Work Smarter, Not Harder: Top 5 AI Prompts Every Finance Professional in Chicago Should Use in 2025

Chicago finance teams can stop treating AI as a buzzword and start using targeted prompts to shave hours off forecasting, speed month‑end close, and produce board‑ready liquidity narratives the same day; local momentum - University of Illinois Chicago Business being featured on NBC for classroom AI projects and an upcoming AI certificate - shows the region is investing in applied skills (NBC Chicago: UIC Business AI feature).

Real-world prompt libraries demonstrate tasks finance pros care about - refresh forecasts, flag GL anomalies, prioritize AR collections - so teams can turn spreadsheets into decisions quickly (Concourse: 30 AI prompts for finance teams).

For hands‑on training, Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (15-week) - Nucamp teaches prompt design and business workflows so finance staff in Illinois can deploy AI safely and practically.

“If I was a 16‑year‑old kid and I needed to start a side hustle to make some money… I'd be all in on large language models like Chat GPT, Gemini, Meta.” - Mark Cuban (quoted in NBC5 Responds)

Selection prioritized prompts that solve high‑impact, Illinois‑specific finance pain points (AR/AP prioritization, month‑end close, FP&A board summaries) and that show measurable ROI in real use - Founderpath's library highlights prompts that

free “20+ hours per week” for teams and cut 4–6 hours from monthly board prep, making time savings a primary filter.

Each candidate prompt was validated against three practical gates: auditability (can outputs be traced, logged, and sampled), governance (human review points and change‑management controls), and accuracy checks; these governance steps follow Deloitte's recommended controls for AI in finance to preserve audit readiness (Deloitte AI governance guidance on FEI Daily).

Finally, prompts were tested for safe, incremental workflows - start small, verify each step, then chain tasks - consistent with DFIN's advice to have models work one step at a time and always require human review for financial reporting outputs (DFIN guidance on stepwise AI prompts for financial reporting).

The result: five prompts chosen because they (1) map directly to Chicago finance workflows, (2) demonstrate verifiable time and cost savings, and (3) meet audit and governance standards that Illinois controllers and CFOs require before scaling.

(Founderpath finance prompts time‑savings article)

Chicago treasurers keen to protect runway can use a “Cash Flow Optimizer” prompt to turn AR/AP aging into immediate collection priorities and safe payment plans: for example, ask the model to “Act as a Sr.

treasury analyst” and produce a validated analytical report showing the top 10 customers most likely to convert to payment while flagging vendors safe to pay “on‑time” or at “+5/+10/+20 days” to preserve working capital - no manual spreadsheet wrestling required (Nilus Cash Flow Optimizer prompt for finance leaders).

Pairing that prompt with an automated reforecast - “Reforecast 13‑week cash flow using recent AR/AP” - lets teams update short‑term liquidity instantly and prioritize collections that extend runway without new financing (Concourse cash reforecast prompt for finance teams).

The practical payoff: attach AR/AP aging and current cash balances, get a ranked action list for collectors and a vendor‑payment heatmap, and free up treasury to negotiate one or two high‑impact fixes instead of hunting line‑by‑line.

“Economic concerns dominate the CFO risk agenda. Inflation, interest rates, and liquidity; global economic slowdown; and local or regional slowdowns are the top three issues.” - Deloitte Insights 2025

Turn a dry P&L into an action plan by prompting an AI to

Act as a VP of Finance

and produce a Monthly KPI Summary that lists revenue, gross margin, OPEX, EBITDA and bulletized variance drivers versus plan - attach the current month's P&L and forecast variances for specificity and get an executive-ready narrative plus suggested next steps in minutes, not days (Nilus monthly KPI summary AI prompt).

In Chicago, that means FP&A can surface local receivables or cost pressures and hand leadership a one-page story with top three risks and recommended actions - enough to shave roughly 4–6 hours from monthly board prep when paired with a clear variance template and reviewer checks.

Focus KPIs on profitability, liquidity, and forecast accuracy (Workday's FP&A metrics map shows which KPIs drive decisions) and consider routing the AI output through an FP&A platform for automated visuals and drilldowns (Workday FP&A top metrics and KPI guide; Concourse AI prompts for finance teams and automation).

The result: a concise monthly snapshot that turns numbers into prioritized actions for collectors, ops, and the CFO.

