Close a small firm's month faster without trusting a single unchecked number

The situation

Rizwan is an accountant at a mid-sized trading firm in Lahore. Month-end takes him four days: bank reconciliation, a variance report for the owner, and a pile of supplier queries. He wants to use AI to save time, but one wrong figure in a report to the owner could cost him his job.

Use AI where the words matter and keep every number under your own control. Use only invented or anonymised data throughout.

What you'll be able to show

• Show where AI must not be trusted on figures, with an example you can check
• Use AI to explain and build spreadsheet logic, then verify it by hand
• Draft management commentary from your own numbers and check every figure
• Apply the confidentiality obligations of the profession to AI use

What you need

• Any general AI assistant
• Excel or Google Sheets
• Invented or fully anonymised bank and ledger data, never a real client's

Tasks

1. 1Prove the risk

   Ask the AI for two figures you can check against an official source: a current FBR withholding rate and a current threshold. Record its answers and the official values with the source link and date.
   A correct result: Both answers beside the official figures, with whether each was right, wrong or out of date.

2. 2Build the reconciliation

   Create a bank statement and a cash book of 40 invented rows each, with five deliberate differences (timing, bank charge, duplicate, typo, missing deposit). Ask the AI to explain in words a formula approach to match them, then build it yourself.
   A correct result: A working reconciliation sheet that finds all five differences.

3. 3Verify by hand

   Pick five rows and check the formula's result manually. Write down any row where the formula and your hand check disagree, and fix the formula.
   A correct result: Five rows checked by hand, and either 'all agree' or the fix you made.

4. 4Draft the variance note

   From your own bullet points (three lines that moved, with amounts and reasons), ask the AI for a one-page variance explanation for the owner. Then check every figure in the draft against your working.
   A correct result: The draft with each figure ticked against your working, and any figure the AI changed or invented corrected.

5. 5The confidentiality rule

   Write a half-page firm rule: what client data may never go into a public AI tool, how to anonymise before using one, and what an engagement letter should say about AI use.
   A correct result: A rule a junior could follow, with a list of data that must never be pasted.

6. 6Mechanical or judgement

   List twenty tasks from a real or realistic month-end. Mark each mechanical or judgement, and name the three mechanical tasks you would hand to AI first.
   A correct result: Twenty tasks marked, the proportion stated, and three tasks chosen with a reason.

What to hand in

The checked rates note, the reconciliation workbook, the hand-check record, the ticked variance note, the confidentiality rule and the task list.

How it is marked