Timesheet Invoice Automation AI Agent

What This Agent Does

This powerful automation workflow transforms your timesheet processing from a manual, time-consuming task into a streamlined, hands-free operation. The agent monitors your Gmail inbox for incoming timesheet emails, automatically extracts data from attached documents using OCR technology, intelligently parses the information with AI, cross-references customer purchase orders, and generates professional invoice spreadsheets—all without any manual intervention.

Key benefits include:

• Save 2-3 hours per week by eliminating manual timesheet data entry
• Reduce errors through automated OCR and AI-powered data extraction
• Accelerate invoicing cycles with instant invoice generation
• Improve cash flow by processing timesheets immediately upon receipt
• Maintain organized records with automatic email marking and spreadsheet creation

Perfect for: Consulting firms, staffing agencies, contractors, professional services companies, and any business that processes employee or contractor timesheets for client billing.

Who Is It For

This automation is designed for:

• Accounting and finance teams who process multiple timesheets weekly and need to generate client invoices quickly
• Project managers overseeing billable hours across multiple clients and projects
• Small business owners who handle their own invoicing and want to reclaim valuable time
• Staffing agencies managing timesheets from numerous contractors across different client sites
• Professional services firms (legal, consulting, engineering) that bill clients based on tracked hours
• Operations managers looking to standardize and streamline timesheet-to-invoice workflows

If you regularly receive timesheet documents via email and manually transfer that data into invoicing systems, this automation will dramatically improve your efficiency.

Required Integrations

Gmail

Why it's needed: Gmail serves as the entry point for this workflow, monitoring your inbox for timesheet emails and retrieving attachments for processing.

Setup steps:

1. Navigate to Integrations in your TaskAGI dashboard
2. Click Add Integration and select Gmail
3. Click Connect to Gmail to initiate OAuth authentication
4. Select the Google account that receives timesheet emails
5. Grant TaskAGI permission to read, modify, and manage emails
6. Confirm the connection is active (green status indicator)

Configuration notes:

• Use the same Gmail account where timesheet emails are received
• Ensure your Google Workspace admin has enabled third-party app access if using a business account
• The integration requires read/write permissions to search emails, retrieve attachments, and mark messages as read

OpenAI

Why it's needed: OpenAI's GPT-4 model intelligently extracts structured data from unformatted timesheet text, identifying employee names, hours worked, dates, project codes, and other billing information.

Setup steps:

1. Visit platform.openai.com and create an account or sign in
2. Navigate to API Keys in your OpenAI dashboard
3. Click Create new secret key and give it a descriptive name (e.g., "TaskAGI Timesheet Parser")
4. Copy the API key immediately (it won't be shown again)
5. In TaskAGI, go to Integrations → Add Integration → OpenAI
6. Paste your API key in the API Key field
7. Click Save and verify the connection status

Important considerations:

• GPT-4 usage incurs costs based on tokens processed (typically $0.01-0.05 per timesheet)
• Ensure your OpenAI account has billing configured and sufficient credits
• Monitor your usage in the OpenAI dashboard to track costs

Google Sheets

Why it's needed: Google Sheets stores your customer purchase order reference data and serves as the destination for automatically generated invoice spreadsheets.

Setup steps:

1. In TaskAGI, navigate to Integrations → Add Integration
2. Select Google Sheets
3. Click Connect to Google to begin OAuth authentication
4. Choose the Google account where you want invoices created
5. Grant TaskAGI permission to view, create, and edit spreadsheets
6. Verify the connection shows as active

Preparation required:

• Create a Google Sheet containing your customer purchase order data with columns for customer names and PO numbers
• Note the sheet URL—you'll need this during configuration
• Ensure the Google account has permission to create new spreadsheets in your desired folder

Configuration Steps

Step 1: Configure the Schedule Trigger

The Schedule Trigger node determines how frequently the workflow checks for new timesheet emails.

• Set Interval to 15 minutes for near-real-time processing, or 1 hour for less frequent checking
• Consider your typical timesheet volume when choosing frequency
• More frequent checks provide faster processing but consume more workflow executions

Step 2: Set Up Email Search Criteria

The Search Timesheet Emails node filters your inbox for relevant messages.

