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When a task looks like it will take more than five minutes, take five minutes to ask yourself: Could AI help me with this? Here’s what happened when we put that idea to work.
A company owner received a message from his accountant: a couple of loan payments were missing from QuickBooks.
Tracking down the discrepancies manually could have meant hours spent comparing transactions, checking accounts, and figuring out where things went wrong. Instead, he decided to Take 5.
The Prompt
Sometimes, the simplest prompts are the most effective.
With a year’s worth of loan and checking account transactions downloaded from both the bank and QuickBooks, he uploaded the files to Microsoft 365 Copilot for Business and asked: “My accountant tells me I don’t have some payments recorded right. Find them please.”
No elaborate instructions or complicated prompt engineering. Just a clear task and the data needed to be completed.
In about 90 seconds, Copilot identified the missing payments and found the accounts where the transactions had been incorrectly posted in QuickBooks.
Then it went a step further. It created an Excel spreadsheet documenting the discrepancies and suggesting how to correct them. The spreadsheet was saved to OneDrive, ready for review.
The task had a clear objective: compare transaction records across two sources and identify differences. The information was already available; the challenge was finding the discrepancies without manually reviewing every transaction.
This is a practical example of where AI can help with time-consuming information processing. Rather than checking entries one by one, the business owner used Copilot to compare the data and organize its findings into a format that was easy to review.
The prompt was straightforward, too. He didn’t need a complicated set of instructions or an elaborate prompting technique. He explained the task and supplied the relevant information.
That doesn’t mean every comparison will be this simple. The quality of the source data, the complexity of the task, and the instructions all affect the results. But it does demonstrate an important Take 5 lesson: you don’t have to be an AI expert to start exploring where AI might help.
What Surprised Us
The speed was impressive, but the spreadsheet was an added benefit. Copilot didn’t simply identify potential problems; it organized the findings and suggested possible corrections.
That matters because identifying an issue is only part of the work. The next step is understanding what happened and deciding how to address it. Having the discrepancies documented in one place gave the business owner and accountant a useful starting point. A task that could have taken hours to investigate had a useful starting point in about 90 seconds.
The Human Follow-Up
There was very little back-and-forth with Copilot. The initial request was straightforward, and the results gave the owner what he needed to move forward.
But the process didn’t end when AI delivered the spreadsheet. The accountant verified the findings using the generated file. The suggested corrections still needed to be reviewed before any changes were made in QuickBooks.
AI helped identify the problem. Human expertise helped confirm the results.
That’s the balance we want: let AI do the heavy lifting, but keep people involved in reviewing the work and making the final decisions.
Microsoft 365 Copilot for Business was chosen because the business already operates in the Microsoft ecosystem. The familiarity with security features and integrations matters, especially when handling sensitive information like financial records.
The lesson isn’t that one tool is automatically safe for every task. It’s that choosing an AI tool should be part of the decision, especially when company or customer information is involved. Your organization’s subscription, configuration, approved-use policies, and the tool’s data-handling terms all matter.
Before uploading company information, understand your organization’s AI policies, know which tools are approved, and make sure you understand how your data is handled.
Take 5. Use AI. Keep your guardrails.
AI can be a powerful tool, but not every tool is appropriate for every task or type of data. Before you upload company information, make sure you’re using an approved tool, understand how your data is handled, and follow your organization’s AI policies.
Not sure what’s allowed? Ask your IT team before you upload. And if your organization needs help establishing AI guidelines, OneSource is here to help.
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