Natural Language Q&A in Slack

What is this page about: how to connect the Light Slack integration (sometimes called the Light Slack bot, Light Slack Q&A, or natural language Q&A in Slack), how to talk to it, what kinds of financial questions it can answer, and what it can't.

Ask Light about your company's finances right from Slack, in plain language, and get an answer in seconds. Here's how to set it up and get the most out of it.

On this page

• Set up Light in Slack
• Ask a question
• What you can ask
• Tips for talking to Light
• What you can see
• What Light's answers look like
• When to use the web app instead
• Privacy and security
• Fix a problem
• Related articles

# Set up Light in Slack

1. In Light, open Settings (gear icon) → Integrations.
2. Select Slack from the list of integrations.
3. Slack opens and asks you to authorise Light for your workspace. Confirm the authorisation.
4. Light adds its bot to your Slack workspace. You can now message it directly or mention it in any channel you've added it to.

# Ask a question

1. Send Light a direct message, or mention @Light in a channel.
2. Type your question in plain language, the way you'd ask a colleague.
3. Light replies with an answer. In a channel, it replies in a thread so it doesn't clutter the conversation.

In a direct message, Light keeps track of your conversation for about an hour, so you can ask follow-up questions without repeating context. In a channel thread, mentioning @Light pulls in up to the last 100 messages in that thread, so Light can use the surrounding discussion to answer.

# What you can ask

Light answers questions about spending, payables, receivables, and cash, for example:

Spending and expenses

• "What did we spend on travel last month?"
• "Show me top vendors by spending in Q4"
• "Which departments exceeded budget?"

Payables and receivables

• "How much do we owe Acme Corp?"
• "What invoices are outstanding?"
• "Show me overdue bills"

Cash and liquidity

• "What's our current cash balance?"
• "Days of cash on hand"
• "Upcoming cash obligations"

Reports and summaries

• "Monthly spending summary"
• "Budget vs actual"
• "Reconciliation status"

Light understands variations on these, so you don't need to match the exact wording above.

# Tips for talking to Light

Talk to Light the way you'd ask a colleague, with no special commands or syntax needed. A few habits will get you sharper answers faster.

Ask in plain language. Type your question however it comes naturally. Light reads the meaning, not keywords, so "travel spend last month," "how much did we spend on travel in March," and "what were our travel costs recently" all get you to the same place. There's no wrong way to phrase it.

Be specific when it matters. The more you pin down, the more precise the answer. Where you can, include:

• A time period: "last month," "in Q4," "year to date," "between January and March."
• An entity or department: "for the US entity," "marketing's spend," "just the sales team."
• A vendor, account, or category: "with Acme Corp," "software subscriptions," "office supplies."

"What did marketing spend on travel in March?" will always beat "how's our spending?"

Let Light handle the dates. You can use relative dates and let Light do the math. Ask for "last month," "this quarter," or "year to date" and Light works out the exact range from today's date. If a time period is ambiguous, Light asks you to confirm rather than guessing, so you won't get a silently wrong answer.

Have a back-and-forth. You don't have to fit everything into one question. In a direct message, Light remembers your conversation for about an hour, so you can drill down with follow-ups such as "now break that down by vendor," "just the US entity," or "how does that compare to last quarter?", without repeating context each time. In a channel, keep the conversation in the thread and mention @Light again; it reads up to the last 100 messages in that thread to follow along.

Nudge it if the answer's off. If the first reply isn't quite what you wanted, rephrase with more specific terms, add a time period, entity, or department, or use the exact category name from Light instead of a general word. A small nudge usually gets it there.

Use names Light knows. Light answers about the vendors, accounts, entities, and categories that exist in your Light data. If a question comes back empty, double-check you're using the same name that appears in Light rather than an informal nickname.

Keep sensitive questions in a DM. Anything you'd rather not have sitting in shared channel history is better asked in a direct message with @Light than in a channel.

# What you can see

Light only answers using financial data you already have permission to view in Light. Answers are scoped to your company's data. If you ask something Light can't confirm you have access to, it declines rather than guesses.

If a question is sensitive, ask it in a direct message with @Light rather than in a shared channel, to keep it out of your channel history.

# What Light's answers look like

Light keeps Slack replies short and readable: a plain-language summary rather than a raw data dump, formatted as Slack text. When your answer comes from a specific company policy, Light includes a link to that policy section so you can check the source.

Slack replies are text only. For charts and full visual reports, open the same data in Light's web app.

# When to use the web app instead

Some questions are better suited to Light's web app than to a Slack reply:

• Analyses that need several steps to compute
• Multi-page reports
• Anything that needs interactive drill-down
• Data that hasn't synced to Light yet

For these, Light points you to the relevant view in the Light web app.

# Privacy and security

To answer your question, Light sends your question and the data needed to generate a response to a third-party AI model provider, so that information leaves Light's systems to be processed there. Your conversations with Light are stored and retained in Light.

For anything sensitive, use a direct message with @Light rather than a shared channel, so it stays out of your channel history.

# Fix a problem

Light doesn't respond

• Confirm Light is installed in your Slack workspace (Settings (gear icon) → Integrations → Slack).
• Check that your Slack account email matches your Light account email. Light uses this match to identify you.
• Confirm you have access to the data you're asking about.
• Try a simpler version of your question.

Light gives the wrong answer

• Rephrase the question with more specific terms.
• Add a specific time period, department, or entity.
• Use exact category names instead of vague ones.

Light says access denied

• You may not have permission to view that data in Light.
• Ask your Light administrator to grant access.

# Related articles

• How Light uses AI
• AI-assisted reconciliation
• Light Command Interface (LCI)
• Slack Integration

Also searched as: Light Slack bot, ask Light in Slack, Slack financial Q&A, connect Light to Slack, how to ask Light a question.