Use ChatGPT with bank statements and invoices without exposing account numbers

AI is genuinely good at bookkeeping grunt work: categorizing a month of transactions, spotting a duplicate charge, summarizing what a client spent. None of that needs the account number at the top of the statement.

Updated October 16, 2026

What people paste in

• A month of bank or credit card transactions, to categorize for the books or for taxes.
• Vendor invoices and receipts, to pull out totals, GST/HST and due dates.
• A client's statements, to find a missing deposit or explain a fee.
• Payroll exports, to check totals before a run.

Those copies carry card numbers, transit and account numbers, the account holder's name and address, business numbers and sometimes employee SINs. In a regular chat, all of it gets sent and stored on the AI company's servers.

What the AI actually needs

Dates, descriptions, amounts and which account is which. That's it.

The AI can still categorize every line, total by category and say "the duplicate is on #CARD_1". Each account keeps the same hashtag for the whole chat, so nothing gets mixed up.

A workflow that works

1. Export transactions as CSV or copy them from online banking.
2. Paste into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini with Hushtag on. Card numbers, transit and account numbers, SINs, business numbers, names and addresses are swapped for hashtags before the site gets them.
3. Ask for what you need: "Categorize these for a T2125", "Find duplicates", "Total GST paid".
4. Press Alt+Shift+S to see the answer with the real details back in, on your screen only.

Pasting a spreadsheet? Hushtag reads the column headers. A column called "Account", "Card" or "SIN" gets every cell under it hushed.

Honest limits

• Amounts and merchant names go through, because the AI needs them. If a client's spending pattern would identify them on its own, keep that in mind.
• Bare numbers with no label and no recognizable format may not be caught. Glance at the "hushed" note after you paste.
• AI makes arithmetic and categorization mistakes. Check totals before anything goes into the books or a return.
• If you handle client data, your professional body's confidentiality rules still apply. See our guide for accountants.