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Automation That Transfers Receipt Amounts from Email to a Sheet

It finds receipt and invoice emails and writes the date, vendor, amount, and invoice number to Google Sheets, one row at a time.

n8n

How it works

  1. The creator was tired of opening 80 receipt emails and manually copying dates, vendors, and amounts every tax season, so they built a tool that watches the inbox and records one row per invoice.
  2. The n8n version has three nodes: an email-receipt trigger that does not mark messages as read, a Code node that finds the total line, and a Google Sheets append node.
  3. The Python version uses only the standard library, can also read text-based PDF attachments, saves to CSV, skips duplicates, and sends data to the sheet through a short Apps Script web app.

Results

The creator tested it with a PDF invoice (4.00), a euro receipt using a decimal comma (18,00 €), a £1,049.99 order, and a personal email containing the phrase “total chaos.” It correctly read the three invoices and ignored the personal email. Nothing was added on the second run.

Notes

Because it finds amounts using text patterns rather than AI, the numbers should be checked manually before filing. Amounts in scanned-image PDFs remain blank, and the n8n version does not read PDFs. It was tested only with a fake mail server and a mock sheet, and the creator runs TaskToAgent.

Source

Reddit Original post ↗

Example prompt · n8n

Build an n8n automation that records the date, vendor, and amount in Google Sheets, one row at a time, whenever receipt and invoice emails arrive.

Inputs: mailbox to monitor [address and access method], destination sheet [sheet URL and tab name], fields to extract [date, vendor, amount, currency, invoice number, subject, sender, attachment filename], phrases that indicate the total [for example: total, amount paid, total, amount due]. First, check whether the email trigger can be configured not to mark messages as read, and whether my receipt emails show the amount in the message body or only in a PDF.

Implementation steps: 1) Receive a new email. 2) Extract the amount and currency from the line containing a total phrase, handling decimal commas and thousands separators correctly. 3) Do not record it again if the invoice number is the same or it is the same email. 4) Add one row to the sheet. If the amount cannot be found, do not guess; leave it blank and mark it as needing review. Skip emails that are not receipts.

Deliverables: workflow file, list of configuration values, and test log. First test with one PDF invoice, one receipt using a decimal comma, and one personal email with no amount. Confirm that the personal email is not recorded and that running it twice does not add more rows.