🧾 Extract and log Gmail receipt expenses with OpenAI, Sheets and Airtable
⚡ 5 views · 🧾 Invoice Processing
Description
Quick overview
This workflow monitors a Gmail “Receipts” label, downloads attachments, uses OpenAI to extract expense data from receipt emails and images, skips duplicates and non-receipts, fails safely when extraction is unreadable, sends Slack/Teams alerts for high-value, warranty, or review-needed receipts, and logs valid receipts to Sheets or Airtable.
How it works
- Triggers every minute when Gmail finds new emails matching the query
label:Receipts newer_than:2d. - Normalizes the email into consistent fields (message ID, subject, sender, received date, plain-text body) and generates a receipt hash for stable matching.
- Searches Airtable and/or Google Sheets for existing records matching the message ID or receipt hash and marks the email as a duplicate if it falls within the configured duplicate window.
- For new receipts, sends the email content to OpenAI to extract receipt details like merchant, total, category, line items, tax hints, and return/warranty dates.
- Evaluates the extraction to flag high-value, warranty/return-relevant, or needs-review receipts and formats alert messages.
- Posts alerts to Slack and/or Microsoft Teams when enabled and the receipt is not “standard.”
- Appends the structured receipt record to Google Sheets and/or creates a new record in Airtable, then returns a final status payload.
Setup
- Connect credentials for Gmail, OpenAI, and the destinations you use (Google Sheets OAuth, Airtable personal access token, and Slack OAuth if Slack alerts are enabled).
- Update the “Setup Receipt Configuration” settings with your Google Sheet ID and tab name and/or your Airtable base ID and table name.
- If you enable Microsoft Teams alerts, create an Incoming Webhook in Teams and paste its URL into the configuration.
- Configure your Gmail labeling/filtering so receipt emails get the “Receipts” label (or update the Gmail search query to match your mailbox).
- Adjust the high-value threshold, duplicate window days, and notification routing options in the configuration to match your expense workflow.
Requirements
- Gmail account with a Receipts label or Gmail search filter
- OpenAI API credential
- Google Sheets and/or Airtable account for expense logging
- Slack and/or Microsoft Teams only if chat alerts are enabled
Customization
- Choose EXPENSE_LOG: Google Sheets, Airtable, or both
- Choose NOTIFY_CHANNELS: Slack, Teams, both, or none
- Adjust high-value threshold, duplicate window, and warranty alert settings
- Customize the Gmail search/label to match your receipt emails
- Edit the OpenAI extraction prompt for merchant-specific receipt formats
Additional info
The workflow skips duplicate receipts, non-receipt emails, and failed extractions cleanly instead of creating bad expense rows. Image receipt attachments are supported through OpenAI OCR fallback. PDF-only receipts fail safely unless useful receipt text is available in the email body.
🔗 Nodes Used
Airtable, Google Sheets, HTTP Request, Slack, Gmail Trigger, OpenAI
📥 Import
Download workflow.json and import into n8n:
Workflow menu → Import from File