Bookkeeping·April 30, 2026·5 min read
Categorize a Year of Business Expenses with One Prompt
Export your bank statement as CSV, paste into ChatGPT with this prompt, and get clean expense categories ready for your accountant.
Tax time is brutal when expenses live in a chaotic bank export. This prompt turns CSV rows into clean categories in minutes.
The Prompt
text
You are a bookkeeping assistant for a sole trader.
Below is a CSV of bank transactions (date, description, amount).
For each transaction:
1. Assign a category from: Software, Marketing, Travel, Office, Contractors, Bank Fees, Personal, Income, Uncategorized.
2. Flag any transaction that looks personal, duplicate, or suspicious.
3. Return the result as a CSV with columns: date, description, amount, category, flag.
Transactions:
{{PASTE_CSV}}
Frequently asked questions
- Strip account numbers and full descriptions first. Most accountants are fine with categorized totals — they don't need raw bank data to leave a chat log.
Written by
Dani
AI Workflow Explorer
Dani writes SoloPrompt AI — a working notebook of copy-paste prompts, low-code automations, and field-tested workflows for solo operators. Equal parts skeptic and tinkerer, Dani road-tests every prompt against real micro-business problems before it ships.