CFOs can use a “Board Deck Generator” prompt to auto-build a one‑slide executive summary and a templated deep‑dive slide - attach recent KPI dashboards and the last board slides and the model will output a sub‑200‑word executive summary, 5–7 decision‑focused KPIs, cash runway, burn rate, and the top financial risks ready for the pre‑read (Nilus Board Deck Generator prompt for finance leaders; recommended files: KPI dashboards, prior board decks).

This approach mirrors best practice playbooks that put the big picture first and reserve meeting time for strategy: keep the pre‑read concise, surface ARR and runway for investor conversations, and highlight 3 actionable asks so boards can act rather than review (Abacum guide to board reporting that drives decisions; Mosaic 15‑minute board deck preparation guide).

The practical payoff for Chicago CFOs: cut slide‑prep from days to minutes, deliver a consistent template each quarter, and free board time for forward‑looking decisions instead of step‑by‑step number review.

Turn a static AR aging report into an action plan by prompting AI to score invoices by age, likelihood-to-pay, and customer risk, then output a ranked collection queue with suggested contact method and a tailored payment‑plan script; attach the aging file or use a ready‑to‑use template to speed setup (HighRadius AR aging Excel template for accounts receivable aging) and rely on proven aging buckets to prioritize work (HubiFi guide to accounts receivable aging and prioritization).

For teams that still use spreadsheets, auto‑bucket and summarize in Excel (formulas and pivot examples here) before feeding results to the model so outputs remain auditable (Journal of Accountancy: dynamic accounts receivable aging in Excel).

Why it matters: older buckets carry much higher uncollectibility (example benchmarks range from mid‑teens to ~50% for 61–90 and 90+ day invoices), so smart triage directly reduces bad‑debt provisioning and frees cash for operations - faster, risk‑controlled outreach replaces blanket emailing and cuts wasted collector time.

“You can't fix what you can't measure. With this toolkit, you'll learn how to take raw data, interpret it, and effectively communicate what it means for your business.” - Versapay

Controllers running month‑end in Illinois can turn a chaotic sprint into a repeatable, auditable workflow by combining a clear checklist with front‑loaded work and targeted automation: gather and pre‑stage receipts, invoices, and GL detail before period end; reconcile cash and subledgers first; validate revenue recognition and accruals with contract schedules; then produce statements and require an independent final review for sign‑off (HighRadius month‑end close checklist).

Aim for a disciplined cadence - many guides recommend finishing the close within 5–10 days (and top teams compress to 1–2 days by pre‑closing and automating repeat tasks) (Prophix 10‑step month‑end close checklist best practices; Zenskar month‑end close process improvements).

One concrete control to adopt: set materiality thresholds (e.g., investigate variances over 0.5% of a balance or $10K) so reviewers focus on exceptions, not every line item - shorter close, fewer surprises, and audit‑ready books for tax and board deadlines.

Start small in Chicago: pilot one high‑value prompt (AR‑aging triage or the month‑end checklist) against real files, log decisions for auditability, and measure time saved - teams have reported shaving 4–6 hours from monthly board prep when prompts are paired with reviewer checks; if results are reliable, lock the workflow into approved tooling and scale across departments.

For secure pilots, use campus‑approved environments - see the University of Illinois Chicago AI resources and Microsoft 365 Copilot guidance for approved GenAI environments for non‑public university data (UIC AI resources and Microsoft 365 Copilot guidance) - and require human sign‑offs on financial outputs.

When ready to scale, invest in practical skills so staff design prompts and governance consistently: Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work is a 15‑week, workplace‑focused program that teaches prompt writing and safe deployment (early bird $3,582; Nucamp AI Essentials for Work (15-week) - registration).

Pilot, secure, scale - repeat with clear KPIs, audit trails, and training to turn one‑off wins into dependable, compliant productivity gains.

Step: Pilot - Action: Run one prompt (AR aging or month‑end), attach files, log outputs and reviewer notes - Resource: AR/Month‑end prompt examples from the internal playbook (see earlier sections).

Step: Secure - Action: Use approved environments; require human review and audit traces - Resource: University of Illinois Chicago AI resources and Microsoft 365 Copilot guidance (UIC AI resources and Copilot guidance).

Step: Scale - Action: Train staff on prompt design, governance, and chaining workflows - Resource: Nucamp AI Essentials for Work (15 weeks) course and registration (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work - register).