AI Back Office for Small Business
Get client details, receipts and bills in without retyping, track orders and pipeline live, and collect what you are owed sooner.
Who it’s for: Owners, office managers and bookkeepers at small businesses who handle intake, bills, invoices and month-end themselves.
Why this course
In a small business the back office is often one person, and most of their week is copying: client details from email into a spreadsheet, receipts into the books, invoice totals into reminders, bank lines into a reconciliation. Every copy is a chance for a typo, and the late invoices are the ones nobody had time to chase.
This course follows the money from the first client form to month-end. You collect client details in one form, pull receipts and invoices out of your inbox with an approval step, check a payment request for fraud before you pay, track purchase orders and live pipeline numbers, then chase overdue invoices and reconcile the bank account.
The payoff: fewer hours of data entry, fewer mistakes and cash in sooner. Each module uses the tool that fits that job, and every practice uses made-up data.
- Module 1 · Stepthrough · Beginner · ~2 min
Start Here: How Stepthrough Works
Welcome to Stepthrough: you learn AI by doing it, on practice copies of real app screens, free and with no risk to your real accounts. Your first practice takes under two minutes.
- Module 2 · Jotform · Intermediate · ~6 min
Get Every New Client's Details in One Place using Jotform AI
Describe a client intake form to Jotform AI, fix it with Form Copilot, add a show/hide rule in plain words, and copy the link to send to new clients.
- Module 3 · n8n · Intermediate · ~12 min
AI Receipt Extractor
Receipts pile up in photos, email attachments and the bottom of a bag. Typing the date, the store and the total into a spreadsheet one at a time is slow, and one slipped digit means the books do not match the card statement at month-end.
- Module 4 · n8n · Advanced · ~14 min
Invoices from Your Inbox to Google Sheets, with Approval
Vendor invoices arrive as PDFs. Someone copies the vendor, invoice number and total into a spreadsheet by hand, then chases the owner for a yes on the big ones. It is slow, typos slip in, and a large invoice can get paid because nobody asked.
- Module 5 · Claude · Beginner · ~7 min
Stop a Fake Vendor Bank-Change Request Before You Pay using Claude
A bookkeeper gets an urgent email from a vendor she knows: "we changed banks, pay today to the new account." Then a voicemail that sounds like the owner says the same thing. AI makes the email flawless and the voice easy to fake, so it no longer looks like a scam.
- Module 6 · SunSed · Beginner · ~12 min
SunSed: Build a Purchase Order Tracker App by Describing It
A small office usually tracks purchase orders in email threads and one shared spreadsheet. Nobody owns the list, so a vendor that runs late is found out after the deadline, and chasing orders eats a few hours every week.
- Module 7 · Coefficient · Beginner · ~12 min
Coefficient: Pull Live Pipeline Data into Google Sheets and Auto-Refresh It Daily
Many sales managers copy the team pipeline into the weekly report by hand. It eats an hour or more every Monday, the numbers are out of date by Tuesday, and a deal at the wrong stage can reach the owner.
- Module 8 · ChatGPT · Intermediate · ~4 min
Get a Morning Invoice Summary in Slack using ChatGPT Dots
Set up a ChatGPT dot to check Gmail for new invoice emails and post one summary to Slack every weekday morning. A 7-step practice based on OpenAI's published screens.
- Module 9 · ChatGPT · Beginner · ~12 min
Collect Overdue Invoices Faster using ChatGPT
Late invoices are cash you already earned. Most small firms know it, and still the chasing happens in bursts, when someone has a free hour and an aging report open. Who do you write to first? How firm should each note be? The oldest, biggest invoice should not wait behind a friendly nudge.
- Module 10 · ChatGPT · Beginner · ~12 min
ChatGPT: Month-End Bank Reconciliation in 20 Minutes, Not 3 Hours
The month-end bank reconciliation is where small mistakes hide. A deposit that never made it into the books, a bank fee nobody recorded, a bill entered twice, a check still in the mail. Matching forty rows against forty rows by eye takes an hour, and it is easy to tick a row that does not really match.
- Module 11 · Foxit · Beginner · ~10 min
Review a Client Contract in 10 Minutes using Foxit AI
Skimmed contracts hide auto-renewals, late fees and liability caps. Upload one to Foxit Workspace, get a plain-English summary and every renewal and exit date, check them against the PDF, and hand your boss a one-page watch list.
- Module 12 · Foxit · Beginner · ~8 min
Foxit PDF Editor: Fill and Sign a Form without Printing
Clients, banks, landlords and HR send PDF forms that must come back signed, and most are flat: you cannot type in them. Printing, signing and scanning is slow at the desk and impossible on the road, and a vendor form that waits means an invoice that waits.
Questions about this course
Is AI Back Office for Small Business free?
Yes. All 12 modules of AI Back Office for Small Business are free, and you can start module 1 without signing up.
How long does AI Back Office for Small Business take?
About 2 hours of hands-on practice across 12 modules, beginner to advanced. Each module takes 2 to 14 minutes, so you can do one at a time.
Which tools will I practice in?
Jotform, n8n, Claude, SunSed, Coefficient, ChatGPT and Foxit. You practice in a copy of each tool's real screens that checks every step, so nothing touches your real accounts, and no coding is needed.
Who is AI Back Office for Small Business for?
Owners, office managers and bookkeepers at small businesses who handle intake, bills, invoices and month-end themselves.
Where do I start?
Start with module 1, Start Here: How Stepthrough Works. The modules are in order, so each one builds on the last.