🔬 Review and approve employee expenses with forms, OpenAI and Google Workspace
⚡ 119 views · 🔬 Document Extraction & Analysis
Description
How it works
This workflow automates employee expense reimbursements from submission to final resolution. Expenses are captured via a form, reviewed by an AI agent for justification, and routed to managers for approval or clarification. Approved expenses notify employees instantly, while rejected or unclear cases automatically schedule a follow-up discussion. All actions are logged to keep finance records clean and auditable.
Step-by-step
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Step 1: Capture, summarize, and request approval
- On Expense Form Submission – Captures structured expense details submitted by employees.
- Append row in sheet – Stores each expense entry in Google Sheets for tracking.
- AI Agent – Reviews the expense description and validates whether the full amount is justified.
- OpenAI Chat Model – Powers the AI reasoning used to analyze the expense.
- Output Parser – Converts the AI response into a structured decision format.
- If – Routes the flow based on whether the expense is appropriate or not.
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Step 2: Manager reviews and responds
- Send Email to Manager for Approval – Sends an approval email when the expense is justified.
- Send Email to Manager for Approval1 – Sends a clarification-required email when justification is unclear.
- If1 – Checks the manager’s approve or reject response from the email.
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Step 3: Notify employee or schedule discussion
- Send a message – Notifies the employee when the expense is approved.
- Booking Agent – Automatically finds the next available business-day time slot if the expense is rejected.
- OpenAI – Interprets availability rules and slot selection logic.
- Get Events – Fetches existing calendar events for the selected day.
- Check Availability – Identifies free time slots within working hours.
- Output Parser1 – Structures the selected meeting time.
- Send a message2 – Emails the employee with discussion details when clarification is required.
Why use this?
- Enforce consistent expense validation before manager review.
- Reduce manual back-and-forth between employees, managers, and finance.
- Keep a centralized, auditable record of all expense submissions.
- Speed up reimbursements with automated approvals and notifications.
- Handle rejected expenses professionally with automatic discussion scheduling.
🔗 Nodes Used
Google Sheets, Gmail, AI Agent, OpenAI Chat Model, Structured Output Parser, n8n Form Trigger
📥 Import
Download workflow.json and import into n8n:
Workflow menu → Import from File