Building a Finance Assistant with Zapier Agents

Until I became a small business owner, I never realised how frustrating it is to manually upload every single receipt and invoice to our accounting system (we use Xero).

These files typically come in as email attachments, but reliably identifying which attachments are actual receipts? That’s trickier than it sounds. You could try keyword searches on the filenames—but what if the vendor doesn’t label it as a “receipt”? And even if you manage to find the right files, matching them to the right transaction in your accounting software is another tedious, error-prone task.

This used to be the kind of problem that was just too messy to automate. But with the rise of agentic AI, that’s no longer true.

At work.flowers, we built a lightweight finance assistant using Zapier Agents that now takes care of two high-friction tasks:

Whenever a new email with an attachment comes in, the assistant evaluates whether the file is an invoice or receipt. If it is, the file gets saved in a dedicated Google Drive folder, renamed in the format YYYY-MM-DD Vendor Name for easy retrieval.

When a new transaction shows up in Xero, the assistant searches that same Google Drive folder for a matching receipt or invoice—based on metadata like amount, date, and vendor. If it finds a likely match, it automatically attaches the document to the transaction in Xero.

This isn’t just automation—it’s AI making judgment calls that would have previously required human review. No complex OCR setups, no custom backend. Just a few well-designed steps powered by Zapier Agents and the tools you already use.

If you’re a founder, small business owner, or finance lead tired of wasting time on bookkeeping busywork, get in touch!

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