Finance ops · finance · workflow
Invoice processing — email inbox to ERP, zero manual entry
Manually creating client records and invoices for every order — pure double data entry, hours each day, 5% error rate from copy-paste mistakes.
How it works
Common implementation structure
How this type of workflow is generally built, generalized across documented cases — not tied to any one vendor's stack. Click any stage to read what happens there. Specific products that implement these stages appear in “Tools commonly seen” below.
Stage 1 · Email inbox
Monitors inbox for PDF attachments from supplier domains.
Tools used
Email inboxn8n · partnerClaude API · partnerPostgresERP API
Outcome
200+ invoices/day processed unattended. Replaced a €900/mo contractor. Setup took 3 days. Running 8 months without a single manual intervention. Error rate dropped from 5% to near zero.
What failed first
First attempt used a rules-based extraction engine — broke immediately on non-standard invoice layouts. Claude API handled layout variation reliably from day one.
Results
Time saved4 hrs/day
Volume200 invoices/week
Cost replaced€900/mo contractor
Running sinceAug 2024
Source
n8n workflow template: Extract invoice data from email using AIBased on published n8n workflow templates and documented patterns. Outcome figures from source materials.