Configure the search query to match your timesheet emails:

• Use subject:timesheet is:unread to find unread emails with "timesheet" in the subject
• Adjust to from:timesheets@yourcompany.com is:unread if timesheets come from a specific sender
• Add has:attachment to ensure only emails with attachments are processed
• Set Max Results to 10 to process up to 10 timesheets per execution

Step 3: Configure Email and Attachment Retrieval

The Get Email Details and Get Email Attachment nodes work together to retrieve timesheet documents.

• Get Email Details: Uses the message ID from the search results (automatically passed via [[nodes.4376.messages]])
• Get Email Attachment: Extracts the first attachment from each email
• No manual configuration needed—these nodes automatically process data from the search step

Step 4: Set Up OCR Text Extraction

The Extract Text (OCR) node converts timesheet images or PDFs into readable text.

Configure the HTTP request:

• URL: Your OCR service endpoint (e.g., OCR.space API or similar service)
• Method: POST
• Body: The configuration references the attachment data with "files": [[nodes.4379.attachment_data]]
• Set "output_type": "text" to receive plain text output
• Ensure your OCR service API key is included in headers if required

Tip: Test with various timesheet formats (PDF, images, scanned documents) to ensure consistent extraction quality.

Step 5: Configure AI Parsing

The Parse Timesheet (AI) node is the intelligence center of your workflow.

Update the prompt to match your timesheet format:

Extract the following from the timesheet text:
- Employee name
- Customer/client name
- Date or date range
- Total hours worked
- Hourly rate (if present)
- Project code or description
- Any special notes or overtime indicators

Return the data in JSON format with these exact keys: employee_name, customer_name, date, hours, rate, project_code, notes

• Set Model to gpt-4o for optimal accuracy
• Adjust Temperature to 0.2 for consistent, deterministic parsing
• Set Max Tokens to 500 (sufficient for structured timesheet data)

Step 6: Configure Customer PO Lookup

The Lookup Customer PO node retrieves your reference data.

• Set Sheet URL to your customer PO spreadsheet URL (e.g., https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/YOUR_SHEET_ID)
• Ensure the sheet contains columns for customer names and PO numbers
• The sheet should be accessible by the Google account connected to TaskAGI

Step 7: Set Up Customer Matching Logic

The Find Customer Row node uses custom code to match the parsed customer name with your PO data.

This function node searches the PO sheet for the customer identified by the AI and retrieves the corresponding PO number. The default logic performs case-insensitive matching—customize if you need fuzzy matching or partial name matching.

Step 8: Configure Invoice Creation

The Create Invoice Sheet node generates a new spreadsheet for each processed timesheet.

• Set Spreadsheet Name to include dynamic data: Invoice - [[nodes.4381.customer_name]] - [[nodes.4381.date]]
• This creates descriptive filenames like "Invoice - Acme Corp - 2024-01-15"
• The new spreadsheet URL is automatically captured for subsequent nodes

Step 9: Add Invoice Headers and Data

The Add Invoice Header Row and Add Invoice Data Row nodes populate your invoice.

Header Row configuration:

• Sheet URL: [[nodes.4383.spreadsheet_url]] (references the newly created sheet)
• Values: ["Employee", "Customer", "Date", "Hours", "Rate", "Amount", "PO Number", "Project"]

Data Row configuration:

• Sheet URL: [[nodes.4383.spreadsheet_url]]
• Values: Map parsed data to columns:

  [
    [[nodes.4381.employee_name]],
    [[nodes.4381.customer_name]],
    [[nodes.4381.date]],
    [[nodes.4381.hours]],
    [[nodes.4381.rate]],
    [[nodes.4381.hours * nodes.4381.rate]],
    [[nodes.4382.po_number]],
    [[nodes.4381.project_code]]
  ]
  

Step 10: Mark Processed Emails

The Mark Email as Read node prevents duplicate processing.

