Automate Employee Trip Expense Processing with Jotform, OpenAI and Google Sheets

👤 Who’s it for

This workflow is designed for employees who need to submit expense claims for business trips. It automates the process of extracting data from receipts/invoices, logging it to a Google Sheet, and notifying the finance team via email.

Ideal users: Employees submitting business trip expense claims HR or Admins reviewing travel-related reimbursements Finance teams responsible for processing claims

⚙️ How it works / What it does

Employee submits a form with trip information (name, department, purpose, dates) and uploads one or more receipts/invoices (PDF). Uploaded files are saved to Google Drive for record-keeping. Each PDF is passed to a DocClaim Assistant agent, which uses GPT-4o and a structured parser to extract structured invoice data. The data is transformed and formatted into a standard JSON structure. Two parallel paths are followed: Invoice records are appended to a Google Sheet for centralized tracking. A detailed HTML email summarizing the trip and expenses is generated and sent to the finance department for claim processing.

🛠 How to set up

Create a form to capture: Employee Name Department Trip Purpose From Date / To Date Receipt/Invoice File Upload (multiple PDFs)

Configure file upload node to store files in a specific Google Drive folder.

Set up DocClaim Agent using: GPT-4o or any LLM with document analysis capability Output parser for standardizing extracted receipt data (e.g., vendor, total, tax, date)

Transform extracted data into a structured claim record (Code Node).

Path 1: Save records to a Google Sheet (one row per expense).

Path 2: Format the employee + claim data into a dynamic HTML email Use Send Email node to notify the finance department (e.g., finance@yourcompany.com)

✅ Requirements

Jotform account with expense form setup Sign up for free here n8n running with access to: Google Drive API (for file uploads) Google Sheets API (for logging expenses) Email node (SMTP or Gmail for sending) GPT-4o or equivalent LLM with document parsing ability PDF invoices with clear formatting Shared Google Sheet for claim tracking Optional: Shared inbox for finance team

🧩 How to customize the workflow

Add approval steps**: route the email to a manager before finance Attach original PDFs**: include uploaded files in the email as attachments Localize for other languages**: adapt form labels, email content, or parser prompts Sync to ERP or accounting system**: replace Google Sheet with QuickBooks, Xero, etc. Set limits/validation**: enforce max claim per trip or required fields before submission Auto-tag expenses**: add categories (e.g., travel, accommodation) for better reporting