I thought I’d give you an example of a prompt I put into VAi in a real life insolvency case whose director came to me for support.
Here it is…
‘I have been asked to advise on the available options for a limited company named Bird Limited, which is facing insolvency. To provide the best advice, I need you to ask me necessary questions about the company’s situation, detailed as follows:
- Bird Limited is experiencing severe cash flow issues and is facing a breach of contract lawsuit from a former customer, with a court date in 2 weeks. The company is low on funds, with just £1,000 in the bank, and cannot afford the £17,000 legal fees required by its lawyers, who have since ceased representation. It’s expected Bird Limited will lose the lawsuit and be unable to pay the £30k owed to the customer.
- Established in 1978, Bird Limited is an engineering firm with an ageing workforce of about 5 employees and outdated machinery valued at £25,000, though expected to fetch less than £15,000 in insolvency. It faces significant redundancy and notice pay liabilities, estimated at £60,000, with stocks and WIP valued at £12,000, expected to realise nil in liquidation.
- The company rents its factory from its parent company, Robin Ltd, and owes £3,000 in rent. Robin owns 100% of Bird Limited’s shares.
- Bird Limited is directed by Mr. Black, who owns 80% of Robin, with the remaining 20% owned by the ill Mr. Trek. Mr. Black is wealthy with no prior insolvency history.
- Bird Limited is owed £40,000 by Wire, another company owned by Mr. Black, but receiving this amount wouldn’t suffice to restore its finances. Mr. Black is unwilling to invest more or guarantee additional borrowing.
- The company has £20,000 in book debts, with £7,000 for incomplete work. It owes £66,000 to trade suppliers, £17,000 to its solicitor, £5,000 in VAT, £11,000 in PAYE/NIC, £2,000 in Corporation Tax, and potentially £30,000 for the breach of contract claim.
- Bird Limited has been unprofitable for years, with bleak future prospects due to its ageing workforce and machinery.
Please ask any clarifying questions to help advise on options for Mr. Black and Bird Limited.’
Do you find the preparation of such a long prompt daunting?
Let me explain why it shouldn’t be, and what happens after you input such a prompt…
Firstly, inputting such a prompt is only the same as preparing a briefing sheet or putting your thoughts together into a coherent structure for a face to face meeting with an insolvency practitioner. And you would expect the IP to ask you all the questions this prompt includes – and more – in that meeting so you would have to have the information ready for them.
All the bot needs is you to write what you think a real IP would need into a Word document in an organised way then upload it as the first prompt. The IP would simply looking for you to explain the circumstances of the company – its ownership, what it does, what its finances look like, what its assets and liabilities are, what outcome are definitely on or not on your radar. And that’s what the bot wants.
Whether you are an accountant looking for advice for your client, or you are the director of the company that is looking for support, you should already much of this information at hand, it’s just a case of ‘writing it down’ in a format that can be easily, and accurately, uploaded to the bot – you see like any IP, the bot likes information to be given it in a structured way.
So what happens next?
Try it, upload the above – or indeed change the facts to yours – to the bot. You’ll see the bot will then ask you a number of questions. Quite how many depends on the circumstances – how complicated the position is generally and what gaps it has in the information it needs.
This is no different from what would happen in a face to face meeting with the IP. Just answer those questions, and at the appropriate time, when the bot has all it needs to know, it will give you its advice, and importantly, that advice will be tailored to the actual circumstances, it will not be meaningless generic advice.
So, in less than the time it takes you to set up a meeting, let alone travel to and from and hold that meeting with the IP, you will have your advice.
And you will have it, or can get it, in a format that you can work with. For example, you can copy the whole trail into a Word document, save it, print it, read it through several times at your convenience so you can really dig deep into the things that really matter.
So is that the end of it?
No. You see, when you do get the first true, meaningful, output from the bot, you can simply carry on, there is no limit to the questions you can ask, the answers it can give!
For example, you can:
- Ask it to format the output in a way that best suits what you intend doing with it. For example, tell it to set it out in an email format, so you can use it to draft an email. Or in bullet or numbered points. Or with headings and subheadings. Or in a table.
- Ask it to list the pros and cons, and processes for each option / issues. This could be set out in a table for ease of comparison.
- Ask it to cite the sections of the law, and the exact words of the law, if you need it. Or to give examples of the case law on a subject, and the decisions in those cases.
- Just typing the words ‘carry on’, ‘explain more’, ‘give me more detail’, indeed any follow up questions you might want to ask the IP in a face to face meeting is possible. Try it.
- Challenge its advice. If you think it’s missed something, tell it. If you think it’s wrong, tell it. If it omits something or gets the advice wrong, it may well be your fault, not the bot’s – your prompt, your dialogue with the bot may not have been up to scratch. Sounds harsh, but it’s true, the skill of effective prompt engineering is one we are all learning.
You see a prompt doesn’t stop at the first statement / question. It is your entire conversation with the bot. It starts at the very beginning of the dialogue, and ends when you decide. And your exchange with the bot should be a conversation, a proper two way exchange like you would have with a real IP.
Oh, and throughout your conversation with VAi, and when you’ve finished, say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at all appropriate stages. It sounds weird to say this to a robot, but it really does react better if it thinks its output, whether that be questioning or the mid-term outputs, are in the right ball-park.
Overall, try it out, play with it, the best results will come with experience.
BTW, as I have done above, do not use any real names in the prompt in order to maintain anonimity.