Last week, one of my female founders told me she was paying her bookkeeper $100 every month just to reconcile her Stripe transactions in Xero. I choked on my coffee!
“Wait, what is she doing for that $100?” I asked.
“She downloads the Stripe reports, and then has to put them in Xero, I actually have no idea.’’
I stared at her. “There is no way that should be manual.”
So here’s a founder paying $1,200 a year for something that takes about 30 minutes (or more) of manual data entry each month. Plus she felt like she couldn’t do it herself because it was complicated.
This is exactly the kind of thing that drives me bananas.
The problem that’s costing you money
Here’s what was happening. Every day, Stripe transactions flow into Xero through the bank feed. But they’d show up as net amounts - so if you sold something for $49 and Stripe took $2.01 in fees, Xero would just see $46.99.
For accounting purposes, you need to record the full $49 as revenue and the $2.01 as an expense. Otherwise, your revenue looks lower than it actually is which sucks when you’re chatting to investors PLUS you have no visibility into what you’re paying in transaction fees.
So every month, the bookkeeper would:
• Download Stripe reports
• Manually create journal entries in Xero
• Split gross sales from fees
• Reconcile everything
• Send an invoice for $100
$100 charge. Every. Single. Month. Sigh….
How my AI prompt changed everything
I knew this could be automated, but I also knew my founder didn’t have the technical background to build it herself. So I did what any good CFO would do - I got creative.
I opened up Claude Code and wrote one prompt that would give her everything she needed to automate this process. I also used a Claude prompt to improve it and make it foolproof.
Here’s what I asked for:
“You are an expert software integration consultant specializing in accounting automation and API integrations. Your task is to design and provide implementation instructions for an automated Stripe-to-Xero reconciliation system.”
Then I gave it all the context:
• Her current situation (manual reconciliation)
• Her budget ($20/month maximum)
• Her accounting requirements (gross sales vs fees)
• What she needed delivered (complete solution, not just advice)
What AI delivered
In about 30 seconds, I had a complete automation solution that included:
How the whole system would work
Exact instructions with code examples
How to connect Xero correctly
The complete process flow
How to run it for under $20/month
What to do when things go wrong
Complete walkthrough for non-technical users
How to make sure it works perfectly
The AI gave me a complete, implementable solution that I could follow step by step.
The results
It took me about 4 hours to craft the perfect prompt and work through the implementation details with. But now I can roll this exact solution out to any founder with the same problem in about 30 minutes.
We got this running ASAP.
Now, on the 3rd of every month, the system automatically:
Pulls data from Stripe
Creates the proper journal entries in Xero
Separates gross sales from fees
Posts everything as drafts for me to review
Total time investment: About 5 minutes per month to review and approve the entries.
Monthly cost: $15 for hosting (get ready - I have a handful of automations I can build included in this fee)
Annual savings: $1,020. BOOM.
Why this is important
Look, I have nothing against bookkeepers, but I’m a stickler for efficiency and adding real value. In today’s world, it just doesn’t make sense to keep doing manually what can be automated. The real value comes from using financial information to make better decisions and grow your business. That’s where our focus needs to be, and bookkeepers need to tech-up, or they’ll risk being left behind.
When you pay someone to handle basic financial processes, you’re not just paying for their time you’re also paying to stay disconnected from how your business truly works.
My mission
I’m on a mission to find as many “complicated” financial tasks as I can and automate them for a fraction of the cost.
The tools exist. The technology is there. What’s missing is someone who understands both the finance side and the practical implementation side to help you put it together.
Want the exact AI prompt I used?
I’ve decided to share the complete AI prompt that saved my founder $1,200 a year with all the context, requirements, and specifications that generated a complete automation solution.
For paid subscribers, I’m including:
The full AI prompt I crafted (copy and paste ready)
The specific context framework that made it work
Tips for adapting it to your own business
A checklist for implementation
Are you ready to stop paying thousands for tasks that could be automated? Want help identifying what in your business could be streamlined? Drop me a message and let’s figure out what you could be automating instead of outsourcing.
Click Subscribe below for the full AI prompt!
