Build Better Spreadsheets with ChatGPT

Building great spreadsheets is something of a superpower for accountants and analysts. Many professionals develop their Excel skills over years.

Leveraging AI-driven technologies, like ChatGPT, you may be able to compress that time period, and fast-track your journey to building better spreadsheets and analysis.

By integrating ChatGPT into your Excel workflow as an assistant, you may tackle data challenges more efficiently, ultimately leading to better insights and analysis.

The Role of AI as an Assistant

AI technologies like ChatGPT are designed to assist and augment human intelligence rather than replace it. The key to leveraging the benefits of AI-driven tools is understanding when and how to use AI effectively to complement your existing skill set and knowledge.

Googling keywords is useful for finding various articles on a topic. By contrast, ChatGPT generally offers a direct response to a well written question, which may be faster and more effective.

For example, ChatGPT may serve as a good starting point for explanations about business concepts, technical definitions, and general guidance related to accounting principles and standards. After exploring the concept initially, an accountant might then refine their research using authoritative guidance, such as FASB rules and interpretations or through AICPA accounting and audit guides.

ChatGPT can help with explaining common metrics and ratios. However, it would not be appropriate to input sensitive company or client data into ChatGPT.

ChatGPT can suggest general practices for organizational strategy, tax planning, and internal control activities, based on general accounting knowledge, but it lacks sufficient context to offer specific, detailed advice or recommendations.

In terms of spreadsheets specifically, ChatGPT can recommend Excel formulas and functions in certain scenarios and write drafts of those formulas. It can also provide recommendations on when to use Excel features, such as pivot tables, Power Query, and macros, to help streamline data analysis and automate repetitive tasks.

Enhancing Your Spreadsheets with ChatGPT

Let's explore three scenarios accountants may face and how ChatGPT could help address them.

In each of these scenarios, it’s likely that an experienced accountant would have encountered them before and may even have memorized a solution to the problem. However, a less experienced accountant, or an accountant who encounters different datasets on a regular basis—such as an auditor—might benefit from having an assistant ready to make suggestions at a moment’s notice.

1. Removing Unwanted Characters

Accountants may receive data containing unwanted characters like extra spaces, non-breaking spaces, or special characters that need to be removed for proper analysis. ChatGPT can help you identify suitable Excel functions to remove these characters.

Example: You have a dataset with amounts that include non-numeric characters like commas and currency symbols. You can ask ChatGPT: "How can I remove non-numeric characters from cells in Excel?"

ChatGPT might suggest: "You can use a combination of the SUBSTITUTE() function with CHAR() to remove specific unwanted characters. For example, to remove a comma, you can use =SUBSTITUTE(A1, ",", ""). To remove multiple characters, nest multiple SUBSTITUTE() functions."

2. Handling Inconsistent Capitalization

Inconsistent capitalization in text data can make it challenging to filter and match records. Accountants may need to standardize the capitalization for proper data analysis.

Example: You have a dataset with customer names that have inconsistent capitalization. You can ask ChatGPT: "What are some ways to standardize the capitalization of text in Excel?"

ChatGPT might suggest: "There are several Excel functions you can use to standardize capitalization, such as UPPER(), LOWER(), and PROPER(). Use =UPPER(A1) to convert text to uppercase, =LOWER(A1) to convert text to lowercase, and =PROPER(A1) to capitalize the first letter of each word."

3. Dealing with Duplicate Records

Duplicate records can skew analysis results and lead to incorrect conclusions. Accountants often need to identify and remove duplicate records from their datasets.

Example: You have a dataset with duplicate records based on multiple criteria, such as customer ID and transaction date. You can ask ChatGPT: "What is the best way to identify and remove duplicate records in Excel based on multiple criteria?"

ChatGPT might suggest: "You can use the Remove Duplicates feature in Excel. First, concatenate the columns you want to use as criteria for identifying duplicates (e.g., =A1&"-"&B1), then use the Remove Duplicates feature on the Data tab to eliminate duplicates based on the concatenated column."

Conclusion

By embracing a growth mindset and integrating ChatGPT into your Excel workflow, you may significantly improve the efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness of your spreadsheets and fast-track your journey to becoming a data-driven accountant.

You can harness the power of ChatGPT as your personal assistant to help you create more insightful financial analyses, streamline your work processes, and elevate your accounting career.

Doing so can be a first step towards prepraring for an AI revolution and discovering the potential of AI-driven technologies for your practice.