which is something I would have needed to outsource in the past.”

The problem: You don’t have time for social media marketing

The timesaver: Use ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas, draft captions, and build a content calendar faster.

ChatGPT can take a lot of the mental load off your hands when it comes to social media. As well as drafting a content plan that works across all your channels, it can also suggest posts, write captions, create images, analyse your social media performance and give you tips on what to post next time.

May has found using a mix of real product images with AI-generated lifestyle shots to be the sweet spot for her social media activity. “It’s helped me tell the stories behind the marshmallow flavours without having to do expensive and time-consuming photoshoots that aren’t in my budget.”

She also uses ChatGPT to help with audio tracks for her content. “Before AI, we’d search for hours for the right music. Now, we tell ChatGPT the vibe that we’re going for and it quickly comes up with search suggestions,” May says. “We did a Dubai chocolate video when our cookies launched and the music direction it suggested was perfect for the story.”

2 prompts to try today

Try these prompts on your business admin tasks:

• “I run a small retail business and need to build a simple weekly cash-flow tracker Excel spreadsheet. Please tell me what rows I need, the formulas to use and give step-by-step instructions to create it.”
• “Write an Excel formula that removes accidental spaces and capitalises names in column A, so I can apply it directly in my spreadsheet.” “Here is a list of my weekly sales figures for five products: [Paste data]. Identify any patterns or changes in product performance, highlight the slowest trading day, and suggest three areas I could review further.”