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Transforming Accounts Payable: From Manual Chaos to AI Efficiency
Manual invoice processing is a silent profit killer. For many finance teams, the “standard” workflow involves a messy mix of downloading email attachments, manual data entry into spreadsheets, and chasing managers for approval via Slack or email. This leads to human error, bottlenecked approvals, and missed early-payment discounts.
In 2026, Accounts Payable (AP) and Invoice Processing Workflow Automation is no longer a luxury for enterprises—it is a necessity for any agile team. By leveraging AI and no-code automation within Google Workspace, businesses can reduce invoice processing time by up to 80%, ensuring data accuracy and allowing the finance team to focus on strategic analysis rather than data entry.
Is Manual Entry Costing You?
If you process 100 invoices/month, manual entry usually takes 15+ hours.
With this Zenphi workflow, that drops to less than 2 hours!
With this Zenphi workflow, that drops to less than 2 hours!
Why Automate AP with Zenphi and Google Workspace?
While there are many standalone AP tools, Zenphi offers a unique advantage for companies already running on Google Workspace. Instead of forcing you into a new, siloed platform, Zenphi acts as the “connective tissue” between the tools you already use.
- Seamless Integration: Directly trigger workflows from a Gmail inbox or a Google Drive folder.
- No-Code Flexibility: Finance managers can build and edit workflows themselves without needing a developer.
- Advanced AI Capabilities: Zenphi uses sophisticated AI to extract structured data from unstructured PDFs, meaning it "understands" an invoice regardless of the layout.
- Centralized Tracking: Log every step of the process in Google Sheets for a real-time audit trail and financial reporting.
Preparation: What You’ll Need
Before we build the automation, ensure you have the following ready to go. Our goal is to create a “set-and-forget” system that monitors an inbox, extracts data, and handles the approval logic.
- Zenphi Account
- Google Workspace: Access to Gmail, Drive, and Sheets.
- Sample Invoices: 2–3 PDF invoices from different vendors to test the AI extraction.
- The Workflow Goal
Having the goal in mind is important — it will allow you to validate the automation success. For example, you say” We want the system to: a) Identify a new invoice in Gmail; b) Save it to a secure folder; c) Extract the Vendor, Date, and Amount; d) Route it to the correct department head for approval.
You can also call it a workflow logic — before you start, yo have to envision the steps that your automation would include.
In case you don’t have specific idea, you can use one of our sample workflow guides for inspiration.
Video Guide: A Sample AP/Invoice Processing Workflow Built Using Google Aps — Gmail, Drive, Sheets & AI
Accounts Payable Automation: Step-By-Step Guide
Set up Google Workspace Assets for Accounts Payable Workflow Automation
First of all, let’s map out the AP process and prepare some starting assets in Google Workspace.
Step 1: Receiving invoices
The first step in Accounts Payable (AP) automation is receiving invoices. Ensuring they are organized in a consistent manner makes them easy to find and access related data when required.
Google Workspace allows you to create an email alias specifically for invoices. Share this address with vendors so all invoices go to one place, making it easier to track payments and keep them all in one spot.
Alternatively, you can create a Google Form for invoice submission. It can be tailored to include all the required data.
Step 2: Review and approve
Once an invoice is received, the next step is to review and approve it. With Google Drive, you can create a centralized repository for invoices, where multiple team members can review and approve them. At this stage, let’s create a folder in Drive and make a list of people typically involved in the approval process.
Step 3: Payment processing
When an invoice has been approved, it’s time to process the payment. Payment processing involves verifying that the payment amount is correct, ensuring that the payment is made on time, and updating the accounting system to reflect the payment. At this step, let’s create a Google Sheet to track key invoice details, such as status, date, and cost center.
Create a new Space in Zenphi for Account Payable Workflow Automation
Click the “Create Space” button and select “Empty Space”. You’ll use this space to manage all assets related to your automated process.
Create a Flow
In Zenphi, automations are called Flows. All you have to do — is to choose a new Flow to be created.
