Invoice Intake to Reconciled Financial Agent

A production-grade, multi-stage financial automation system that ingests NetSuite invoice files from email, validates data continuity, aggregates monthly totals, and synchronizes records with external systems using AWS-hosted headless web automation.

    This is not a single workflow.  
    It is a coordinated system of three automations designed to work together
    to eliminate manual financial operations while maintaining audit-level accuracy.
  

High-Level System Overview

This automation system solves a real-world finance problem where invoice data arrives through unstructured channels (emails and files), must be validated with strict continuity rules, summarized monthly, and finally pushed into external or legacy systems that do not provide reliable APIs.

Even though the workflows are visually separated inside n8n, they are designed to function as a single, end-to-end pipeline.

Automation 1: Email → File → Validation → Airtable Ingestion

The first automation is responsible for safely ingesting invoice data and ensuring financial correctness before any downstream processing occurs.

What Happens in This Automation

A scheduled trigger runs daily and checks Gmail for NS fuel invoice emails containing attached files.
Attachments are extracted and uploaded to cloud storage systems such as Dropbox and AWS S3 to ensure durability and backup.
Invoice files are parsed and processed to calculate financial values including Gross, GST, Net amounts, and transaction-level details.
Before inserting data, the system checks whether a record already exists for the same date to prevent duplicate financial entries.
The system also validates continuity by ensuring the previous day’s record exists, preventing gaps in financial reporting.
Clean and validated records are inserted into Airtable as the system of record.
If validation fails, detailed HTML email alerts are sent to finance teams with exact reasons and contextual data.

    This automation alone replaces hours of manual CSV handling,
    duplicate checking, and error-prone Excel workflows.
  

Automation 2: Monthly Aggregation & Financial Reporting

The second automation is responsible for transforming daily transactional data into meaningful monthly financial summaries.

Monthly Aggregation Logic

Runs on a scheduled basis independent of daily ingestion.
Fetches all validated NS file records from Airtable.
Groups records by month and year.
Calculates monthly gross totals using only verified records.
Updates a dedicated Tax Invoices table with aggregated values.

This eliminates the need for monthly reconciliation spreadsheets and ensures that finance teams always see up-to-date totals.

Automation 3: External System Sync via AWS Headless Automation

The third automation bridges modern automation tooling with legacy systems that do not expose stable APIs.

AWS-Hosted Headless Web Automation

Uses a Web API node inside n8n to communicate with a headless browser automation hosted on an AWS server.
The headless automation simulates real user actions such as login, navigation, uploads, and confirmations.
Enables integration with ERP portals and legacy systems that cannot be automated through APIs.
Based on the response, records are marked as Completed or Error in Airtable.
Successfully imported files are deleted from storage to keep systems clean.

    This approach makes the system future-proof and compatible
    with virtually any external platform.
  

Key Business Benefits

1. End-to-End Financial Automation

From email ingestion to external system synchronization, the entire workflow operates without manual intervention.

2. Finance-Grade Data Integrity

Duplicate prevention, continuity checks, and validation rules ensure audit-safe financial records.

3. Human-in-the-Loop Where It Matters

Humans are notified only when action is required, not for routine processing.

4. Legacy System Compatibility

AWS-based headless automation allows integration with systems that lack APIs.

5. Massive Operational Cost Reduction

Eliminates manual uploads, Excel reconciliation, and repetitive verification tasks.

Final Summary

This automation system demonstrates how n8n, cloud storage, and AI-friendly orchestration can be combined to solve real-world financial automation problems at enterprise scale.