Customizable System Prompts

Topkey's AI agents follow a set of built-in instructions — called system prompts — that govern how they make decisions. You can customize these prompts to reflect your business's unique vendors, property naming conventions, and accounting rules, so the AI behaves exactly the way your operation requires.

What Are System Prompts?

A system prompt is the set of instructions given to an AI agent before it processes any data. These instructions tell the agent things like:

• How to classify a transaction into the correct chart of accounts category
• How to match a receipt to an existing transaction
• What style or format to use when writing transaction memos

Topkey ships with a set of baseline prompts for each AI agent. These defaults work well for most property management businesses, but they can't anticipate every unique vendor relationship, property naming convention, or internal accounting rule your business uses.

Why Customize a Prompt?

You might want to customize a system prompt if:

• Your property names follow a specific format that the AI doesn't recognize
• You work with recurring vendors that should always map to a particular GL category
• Your account uses accounting rules or terminology that differ from the defaults
• The AI is consistently making the same type of classification mistake

Editing a prompt lets you encode that business logic directly into the agent's instructions, improving accuracy across every transaction the agent processes.

Finding Your Prompts

All active system prompts for your account are listed under Settings → AI Prompts.

To get there:

1. Open Settings from the sidebar.
2. Under the Company section, select AI Prompts.

The page lists every active prompt grouped by AI agent. For each prompt, you can see the agent name, prompt key, the date it was last modified, who modified it, and the current revision number.

Importing All Default Prompts

If your account doesn't yet have prompts listed, or you want to start from Topkey's full set of baseline instructions, use the Import Defaults action. This seeds every available AI agent prompt for your account at once, giving you a complete starting point before making any customizations.

Editing a Prompt

1. On the AI Prompts page, find the prompt you want to change.
2. Click Edit to open the prompt editor.
3. The editor displays the current Prompt Content — the active version of the instructions for that agent.
4. Make your changes directly in the content area.
5. Enter a brief note in the Reason for Change field to describe what you changed and why. This helps you and your team understand the history of each edit.
6. Save your changes to create a new revision.

Improving a Prompt with AI

If you're not sure how to phrase a change, use the Improve with AI button. This lets you describe the behavior you want in plain English, and Topkey's AI will suggest an updated version of the prompt for you.

For example, you might write: "Always assign transactions from Vendor X to the Maintenance & Repairs category" — and the AI will incorporate that rule into the existing prompt while preserving the rest of the instructions.

When the suggestion is applied, a summary of the changes is saved automatically as the reason for that revision.

Viewing Version History

Every edit to a prompt creates a new, numbered revision. To review past versions:

1. On the AI Prompts page, click History next to the prompt you want to review.
2. The history view lists all previous revisions, including who made the change and when.
3. To restore a previous version, select it and confirm. This creates a new revision with that version's content, preserving the full history.

Resetting to the Default Prompt

If your customizations aren't working as expected and you want to start fresh, click Reset to Default to discard your changes and restore the original Topkey baseline prompt for that agent. This action also creates a new revision, so your custom versions remain in the history if you ever need to reference them.

Best Practices

Follow these guidelines to get the most out of custom prompts:

• Keep changes focused. Target one specific behavior per edit rather than rewriting large sections of the prompt at once.
• Be specific. Vague instructions produce inconsistent results. Instead of "handle maintenance vendors correctly," write "always assign transactions from vendors whose names contain 'Plumbing', 'HVAC', or 'Electrical' to the Maintenance & Repairs category."
• Avoid contradicting core instructions. The baseline prompt contains logic that the agent depends on. Adding instructions that conflict with the existing structure can cause unpredictable behavior.
• Test after each change. After saving an edit, run a few transactions through the affected feature to verify the AI is behaving as expected before applying more changes.
• Use the Reason for Change field. A short note explaining why you made a change makes it much easier to manage your version history over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I accidentally break an AI agent by editing its prompt? Changes are reversible. Every edit creates a new revision, and you can view your full history and restore any previous version at any time. If something goes wrong, click History, find a version that was working correctly, and restore it.

Who can edit system prompts? Access to AI Prompts is controlled by your account's roles and permissions settings. If you don't see the AI Prompts option under Settings, contact your account administrator or Contact Support.

How do I know which prompt controls a specific AI behavior? Each prompt is listed with its agent name and prompt key on the AI Prompts page. You can click View to read the current instructions before making any changes. If you're unsure which prompt governs a particular feature, Contact Support for guidance.