Expense Management Workflow Automation
We transformed a manual, email-heavy expense and approval workflow into a seamless automation layer built entirely on Google Sheets, Drive, Gmail, and Looker Studio. The system efficiently handles invoice collection, multi-level approvals, reporting, and vendor notifications—automatically.
Digital Media Company
Digital Media
Client Partner
A fast-growing digital media company partnered with Purple Block to streamline its expense management and approval workflows as they scaled operations.
The Challenge
As teams grew and transactions multiplied, the client's finance operations began to show signs of strain. They were dealing with two major challenges:
Manual, Fragmented Invoice and Payout Approvals
- Invoices were received, shared, verified, approved, and paid—all through a mix of email threads and Excel sheets.
- Each step—from vendor submission to final payment—required multiple team members to act manually, causing delays, miscommunication, and frequent status checks.
- Tracking transaction IDs, confirming payments, and updating vendors were all handled ad hoc, creating audit and compliance risks.
Cumbersome, Error-Prone Financial Reporting
- Monthly reporting was built manually from scratch by extracting transactions from bank statements, tagging them to vendors, and computing revenue vs. expense.
- As the volume of transactions increased, it became harder to avoid mistakes (e.g., missing invoices, incorrect categorization, or mismatched taxes like GST/TDS).
- Reports lacked filters to slice performance by geography, project, or department—limiting business decision-making.
System Requirements
- The finance team wanted to retain their existing Google Workspace setup but automate key workflows to reduce friction and improve visibility.
Our Solution
Automated Invoice Collection & Parsing
- Vendors now email invoices to a centralized address.
- A background bot scans this inbox and uploads attachments to a dedicated Google Drive folder.
- An AI-enabled parser processes each invoice and updates a Master Google Sheet, extracting vendor names, invoice values, service descriptions, and dates.
- Monthly bank statements are uploaded by the finance team to a separate Drive folder and similarly parsed into the Master Sheet for reconciliation.
Multi-Step Approval Workflow
- The Master Sheet acts as the single source of truth for all invoice and payment records.
- When a new invoice entry is logged, automated emails notify stakeholders in a predefined sequence: Verification → L1 Approval → Finance Screening → Final Approval → Payment Processing.
- Each stakeholder has a locked approval column, and status updates automatically trigger the next action via email alerts.
- Once a transaction ID is added post-payment, the system notifies the relevant vendor—eliminating the need for manual follow-ups.
Real-Time Reporting & P&L Dashboard
- Using Looker Studio, a live dashboard was created on top of the Master Sheet.
- Business leaders can now track: Total expenses vs. revenue, Category-wise spend, Location-level profitability, and Vendor-level trends.
- Filters allow users to isolate views for different cities, business units, or time periods—without touching the raw data.
The Impact
| Key Metric | Approx. Improvement |
|---|---|
| Approval Cycle | 3-5 days to <24 hours |
| Manual Effort | 60-70% reduction |
| Tracking Errors | Near-zero manual mismatches |
| Financial Visibility | Real-time dashboards |
| Vendor Communication | Fully automated notifications |
This solution streamlined the entire financial workflow, resulting in end-to-end payout approval cycle reduced from 3–5 days to less than 24 hours, an estimated 60–70% reduction in time spent on invoice collection and verification, transition to a single source of truth with near-zero manual mismatches, real-time dashboards for revenue vs. expense tracking across geographies, and automated notifications for payment confirmations. All this was achieved without requiring additional tools—built entirely on Google Workspace with no training or new systems needed. Purple Block continues to support enhancements, including layered access, mobile responsiveness, and agent-driven reporting summaries.
"The workflow automation has transformed our finance operations. What used to take days of manual effort now happens automatically, giving us time to focus on strategic financial analysis rather than chasing approvals or reconciling statements."
Finance Director
Digital Media Company
In a nutshell
We transformed a manual, email-heavy expense and approval workflow into a seamless automation layer—without changing the tools the team already used. Built entirely on Google Sheets, Drive, Gmail, and Looker Studio, the system handles invoice collection, multi-level approvals, reporting, and vendor notifications—automatically. This reduced effort, improved visibility, and enabled the finance team to work smarter, not harder.
