How to write better financial prompts with ChatGPT 5.1 and build board slides in seconds
I found a ChatGPT tool to improve prompts and build board slides in seconds.
The highest-leverage skill in the age of AI is your ability to write better prompts.
Every company wants to hire someone who can translate business logic into AI-ready instructions.
CFOs, Controllers and FP&A must learn to write better prompts.
And the timing couldn’t be more perfect.
Every few months, OpenAI ships a new version of ChatGPT.
But ChatGPT 5.1 is the first version where CFOs and finance teams immediately feel the difference in workflow speed, depth of reasoning, and reliability. It’s the first version where you stop thinking of AI as a helpful assistant and start seeing it as a second brain for the Office of the CFO.
When you ask about margin pressure, seasonality, cash conversion cycles, operating leverage, unit economics, or working capital risk. ChatGPT 5.1 gives you explanations that suggest it understands operational finance rather than just language.
ChatGPT 5.1 introduces 3 leaps that matter specifically for finance:
1. Precision reasoning on structured financial data
5.1 reads financial statements with the accuracy of a seasoned analyst. Variance calculations, trend detection, allocation logic, and cost-driver interpretation. It no longer drifts or needs babysitting. It behaves like an FP&A manager who has context, memory, and statistical intuition.
2. Multi-step chain-of-thought built for complex workflows
Budgeting, forecasting, reconciliation, board commentary, and scenario analysis.
ChatGPT 5.1 can break workflows into logical stages, keep constraints intact, and deliver the kind of end-to-end reasoning that 5.0 regularly struggled with.
3. A massive leap in consistency and discipline
ChatGPT 5.1 writes finance narratives that actually sound like something you’d send to your CEO or board. It references the correct numbers, stays anchored to data, and crucially avoids hallucinated explanations. You can trust the story it writes. It’s like a trained analyst who follows instructions exactly. JSON formats, bullet structures, templates, and variance rules. it doesn’t break the pattern.
For CFOs managing repeatable workflows, this is the breakthrough.
In today’s letter I’m breaking down how to write better financial prompts and the tool I’m using to get the most out of ChatGPT 5.1. And yes, we put it to the test. I asked 5.1 to build a board slide with variance-driver analysis.
You can see the board slide webpage here. I built this in seconds.
This is the skill you must learn to impress your CEO and colleagues.
Let’s dive in.