Assisted Setup — Use Zenphi's AI Assistant
The easiest way to proceed is to use Zenphi, AI Workflow Builder — ZAIA
You can describe ZAIA your workflow structure and goals (that’s why we needed to formulate it above!) in plain English — and it will build the backbone of your workflow for you! All you have to do — is to connect your Google Apps (Gmail account, Drive, Sheets, etc.) on the second step upon ZAIA’s request
Video: How To Use AI Workflow Builder To Build Accounts Payable Automation
Partially Assisted Setup — Use Zenphi's Template
If you don’t want to use an AI assistant to bulild your workflow, you can use one of Zenphi’s templates — when starting a new Flow choose Templates tab.
Important notice: this template triggers your workflow from a file being added to Google Drive. It then extracts data from invoice fileds and compares it against PO order, while saving to Google Sheets. If you wish to start your workflow with email arrival (Gmail Trigger) and extract data from Gmail attachment, you can still use this template — just change the trigger while tweaking the workflow.
Building Accounts Payable Automation From Scratch
If for some reason you prefer to build the whole workflow from scratch `– just reminding you that even if you use ZAI or tenplates you can adjust each step of your workflow to your needs, so it’s definitely a faster way to get started — you still can do the fully manual setup in Zenphi. We’ll walk you through the essential steps that teams usually use while automating accounts payable workflow — however, we recognise that your use case can be completely different. The beauty of Zenphi — is that you can adapt the workflow to your specific needs.
Standard Step 1: Set up a Trigger
Choose a suitable trigger event from the list based on how you opted to receive the invoices. As an example, let’s use the email arrival trigger.
Click on the gear icon and you’ll see the Trigger settings in the right panel. There, you need to configure the Connection with your Gmail account. Just click on Plus, authorize the access, select the account, and you’re done.
Standard Step 2: Create an Automatic Digital Audit Trail
The next step would be saving the email attachment to the Google Drive folder we created earlier. For that, we’re going to use two actions:
Foreach item — allows to “loop the action”, that is to perform the “Save File” action for all the attachments in the email.
Save File. The actions setup is pretty straightforward – authorizing a Google Drive account and selecting the Folder.
Standard Step 3: Extract Data From Invoice
This is the “magic AI” step — allows you to automatically extract data from your saved invoices. The action you need here has a bit countreintuitive name — Generate Text With Gemini. It allows you to set up data extraction, system instruction, prompt and — most importantly — the fields that you need to extract. Watch this tutorial on how to do it with Zenphi.
Standard Step 4: Set up an Approval flow. Eliminate Email Chasing with One-Click Approvals
Zenphi simplifies the process of creating complex approval workflows with the “Assign Task” action. By utilizing this function, the assignee can conveniently provide feedback directly from the email, and we can then utilize their response within the workflow. In Assign Task you can also specify how many reminders the assignee will have to receive, the expiration date etc.
Furthermore, we can create separate branches for instances when the invoice is approved or rejected. Follow this comprehensive tutorial to set up a complex multi-set approval workflow.
Of course, if you have your own task management system in place, like Jira, Trello, Asana, or others, you can easily integrate them with Zenphi.
Standard Step 5: Test and Publish your accounts payable automation workflow
It’s crucial to test your workflow to ensure seamless performance prior to publishing it. After you are satisfied with the test results, you can Publish the Flow.
Conclusion: Ready to Reclaim Your Finance Team's Time?
In conclusion, Accounts Payable workflow automation with Google Workspace and Zenphi can significantly benefit businesses by improving efficiency and reducing errors and delays.
In this guide, we’ve learned how to:
- Organize all the invoices most efficiently;
- Utilize AI to offload the manual data entry;
- Create powerful approval workflows;
- Assign tasks to process the payments without errors.
The tech is ready, and the setup takes less than an afternoon. By automating your Accounts Payable, you aren’t just “fixing a process”—you’re giving your team the space to focus on growth instead of PDFs.
Your 3-Step Action Plan:
- Create a Free Zenphi Account
- Optional But Highly Recommended: Book a Call with our team to get a guided setup (included in all our plans)
- Run a Test: Forward one invoice today and see the AI work in real-time.
