AI drafted replies to 3 funders. It buried a $2,847 bill.

Six unread emails. Three were cold funder pitches. The borrowed prompt answered every one.

The $2,847.50 supplier invoice due in five days sat in the middle of the pile like junk mail.

AI Prompts, Reviewed takes one prompt or workflow from How I AI, Claire Vo's show where guests share their screens and walk through how they really use AI. We run it on a small-business job, score it, and tell you what we'd change.

Credit: Based on "How to Use AI to Triage Your Inbox and Draft Email Replies," a workflow from How I AI (hosted by Claire Vo, written up by the ChatPRD team), from Claire Vo's own blind-test episode. Original workflow · Full episode

What the original does

Claire pastes a batch of unread emails into an AI chat and asks it to act as a personal assistant. Summarize the action items. Draft clean replies in her voice: casual but professional, "no em dashes." If someone asks for a meeting, add a calendar-invite placeholder. Review before you send. Tight, useful, and built for a founder who trusts every message in the batch.

The test

We built a composite inbox for a one-truck flooring contractor. Six emails on a Saturday morning. Made-up, real-shaped:

1. Customer: homeowner wants a yes/no on Tuesday's LVP install ($4,200 quote, 800 sq ft kitchen). Needs a real reply.
2. Vendor money: Hardwood Depot invoice INV-4418 for $2,847.50, due Oct 8, 2026 (five days from today). Net-15 materials for last week's job.
3. Funder spam: "pre-approved $85,000" from a cold advance shop.
4. Broker spam: "we saw your filing, quick capital up to $250K."
5. Broker spam: same pitch, different brand, spoofed-looking local number in the signature.
6. Internal: crew lead confirming Monday load-out at 6:30 a.m. No reply needed; just keep it.

Run in the spirit of the original, it did what it was told. Six action items. Six polite drafts, including warm "let's hop on a call" notes to all three funders.

The invoice landed as item #2 on a flat list — no dollar callout, no due-date math. The customer draft was fine. The spam drafts were a gift to the dialers. A merchant inbox is not a peer inbox.

We ran the MCAFax rewrite on the same six. It classified first:

• Customer (reply): Tuesday LVP confirm — draft only.
• Vendor money (pay first): INV-4418, $2,847.50, due Oct 8. Days left: 5. Show the math: due date minus today = 5. Rank #1.
• Spam-solicitation (archive/block, no draft): three funder/broker pitches. List subject + sender. Do not draft. Do not suggest a call.
• Internal (file): Monday 6:30 load-out. No draft.

Ranked do-list: (1) pay or schedule the $2,847.50 by Oct 8, (2) send the customer yes/no, (3) archive and block the three solicitations, (4) note the crew time. Zero replies to funders. Three of six emails never got a draft, on purpose.

Verdict: 7/10

Strengths: clear role, voice constraints, calendar placeholder when a meeting is real. "No em dashes" keeps drafts sounding like you.

Weakness: it treats every email as worth a reply. That burns time and teaches spam that a polite answer is engagement.

Founder tweak: classify before you draft. Never draft a reply to a funder solicitation. Surface every due date and dollar amount with the math shown, then rank money and customers above everything else.

Copy the MCAFax version

This is our own rewrite, not the original prompt. Copy the original from Claire Vo on How I AI

You are triaging my small-business inbox. Paste is a batch of emails. Do not send anything. Do not log into email.

1. Classify each email as exactly one: customer, vendor-money, spam-solicitation, internal, or unclear.

2. Spam-solicitation means broker, funder, MCA, advance, "pre-approved capital," UCC/lead pitches, or cold money offers. For those: list sender + subject only. Say "archive/block." NEVER draft a reply. NEVER suggest a call or meeting.

3. Vendor-money: pull every $ amount and due date. Show days-until-due as (due date − today). Rank unpaid amounts by soonest due date first.

4. Customer: draft one short reply in my voice (casual but professional, no em dashes). If they asked for a meeting, add a calendar-invite placeholder.

5. Internal: one-line note, no draft unless I must answer.

6. Unclear: ask me one question; do not guess.

7. End with a ranked do-list: pay/schedule money first, then customer replies, then archive/block spam, then internal. Show counts (e.g. 3 of 6 are solicitations).

Paste into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini with unread mail. Black out account numbers first.

Before you paste tomorrow's inbox

1. Copy only the unread threads you have not already answered.
2. Run the MCAFax version and check that every invoice dollar and due date matches the PDF.
3. Send the customer draft yourself. Do not auto-send.
4. Archive or block every spam-solicitation row. Do not reply "not interested."
5. Keep a short list of Admin & Paperwork prompts here: MCAFax prompts library

SBA on managing day-to-day money and bills