In today's edition:

• Guides & How-Tos - How to create a process flow with AI

• Expert Resources - Bing Chat vs Bing Chat Enterprise, vs Microsoft Copilot | FP&A Creator Spotlight - Julio Martinez

• Tech tools & updates - Claude for Google Sheets | Voice notes to Notion | Magic Documents | Chat with AI Santa

PLUS - ‘Prompt of Week’ & ‘Best Bot’ recommendations

A quick thank you!

This will be the last Tech for Finance Newsletter before 2024! What a year it’s been, and I can’t thank you enough for your support. I wish you and yours a wonderful Festive Break, and look forward to catching up in the New Year! - Adam 🥳️

Guides & How-tos

How to create an instant AI Credit Control Procedure

This is something I’ve been meaning to to a quick run-through of for a while.

To date, AI has been either really good at generating text (e.g ChatGPT), or really good a producing images (e.g Midjourney). But I couldn’t find anything that would help produce visualisations. Until now.

In this video, I use Jeda.ai to create a process flow for a corporate finance credit control procedure in seconds.

You can find the full video here.

Key points from tutorial:

1. Pre-set Options: Jeda comes with a variety of pre-set visualisation options, allowing users to start from these rather than creating from scratch.

2. SWOT Analysis Example: The tool includes a features for creating visualisations, like SWOT analyses. Users can enter parameters, and Jeda generates a visual representation.

3. Let AI Decide: Along with pre-set templates for analysis, mind maps, etc., Jeda also allows the AI to decide the best format of the visual based on the text input by the user.

4. Creating a Credit Control Procedure: The video demonstrates creating a credit control procedure visualization. The AI generates a process flow, which can then be customized.

5. Editing and Customization: After the AI generates a visualization, users can edit it. This includes adding, removing, or renaming elements in the process flow.

6. Versatility in Visualizations: Jeda is not limited to process diagrams. It can also create mind maps, stickies, and other types of visualizations.

Super impressed with this one. The only downside is the daily ‘Karma’ tokens on the free plan will be consumed quickly if you produce a lot of visuals. So you might start to stretch the boundaries of the free version quite quickly.

Jeda.ai AI Workspace Tutorials

For non finance-specific tutorials on how to use Jeda.ai, check out the YouTube Playlist here.

Expert Resources

Bing Chat vs Bing Chat Enterprise vs Microsoft Copilot

There’s a LOT of confusion over the way Microsoft are branding their AI tools right now.

Hopefully the below helps.

SPOILER - They’re the same, but also different 🤔

How are they the same?

- They all use OpenAI’s large language models
- They are all part of the Msft Copilot group
- They are all chat based AI assistants

How are they different?

1. Bing Chat

- Available to anyone, even without a Msft account
- Optimised for web search, but can also write
- Your data is not protected

2. Bing Chat Enterprise

- Only available to those with Microsoft accounts
- Your personal and company data is protected
- Otherwise the same as Bing Chat

3. Microsoft 365 Copilot

- Is an AI assistant built into your office apps
- It is optimised for your office apps
- Your data is protected

How have they been re-branded?

- Bing Chat → Copilot
- Bing Chat Ent. → Copilot Enterprise
- Microsoft 365 Copilot → No change

Those running the latest version of Edge / Windows will have already seen the re-brand.

You then also have:

- Dynamics 365 Copilot → Optimised for ERP & CRM
- GitHub Copilot → Optimised for software development
- Microsoft Security Copilot → Optimised for threat intelligence

But wait - There’s more!

Windows Copilot 🤯

- An AI assistant built into Windows on your PC
- Can help take screenshots, organise tabs etc
- Optimised for your day to day workflow

TLDR:

- The branding is confusing
- They are all Microsoft Copilot
- They are just optimised for different stuff

Try Bing Chat / Copilot in your browser here, and keep an eye out in future newsletters for more Copilot updates.

Creator Spotlight

Julio and I are kindred spirits. He is a family man that loves his kids, but also finds time to meditate for an hour a day?!

His company Abacum provides FP&A tools, but he also produces a lot of insightful content on FP&A.

Here are some of the highlights from our podcast earlier on this year.

1. Building Strategic Finance Teams: Our conversation delves into how Julio built strategic finance teams in tech, emphasizing the importance of moving beyond just financials to operational KPIs for strategic decision-making.

