As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create an annual budget for your UK business.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your accounting software, bank records and current price list, then collect the latest revenue, direct cost, payroll, overhead, finance and opening cash figures with their payment dates.
   2. Create a plain spreadsheet with one row per budget item and columns for source, actual monthly figures, forecast monthly figures, payment timing and notes.
   3. Add your UK business type, VAT status, budget period, sales assumptions, planned hires, committed costs, one-off purchases and cash targets to the spreadsheet notes.
   4. Paste the prompt and the completed figures into an AI tool, then ask it to return the monthly budget, annual totals, scenarios and a list of missing inputs.
   5. Compare every calculated total with the source figures and use spreadsheet formulas to recalculate revenue, gross profit, cash movement and closing cash.
   6. Replace any unsupported assumption with a figure or range you can defend, then compare the cautious scenario with your available cash and committed payments.
   7. Ask your accountant to check tax, VAT, payroll and accounting treatment before using the budget for a major funding, hiring or spending decision.

   Prompt

   Create an annual operating budget for my UK business for [budget year], using the information below. Produce a monthly table and annual totals for revenue, direct costs, gross profit, operating costs, payroll, VAT or other tax cash movements where I have supplied figures, financing, net cash movement and closing cash. Separate actual historical figures from assumptions and forecasts. Use only the figures I provide, show the formula or reasoning for each calculated line, and do not invent missing data. If a required input is missing, list it as a question rather than estimating it. Include base, cautious and strong scenarios, with the assumptions that change in each one. Flag anything that needs checking against my accounting records, bank statements, accountant or current GOV.UK guidance. Do not give tax or accounting advice, and do not present this as a statutory set of accounts. End with the five assumptions most likely to change the result and the cash warning signs I should monitor each month.
   
   Business type and VAT status: [details]
   Budget period: [details]
   Opening cash and committed cash reserves: [figures]
   Historical monthly revenue and units sold: [figures]
   Expected prices, customers and sales pipeline: [figures and assumptions]
   Direct costs and supplier terms: [figures]
   Payroll, planned hires and employer costs: [figures]
   Rent, software, insurance, marketing and other overheads: [figures]
   Loans, interest, repayments and other finance: [figures]
   Known one-off purchases or projects: [figures]
   Known payment timings, invoices and seasonal patterns: [details]
   Other constraints or targets: [details]

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.