Use ChatGPT as a brewery's junior analyst: upload monthly P&Ls and sales data and ask it to play CFO
Michael Perozzo, co-founder and CMO of Vice Beer, a brewery in Vancouver, Washington making roughly 900 barrels a year, in Brewer Magazine
He uploaded monthly profit-and-loss statements into ChatGPT and asked it to review three months of data for trends. He now often asks it to take on the role of his CFO and hold him accountable on spending and payroll, and has refined his prompts over several months to get consistent reports. He also feeds it wholesale invoices, production numbers and retail sales to track sales channels and monthly KPIs and to weigh production decisions, and used it to flag clauses and questions in a long operating agreement before meeting his attorney.
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The problem
At about 900 barrels a year, Vice Beer can't afford a full-time CFO or regular consultants, and he wanted a second look at what he was missing in the numbers.
What happened
He says he was "absolutely blown away" by the trends it spotted that he hadn't noticed. In one case it pointed out that seven barrels of a Saison would tie up 15 kegs for five to six months, an opportunity cost nobody had raised. It has fed into pricing discussions, sales goals and KPI tracking, but he says every recommendation still needs human judgment about the local market. He refuses to use it for recipes or major branding. No dollar figures are given.
Quoted in the source: Michael Perozzo, co-founder and CMO, Vice Beer. Source: Brewer Magazine: Treat AI Like Your Brewery's Junior Analyst, Not Its CEO (2026-07-13) · Added 2026-10-17.
How to set it up yourself
- What Vice Beer does: Michael Perozzo uploads monthly P&L statements, wholesale invoices, production numbers and retail sales into ChatGPT, asks it to act as his CFO, and keeps refining the same prompts so the reports stay consistent.
- In ChatGPT, select New project in the sidebar, name it "Monthly numbers" and paste the prompt below under ••• > Project settings as the instructions.
- Each month, export the last three months of P&L from your accounting software (and a sales-by-channel report if you have one), remove bank account numbers, and upload them to a new chat in the project.
- Check every figure it quotes against the statements before you act on it, and treat pricing or sales advice as a question for your own market, not an answer. For contracts, use it to list questions for your lawyer, not to replace the lawyer.
Copy-paste prompt
Act as the CFO of {BUSINESS NAME}, a {TYPE, e.g. small brewery with a taproom and wholesale accounts} in {CITY}. Review the attached P&L statements for {MONTHS} and any sales or production data. List the three biggest trends, any line where we're spending more than {BENCHMARK, e.g. payroll over 30% of sales}, and decisions I should make this month. For any new product idea I mention ({IDEA}), list the costs and what it ties up (cash, kegs, tank or shelf space, staff time) and for how long. Quote the figure you're using for every point.One short email a day: 3 new AI use cases from real small businesses, each with its source and setup steps, plus a Tool of the Day. Free, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Tools used
ChatGPT
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