How ChatGPT Can Catch Errors in Your General Ledger (for Home Builders)

Introduction

Keeping accurate books is critical for every home builder, but digging through a messy general ledger is the last thing most owners want to do. In a recent video, Jon Markee, your Builder CPA, demonstrates how you can use a simple ChatGPT prompt to turn AI into a “senior financial analyst” that scans your general ledger and flags potential errors for your team to review. In this blog post, we’ll walk through how this works and why it can be a game-changer for your construction business.

What Your General Ledger Really Shows

Most builders are familiar with basic QuickBooks reports like the Profit & Loss or Balance Sheet, but fewer regularly look at the general ledger.

The general ledger is the detailed list of every transaction in your books over a given period, grouped by account. It shows:

• Which accounts were affected

• Dates and amounts

• References like check numbers and memos

In Jon’s example, he pulls a year-to-date 2025 general ledger from QuickBooks. This gives him a complete picture of all activity for the year, perfect for a detailed review.

Exporting Your General Ledger from QuickBooks

To get started, you don’t need anything fancy. Inside QuickBooks:

1. Go to Reports

2. Search for or select General Ledger

3. Set the date range (for example, Year-to-Date)

4. Run the report

5. Export it to Excel

Now you’ve got a file that includes every transaction grouped by account for the period you want to review.

Turning ChatGPT into Your “Senior Financial Analyst”

Jon doesn’t just upload the file to ChatGPT and hope for the best, he uses a specific prompt that tells ChatGPT to act as a senior financial analyst.

The instructions he gives to ChatGPT include things like:

• Review the entire general ledger

• Identify potential errors

• Look for missing or strange information

• Flag transactions that may be posted to the wrong account

• Highlight anything that doesn’t make sense and explain why

Then he uploads the exported general ledger file and asks:

“Can you please identify potential errors? This could include, but is not limited to, transactions that have missing information, transactions that are booked to the wrong account, transactions that don’t make sense, or any other criteria you believe is wrong. Can you please list the transactions that look incomplete and/or wrong?”

ChatGPT then analyzes the data and returns tables that show which transactions may have issues and why they were flagged.

The Types of Issues AI Can Help You Catch

In Jon’s demo, ChatGPT identifies several common problem areas that often show up in builder books, including:

• Transactions posted to placeholder accounts

  • For example, items hitting Opening Balance Equity that really should be cleaned up or reclassified.

• Duplicate reference numbers

  • These may indicate double-entry of a check, bill, or payment.

• Positive amounts in expense accounts

  • These can be signs of refunds, mis-postings, or entries that should be coded differently.

• Zero or blank amounts

  • Incomplete entries that may need to be corrected or deleted.

• Missing check numbers or key references

  • Especially important for tracking payments and maintaining clean audit trails.

• Negative amounts where they don’t belong

  • These can signal reversals, refunds, or corrections that weren’t recorded properly.

ChatGPT even labels some of these as “high signal issues”, the ones your team should prioritize first.

Why This Is So Helpful for Your Accounting Team

The goal isn’t to replace your accountant or bookkeeper, it’s to give them a powerful review tool.

With this process, you can:

• Hand your team a shortlist of likely issues instead of asking them to hunt through thousands of lines.

• Focus your accountant’s time on fixing and analyzing, not just digging.

• Improve the quality of your financial reports faster and more consistently.

Jon even has ChatGPT do one more thing:

He asks it to draft an email to the lead accountant summarizing what it found. The email highlights:

• The kinds of issues identified

• Specific transactions or accounts to review

• Why these items matter

That way, your accountant gets a clear, professional message along with a structured list of potential problems to fix.

How Home Builders Can Use This in Practice

If you’re a builder using QuickBooks, you can adapt this workflow:

1. Run and export your General Ledger (for the month, quarter, or year).

2. Use a clear prompt in ChatGPT telling it to act as a senior financial analyst.

3. Upload the file and ask it to identify potential errors or unusual transactions.

4. Review the tables and explanation it provides.

5. Have ChatGPT draft an email to your bookkeeper or CPA summarizing the issues.

6. Work with your accountant to correct and clean up the general ledger.

You still need professional oversight, but now your team has a powerful helper that never gets tired of scanning rows of data.

Conclusion

Using ChatGPT as a “senior financial analyst” won’t replace your accountant, but it can make your reviews faster, more thorough, and more focused. By exporting your general ledger from QuickBooks and letting AI flag potential issues, you give your financial team a head start on cleaning up your books and improving the accuracy of your reports.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of this process, watch the video where Jon Markee, your Builder CPA, demonstrates exactly how he uses this prompt with a sample QuickBooks file.

By combining smart tools like ChatGPT with a knowledgeable accountant, you can keep your books tighter, your reports clearer, and your business better prepared for growth.