• Uses the message ID from the original search: [[nodes.4376.message_id]]
• Automatically marks the email as read after successful invoice creation
• No additional configuration required

Testing Your Agent

Initial Test Run

1. Prepare a test email: Send yourself a timesheet email matching your search criteria
2. Trigger manually: In TaskAGI, click Run Now on your workflow
3. Monitor execution: Watch the workflow progress through each node in real-time
4. Check for errors: Red indicators show failed nodes—click for detailed error messages

Verification Checklist

After your test run, verify:

• ✅ Email found: The search node returned your test email
• ✅ Attachment retrieved: The attachment data appears in the node output
• ✅ Text extracted: OCR produced readable text from your timesheet
• ✅ Data parsed correctly: AI extracted all expected fields with accurate values
• ✅ Customer matched: The correct PO number was retrieved from your reference sheet
• ✅ Invoice created: A new Google Sheet was generated with the correct name
• ✅ Data populated: Both header and data rows appear in the invoice sheet
• ✅ Email marked: The original email now shows as read in Gmail

Expected Results

A successful execution should:

• Complete in 30-60 seconds depending on attachment size
• Create a properly formatted invoice spreadsheet in your Google Drive
• Contain accurate data matching the original timesheet
• Leave the processed email marked as read

Troubleshooting

"No messages found" Error

Cause: Search query doesn't match any emails in your inbox.

Solutions:

• Verify your search query syntax in the Search Timesheet Emails node
• Check that test emails are actually unread
• Confirm emails contain the expected subject line or sender
• Test your query directly in Gmail to validate it returns results

OCR Extraction Returns Gibberish

Cause: Poor image quality, unsupported format, or OCR service configuration issues.

Solutions:

• Verify your OCR service API key is valid and has remaining credits
• Test with high-quality PDF timesheets first before trying scanned images
• Check that the attachment is actually being retrieved (inspect node output)
• Consider upgrading to a premium OCR service for better accuracy

AI Parsing Missing Fields

Cause: Timesheet format doesn't match the prompt expectations or insufficient context.

Solutions:

• Review the extracted text to ensure OCR quality is adequate
• Refine your prompt with specific examples from your actual timesheets
• Increase the temperature slightly (to 0.3-0.4) if the model is too rigid
• Add few-shot examples to your prompt showing desired input/output pairs

Customer PO Not Found

Cause: Customer name mismatch between timesheet and reference sheet.

Solutions:

• Check for spelling variations, extra spaces, or case differences
• Implement fuzzy matching in the Find Customer Row function
• Standardize customer names in your PO reference sheet
• Add logging to see exactly what customer name the AI extracted

"Permission Denied" on Google Sheets

Cause: TaskAGI doesn't have access to create or modify spreadsheets.

Solutions:

• Reconnect the Google Sheets integration with full permissions
• Verify the connected Google account has Drive storage available
• Check that your Google Workspace admin allows third-party apps
• Ensure the PO reference sheet is shared with the connected account

Duplicate Invoices Created

Cause: Email not being marked as read, causing reprocessing.

Solutions:

• Verify the Mark Email as Read node is executing successfully
• Check that the message ID is correctly passed from the search node
• Add a delay between the invoice creation and email marking steps
• Consider adding a label instead of (or in addition to) marking as read

Next Steps

After Successful Setup

1. Monitor for a week: Let the workflow run on schedule and review generated invoices daily
2. Refine the AI prompt: Adjust based on any parsing inconsistencies you observe
3. Create a backup: Export your workflow configuration for safekeeping
4. Document exceptions: Note any timesheet formats that require special handling

Optimization Suggestions

Enhance error handling:

• Add conditional branches to handle missing attachments gracefully
• Implement notification emails when parsing fails or customer PO isn't found
• Create a separate "review needed" folder for problematic timesheets

Improve data quality:

• Add validation checks for required fields before invoice creation
• Implement range checks for hours (e.g., flag anything over 80 hours)
• Cross-reference rates against a master rate sheet

Expand functionality:

• Automatically email completed invoices to your accounting system
• Generate summary reports of all processed timesheets weekly
• Integrate with your accounting software API for direct invoice creation
• Add approval workflows for high-value invoices

Advanced Usage Tips

Handle multiple timesheet formats: Create separate workflows for different timesheet sources, each with customized OCR and parsing configurations tailored to that format.

Batch processing: Adjust the Max Results parameter in the search node to process larger volumes during peak periods, but monitor OpenAI costs carefully.

Audit trail: Modify the workflow to append a row to a master tracking sheet with metadata about each processed timesheet (date processed, employee, customer, invoice URL) for easy reference and reporting.

Smart scheduling: Use different schedule intervals for different times—check every 15 minutes during business hours but only hourly overnight and on weekends.

Congratulations! You've built a sophisticated automation that will save hours of manual work every week. As you become comfortable with the workflow, continue refining and expanding it to match your evolving business needs.