AI charges rarely show up as one line that says “AI.” They hide on personal cards, in expense reports, and as seats nobody asked for. Twenty minutes is enough to get a list you can act on. This is the method. It is not a dump of anyone’s real bill.

How the charges pile up

A typical 25-person office has more than one place money leaves. The owner’s card. An office manager’s card. Someone expensing ChatGPT Plus. A free trial that converted. A yearly charge that looks small until you divide it by 12. Two tools that do the same job.

You don’t need last year’s totals. Three months of card and expense lines is enough to see the pattern.

The keep / cut rule

For each tool, pick the first call that matches. Don’t skip ahead to a friendlier one.

  1. If you don’t know how much it’s used, Find out.
  2. If nobody uses it, Cut.
  3. If fewer than half the seats are used, Cut seats.
  4. If it does the same job as another tool on the list, Consolidate.
  5. If you pay for premium features nobody uses, Downgrade.
  6. Otherwise, Keep.

The order matters. “We might use it later” is not a call. If you don’t know, it’s Find out: one question, one person who probably knows.

A 20-minute path

  1. Export card and expense lines, or copy the last 90 days from the places you pay.
  2. Remove card numbers, account numbers, and employee names. Roles are fine.
  3. Paste the lines into your business AI account with the audit prompt.
  4. Read the table. Act on Cut and Cut seats this month. Put a name on every Find out.

The prompt also flags charges that look like a personal account used for work. Those belong on a company login, or they belong off the work.

If you want a worked table, the audit prompt page has a sample built from six made-up lines. Those dollar amounts are not a benchmark.

Start here: Audit my AI subscriptions.