Hi

As business owners we understand the importance of knowing our numbers; it's one of the key skills that separates the really successful businesses from the rest.

But despite the extraordinary improvements made in accounting software and cloud accounting in recent years data still has to be extracted and analysed to create our business dashboards and scorecards.

Perhaps the recent introduction of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools will aid this process?

One such tool is ChatGPT a GenAI tool that has become quite popular of late; ChatGPT is a large language model, which means it's fantastic when it comes to words. There are so many powerful use cases for using it, which have been well-publicised in recent months as artificial intelligence tools have become accessible to the general public for the first time.

But what about numbers? 

ChatGPT is reasonably good at analysing numbers and data. We can use it for looking at trends, and understanding what's going on behind the numbers.

However, it does struggle with complex calculations.

Then, at the start of July, OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, introduced plugins that completely revolutionised ChatGPT. Think of the Apple App Store; plugins are the App Store for ChatGPT.

One of the plugins that accountants have been waiting for is the code interpreter. This is OpenAI's own plugin, and it's extraordinary what it can do, in particular in relation to financial analysis.

To access code interpreter, you need to be on ChatGPT Plus. Once you've upgraded, go to Settings, click on beta features, and turn on code interpreter. 

I am still experimenting with it, but one of its benefits is that you can attach files, like CSV files or an excel spreadsheet, using the new ‘+’ symbol in the prompt section and ask code interpreter to analyse these.

Consider for example one of the key business metrics I recommend all businesses should measure – their gross margin by customer and by product. I downloaded an excel file containing sales invoices and product costs and asked code interpreter to analyse the data by customer in a table showing the total sales and gross margin by customer. 

It did it perfectly, even providing a total so that I could check that it matched the one in the original spreadsheet.

But that's not all. I also asked code interpreter to suggest the best charts for showing the data visually; it suggested a bar chart, a pie chart, and a line chart for the data and when I asked it to create a bar chart, it did so quickly and 

accurately.

ChatGPT's code interpreter offers numerous opportunities for further data analysis  (and what’s great is, if you’re not sure what else to ask of it, you can ask ChatGPT for ideas). When I asked ChatGPT for further ideas, it suggested:

• Trends over time
• Sales by transaction type
• Invoice size analysis
• Customer segmentation
• Revenue concentration
• Predictive modelling

 A word about security; if you want to keep your data private, when you upload data to code interpreter, make sure it’s anonymous. Don't include your business name!

The possibilities with ChatGPT's new code interpreter are huge. It's a powerful tool for analysing financial data. It is still evolving and will be able to undertake analysis I can only dream about in a few months. I can't wait to see how it evolves and improves in the future.

If you're serious about knowing your business numbers (and saving hours of time) I highly recommend upgrading to ChatGPT Plus and exploring code interpreter.

Noel Guilford

PS If you want to find out more about how to measure your key business metrics and create your own business dashboard you can find out in my latest book Business Maths Made Simple.