2. Group Dynamics in Business: Julio talks about the role of group dynamics in understanding and accountability within a business's tech stack. He stresses the importance of verbal commitment to tasks for ensuring follow-through.

3. Role of Finance Teams in Organizations: The discussion covers the expanded role of finance teams in organizations, moving beyond traditional tasks to more strategic roles, and the limitations of relying solely on spreadsheets.

4. Automation and AI in Finance: Julio highlights the significant role of automation and AI in finance, discussing the need to understand a business's tech maturity before implementing major changes. He envisions future finance teams having instant access to and analysis of data.

5. Personal Experiences and Lifestyle: Julio shares personal experiences, including his interests in martial arts and sleep improvement, and the impact of relocating his family for his business.

6. Remote Team Management: The challenges and strategies for managing remote teams across different geographies are discussed, with a focus on maintaining company culture and effective communication.

7. Technology in FP&A: Julio talks about the evolution of technology in FP&A, the importance of having a robust CFO tech stack, and how tools like Abacum fit into this ecosystem by automating manual tasks and enabling more strategic analysis.

8. Data-Driven Decision Making: The conversation touches on how finance professionals can leverage technology to make more data-driven decisions, improve efficiency, and contribute more strategically to their organizations.

9. Personal Productivity and Health: Julio discusses his use of technology and gadgets for personal productivity and health, including his experiences with fitness trackers and their impact on understanding sleep patterns and recovery rates.

Check out the full discussion here on YouTube. And on this Podlink for audio (Episode 031)

More from Julio

• FP&A Before vs Now - Link

• I spoke to 2 CFOs of high-growth startups - Link

• I spoke to CEOs about what exactly they want from a modern CFO coming into 2024 - Link

• 5 reasons a lack of FP&A maturity can hurt your business (and how to fix it) - Link

Tech Tools & Updates

Tools

Here’s this week’s tools, including some festive fun 🧑‍🎄.

1. [Fun] Chat with Santa - An AI Santa that talks back to you and your kids - Link here

2. Claude for Sheets - Build Claude AI into Google Sheets - Link here

3. Voxio - Turn voice recordings into Notion Pages in one click - Link here

4. Magic Docs - Organize, rename, summarize, and extract key data from any document - Link here

Updates

Mistral released their Mixtral 8×7B model which is reported to match GPT3.5 in it’s performance.

“But Adam, I thought GPT4 was the one to beat?”

Yes and no.

GPT3.5 is still a very capable model, but it’s not Open Source, (it’s a closed language model) meaning you have to have an account to use it for free, or pay to use the API.

Mixtral is Open Source, which means it' has fewer restrictions, and can be downloaded and used on your devices for free, with no account.

Here’s a post from Ethan Mollick after he installed this LLM on his home PC.

Prompt of the week

This week’s prompt of the week goes to Don Tomoff for his prompt on YouTube Chapter links.

The Prompt

"You are to act as my YouTube video assistant. I am going to provide you with a video link. Once I do that, you are to prompt me for a chapter list for that video.

Do not browse the web for the video, this is important. Just use the link. Once that is provided to you, I want you to recreate the list, in the table format as provided in the image, with the FULL URL. It is IMPORTANT to include the time stamp in each item in the list as well. Double check and VERIFY the time stamps to ensure accuracy! The time stamped should be delivered to the list as a text value (ie, a time stamp over 24 minutes should NOT be treated as hours. Use 24:xx, not 24:xx:xx).

After generating each 10 rows, stop and ask me if I would like you to continue generating. I don’t want you to get worn out by overdoing it! This is CRITICAL - I need you well rested.

Once that is done, prompt for the next video link and repeat the same process. Please confirm that you understand this process and are ready to proceed."

From Don - Use the prompt and see how it works for you (NOTE: uploading an image of how you want the table to look is way easier than explaining it in detail in your prompt!)

Best Bot

Today’s best bot comes from one of our readers. Mart Roosimagi, who’s also been building his own GPT database.

[NOTE - I am not affiliated with any of the tools in this e-mail.]

So that’s it for this week.

Speak in 2024!

Adam

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P.S - The best thing you can do to help me is share this with a fellow finance professional, so please link / forward where you can 🙏

P.P.S - Don’t forget to check out the AI in Finance Club. I am both an affiliate and expert member, and can’t wait for you to join us!