diff --git a/src/axolotl/prompt_strategies/alpaca_w_system.py b/src/axolotl/prompt_strategies/alpaca_w_system.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..88acf0d0e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/axolotl/prompt_strategies/alpaca_w_system.py
@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+"""
+Prompt strategies loader for alpaca instruction datasets with system prompts
+"""
+from typing import Generator, Tuple, Union
+
+from axolotl.prompt_tokenizers import PromptTokenizingStrategy
+from axolotl.prompters import AlpacaPrompter, PromptStyle
+
+
+class InstructionWSystemPromptTokenizingStrategy(PromptTokenizingStrategy):
+    """
+    Tokenizing strategy for instruction-based prompts.
+    """
+
+    def parse_instruction_fields(self, prompt) -> Tuple[str, str, str, str]:
+        return (
+            prompt["instruction"],
+            prompt["input"] if "input" in prompt else "",
+            prompt["output"],
+            prompt["system"],
+        )
+
+    def tokenize_prompt(self, prompt):
+        (
+            instruction,
+            input,  # pylint: disable=redefined-builtin
+            response,
+            system,
+        ) = self.parse_instruction_fields(prompt)
+        user_prompt = next(
+            iter(
+                self.prompter.build_prompt_w_system(
+                    system,
+                    instruction,
+                    input,
+                )
+            )
+        )
+        tokenized_prompt = self._tokenize(user_prompt, add_eos_token=False)
+        if not self.train_on_inputs:
+            user_prompt_len = len(tokenized_prompt["input_ids"])
+            # TODO this could be sped up using numpy array slicing
+            tokenized_prompt["labels"] = [-100] * user_prompt_len
+        tokenized_res_prompt = self._tokenize(
+            response, strip_bos_token=True, add_eos_token=True
+        )
+        tokenized_prompt["input_ids"] += tokenized_res_prompt["input_ids"]
+        tokenized_prompt["attention_mask"] += tokenized_res_prompt["attention_mask"]
+        tokenized_prompt["labels"] += tokenized_res_prompt["input_ids"]
+
+        return tokenized_prompt
+
+
+class SystemDataPrompter(AlpacaPrompter):
+    """
+    Alpaca Style Prompter that uses system prompts from the dataset
+    """
+
+    def build_prompt_w_system(
+        self,
+        system: str,
+        instruction: str,
+        input: Union[None, str] = None,  # pylint: disable=redefined-builtin
+        output: Union[None, str] = None,
+    ) -> Generator[str, None, None]:
+        # returns the full prompt from instruction and optional input
+        # if a label (=response, =output) is provided, it's also appended.
+        if input:
+            res = system + self.turn_format.format(instruction=instruction, input=input)
+        else:
+            res = system + self.turn_no_input_format.format(instruction=instruction)
+        if output:
+            res = f"{res}{output}"
+        yield res
+
+
+def load(tokenizer, cfg):
+    return InstructionWSystemPromptTokenizingStrategy(
+        SystemDataPrompter(PromptStyle.CHAT.value),
+        tokenizer,
+        cfg.train_on_inputs,
+        cfg.sequence_len,
+    )
diff --git a/src/axolotl/prompters.py b/src/axolotl/prompters.py
index 4db915238..715a227c8 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/prompters.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/prompters.py
@@ -63,29 +63,6 @@ class AlpacaPrompter:
         yield res
 
 
-class SystemDataPrompter(AlpacaPrompter):
-    """
-    Alpaca Style Prompter that uses system prompts from the dataset
-    """
-
-    def build_prompt_w_system(
-        self,
-        system: str,
-        instruction: str,
-        input: Union[None, str] = None,  # pylint: disable=redefined-builtin
-        output: Union[None, str] = None,
-    ) -> Generator[str, None, None]:
-        # returns the full prompt from instruction and optional input
-        # if a label (=response, =output) is provided, it's also appended.
-        if input:
-            res = system + self.turn_format.format(instruction=instruction, input=input)
-        else:
-            res = system + self.turn_no_input_format.format(instruction=instruction)
-        if output:
-            res = f"{res}{output}"
-        yield res
-
-
 class UnpromptedPrompter(AlpacaPrompter):
     """
     Prompter for alpaca no system prompt
diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/tokenization.py b/src/axolotl/utils/tokenization.py
index 1c535eb1b..7d0d1dd83 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/tokenization.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/tokenization.py
@@ -34,3 +34,5 @@ def check_example_labels(example, tokenizer):
 
     logging.info(" ".join(colored_tokens))
     logging.info("\n\n\n")
+
+    return " ".join(colored_tokens)
diff --git a/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py b/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py
index aba340eee..3ddbe77bf 100644
--- a/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py
+++ b/tests/test_prompt_tokenizers.py
@@ -7,11 +7,15 @@ from pathlib import Path
 from transformers import AutoTokenizer
 
 from axolotl.prompt_strategies.alpaca_chat import NoSystemPrompter
+from axolotl.prompt_strategies.alpaca_w_system import (
+    InstructionWSystemPromptTokenizingStrategy,
+    SystemDataPrompter,
+)
 from axolotl.prompt_tokenizers import (
     AlpacaPromptTokenizingStrategy,
     ShareGPTPromptTokenizingStrategy,
 )
-from axolotl.prompters import AlpacaPrompter, ShareGPTPrompter
+from axolotl.prompters import AlpacaPrompter, PromptStyle, ShareGPTPrompter
 
 logging.basicConfig(level="INFO")
 
@@ -96,5 +100,39 @@ class TestPromptTokenizationStrategies(unittest.TestCase):
         assert example["labels"][world_idx - 1] == -100
 
 
+class InstructionWSystemPromptTokenizingStrategyTest(unittest.TestCase):
+    """
+    Test class for prompt tokenization strategies with sys prompt from the dataset
+    """
+
+    def setUp(self) -> None:
+        # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
+        self.tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("huggyllama/llama-7b")
+        self.tokenizer.add_special_tokens(
+            {
+                "bos_token": "<s>",
+                "eos_token": "</s>",
+                "unk_token": "<unk>",
+            }
+        )
+
+    def test_system_alpaca(self):
+        prompter = SystemDataPrompter(PromptStyle.CHAT.value)
+        strat = InstructionWSystemPromptTokenizingStrategy(
+            prompter,
+            self.tokenizer,
+            False,
+            2048,
+        )
+        sample = {
+            "system": "use cot",
+            "instruction": "hello!",
+            "output": "Hi! How can I help?",
+        }
+        example = strat.tokenize_prompt(sample)
+        assert example["input_ids"][0:3] == [1, 671, 20118]  # <s>use cot
+        assert example["input_ids"][3] == 11889  # USER
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()
diff --git a/tests/test_prompters.py b/tests/test_prompters.py
index bb33afbb6..756b6f81b 100644
--- a/tests/test_prompters.py
+++ b/tests/test_prompters.py
@@ -2,11 +2,11 @@
 
 import unittest
 
+from axolotl.prompt_strategies.alpaca_w_system import SystemDataPrompter
 from axolotl.prompters import (
     AlpacaPrompter,
     MultipleChoiceExplainPrompter,
     PromptStyle,
-    SystemDataPrompter,
     UnpromptedPrompter,
 )