Document Your AI ROI Before Your Accountant Asks
The Departure
My accountant emailed me Tuesday. Three words: "Need 2025 expenses." If you're an SME owner or solo sales pro, that email is coming for you too - if it hasn't already. Here's the problem: your AI subscriptions are sitting in your expenses as line items with zero context. ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Perplexity - just numbers on a credit card statement. That's a missed opportunity. Tax season is the perfect moment to document the business value those tools delivered, both for deductions and for your own clarity on what's actually working.
The Co-Pilot
Tool: Claude
The Use Case: Generate a tax-ready AI expense summary that documents business purpose and estimated value delivered - ready to send to your accountant or attach to your records.
The Prompt: "I need to document my AI tool expenses for tax purposes. Help me create a summary that shows business use and value.
Here are my AI subscriptions from 2025:
[TOOL 1]: $[ANNUAL COST] - Used for [PRIMARY BUSINESS PURPOSE]
[TOOL 2]: $[ANNUAL COST] - Used for [PRIMARY BUSINESS PURPOSE]
[TOOL 3]: $[ANNUAL COST] - Used for [PRIMARY BUSINESS PURPOSE]
For each tool, provide:
Business Category - Is this Research, Marketing, Sales Enablement, Operations, or Admin?
Deductibility Notes - Brief guidance on how this qualifies as a business expense
Estimated Value Delivered - Based on time saved (assume $75/hour for professional work), estimate the annual dollar value this tool generated
Then create a one-page summary I can share with my accountant that includes:
Total AI spend for 2025
Total estimated value delivered
ROI multiple (value / spend)
A 2-sentence statement on how these tools support my business operations
Keep the language professional and factual - this is for tax documentation, not marketing."
The Upgrade
Topic: The 20-Minute AI Expense Audit for Tax Season
Pull your subscriptions - Export your credit card or bank statements for 2025. Search for recurring charges from OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Jasper, and any other AI tools. List each one with the annual total and what you actually used it for. Most SMEs find $1,500-3,000 in annual AI spend hiding across multiple cards.
Document business purpose - For each tool, write one sentence on the specific business task it supported. "Prospect research and sales email drafting" beats "general productivity." Your accountant needs to see clear business use. If you used a tool for both personal and business, estimate the split and document only the business portion.
Calculate your ROI story - Run your list through the Co-Pilot prompt. The output gives you documented value that turns a $200/month expense into a "$4,800 investment that generated $50K+ in time value." That framing matters - both for your records and for budget conversations with partners, boards, or yourself.
The Landing
Your task today: Open your bank statement and find one AI subscription you paid for in 2025. Write down what you used it for in one sentence. That's the hardest part - the rest is just math.
Safe Travels,
Marcellus