Applied AI in finance: 4 ideas to eliminate tedious data and research tasks
AI in finance series
Data cleanup and research have always been an unavoidable part of working on the finance team—just like washing the dishes after dinner or doing laundry.
With the latest advances in AI, however, these repetitive tasks can now be fully automated or dramatically accelerated. These are exactly the type of breakthroughs CFOs are looking for in their pursuit to recast finance as a strategic partner for the business.
This third post in our Applied AI in finance series walks through four examples of how GenAI can handle administrative work to free up finance professionals for higher-impact decisions so they can amplify the impact of the entire department.
1. Clean and consolidate credit card data
CFOs know their finance teams spend hours each week preparing raw financial data to reconcile accounts, send invoices, and run reports. It’s slow, manual work, but a necessary step before analysis that uncovers real insights can begin. AI can now eliminate much of that burden by cleaning and consolidating data automatically so finance teams spend more time analyzing the results rather than collating the data.
Example: In a recent webinar, Nicolas Boucher, a top voice for how finance teams can use AI and the founder of the AI Finance Club, tackled messy corporate credit card statements in a spreadsheet where each cardholder had a separate tab. He gave ChatGPT a sample of the data and asked it to generate a Google Apps Script to merge key fields—date, description, amount, cardholder, and company—into one consolidated tab. ChatGPT not only wrote the script but, when asked, also explained how to run it. The result: a clean, consolidated spreadsheet with key expense details organized by cardholder.
2. Auto-categorize transactions in Google Sheets
Finance pros don’t always have to turn to chatbots to benefit from GenAI. AI capabilities are increasingly embedded in the applications finance pros use every day, such as spreadsheets. AI formulas in Google Sheets can give CFOs’ teams another boost by classifying data automatically, speeding up reconciliations and the month-end close.
Example: Boucher used Google Sheets’ new =AI function to categorize expenses based on natural language prompts. First, he entered:
=AI("How should I categorize this expense? Answer with one of the following: IT, Transport, Consulting, Office supplies, Others", B2)
The formula used the mess of information in column B to classify each transaction into the appropriate category. A second formula added state abbreviations for each vendor:
=AI("Which state is it? Show only the first two letters", B2)
It’s just one small example of how these tools can save time spent on rote, manual work.
3. Research and budget for industry conferences
Industry events can be valuable for networking and learning—but finding the right ones and estimating total costs can eat up a lot of hours. CFOs themselves may research events they want to target for speaking opportunities or ask their teams for a list of recommendations. Either way, it’s a time-consuming process. GenAI can handle that legwork for you.
Example: Boucher prompted ChatGPT’s Deep Research tool with his location, role, and availability. After a few follow-up questions about event preferences (size, in-person vs. virtual, academic vs. practical), the tool generated a table of 20 relevant conferences. It included dates, costs, attendee profiles, speakers, and estimated travel expenses—all formatted and ready to drop into a spreadsheet for sharing.
4. Summarize fast-changing regulations like tariffs
Senior finance leaders are often the first to be asked how major new policies—like tariffs or tax changes—will affect the business. AI can help you quickly gather, analyze, and summarize this complex information, producing in minutes what would take hours or days to piece together manually.
Example: In one prompt, Boucher told ChatGPT he was the CFO of a car windshield company that manufactures its products in China. He needed to evaluate manufacturing in other countries in light of historically high tariffs. In less than 15 minutes, ChatGPT returned a structured report that broke down the impact of U.S. tariffs on this manufacturer’s specific products, recommended alternative countries, and included a table summarizing tariffs, labor costs, workforce skills, and more for each country.
Looking for more ways to use AI?
Look out for more actionable tips soon on how finance and accounting teams can find real value in AI in our Applied AI in finance series.
In the meantime, watch the full webinar with Boucher and join the 1 million+ people following him on LinkedIn.
