Expense & Receipt Logger
Bookkeeping is painful because it is done in one miserable batch at quarter end. This workflow catches receipt emails as they arrive, saves the attachment to a dated Drive folder, extracts the amount and vendor into a ledger sheet, and gives you a running expense total instead of a shoebox.
What you get
Workflow blueprint
The full blueprint — every field mapping, example value and the written copy for each message — is included with purchase.
Getting it into Zapier
Build this one from the recipe. The blueprint gives you the exact trigger, action events and field mapping for all 4 steps, so it is a copy-and-paste job rather than a design job.
You need your own Zapier account. Zapier’s Free plan runs single-step Zaps only; multi-step Zaps need a paid plan, and Paths and Webhooks need Professional. How this works →
Not on Zapier?
An n8n workflow JSON ships with this template. Import it and all 4 steps arrive on the canvas wired in order, and 3 of the 4 nodes arrive with their fields already filled in — the subject lines, the message copy, the delays, the column names. Every step maps to a native n8n node.
What an import cannot carry is your credentials, and the IDs that only exist inside your own account — which spreadsheet, which channel, which board. Those stay in a sticky note under the node, listing what is already done so you do not retype it, and what is left so you can see it.
A Make-specific guide ships with this template: every module in order, every field value, and the concept translations that catch people out — filters live on the links between modules, and the schedule lives on the scenario rather than in a trigger module.
Self-hosted n8n has no per-task fee, which is worth knowing if this workflow runs at volume. Platform coverage →
Setup steps
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Implementation notes
- Extract Pattern with a regex such as [0-9]+[.,][0-9]{2} is far more reliable than Extract Number on messy receipt emails.
- Leave Category blank and fill it in weekly. Automated categorisation guesses badly and costs you more in corrections.
- Outlook, IMAP by Zapier and Email Parser by Zapier all work in place of Gmail.