Where it helps and where it must not be trusted

Accounting has a property that changes how these tools should be used: a wrong number is not an inconvenience, it is the whole failure.

So the dividing line is this. Use it for language, structure and explanation. Do not use it for arithmetic, and do not use it as the source of a figure.

Where it genuinely helps. Explaining an unfamiliar standard or term. Drafting the narrative sections of a report. Writing the email chasing a payment or explaining a variance. Structuring a schedule or a working paper. Writing a spreadsheet formula from a description. Summarising a long contract to find the clauses with accounting consequences. Drafting a policy or a procedure document. Preparing questions for an audit or a review.

Where it must not be trusted. Any calculation. Any figure it produces about your organisation. Any specific rule, rate or threshold, because these change and it will state an outdated one with complete confidence. Any conclusion about whether a treatment is correct under a specific standard in a specific jurisdiction.

The rate and threshold problem is worth stating twice, because it is the most likely way an accountant gets burned here. Tax rates, filing deadlines, depreciation rules and reporting thresholds change, and a model trained at some point in the past answers from then.

Always verify against the primary source: the standard, the FBR material, the current legislation, or a practitioner.