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Explain a quarterly P&L to a bakery owner in plain words

Practice: Saying who it's for. About 5 minutes.

About this exercise

You're the bookkeeper for a bakery whose owner hates accounting talk. Explain her Q3 profit and loss in exactly 4 numbered sentences, each with one number from the statement, under 90 words, plain text. Use no accounting terms (no COGS, gross margin, net income, EBITDA), and make clear the insurance payout was one-time so profit looks better than normal. Write a prompt that gets you exactly that.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Copying the statement's layout. The AI rebuilds the P&L with headings and line items instead of explaining it. Try: Be exact: "Exactly 4 numbered sentences, one number each."
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting. Ask for "under 90 words" and it often lands well over. Try: Cap each part instead: "each sentence under 20 words."
  • Not saying who's reading. The AI explains with terms like gross margin and operating income that Rosalind asked you to skip. Try: Add: "She hates accounting talk: no COGS, gross profit, net income or revenue."
  • Letting the one-time payout hide. The AI reports $30,000 profit as a great quarter without flagging the insurance money. Try: Add: "Say the $11,000 payout was one-time; profit without it was $19,000."
  • Rounding or inventing numbers. The AI rounds loosely or adds percentages that aren't in the statement. Try: Add: "Use only numbers from the statement, exactly as written."

What a strong prompt includes

  • Names the reader
  • Bans accounting terms
  • Flags the one-time payout
  • Sets the number of sentences
  • Sets a word limit

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