Accounting: so necessary, and so tedious. If there were awards for "business processes with the most data entry," accounting would definitely be near the top. On top of that, accounting requires precision since mistakes can be costly.
Accounting automation solves both of these problems. When you automate your accounting workflows, you send data from one product to another, saving time and reducing the chance of error. Automation can handle many different accounting processes, from invoicing to expensing to internal communication.
If you want to automate an accounting process but aren't sure where to start, we've rounded up some of our favorite examples using various accounting software options and other tools. If you use different products, you can check out our full list of supported tools and follow the same workflow, but with the tools you're using in your business.
New to Zapier? It's workflow automation software that lets you focus on what matters. Combine user interfaces, data tables, and logic with thousands of apps to build and automate anything you can imagine. Sign up for free.
Table of contents
To get started with a Zap template—what we call our pre-made workflows—just click on the button. It only takes a few minutes to set up. You can read more about setting up Zaps here.
Add transactions from your payment processing apps
Connecting your accounting software to your bank account will capture the net payments from your payment processing apps, but only the app itself contains the processing fees paid. To properly capture the gross sales and the amount of the fees, you'd need to adjust the bank transaction manually. The bank transaction also lacks other details, like the original date of the translation or individual transactions that might be included in a lump payout.
Instead, you can use Zapier to automatically send transactions from payment processors like Stripe, Square, and PayPal. By doing this, you'll have more accurate accounting records and better reporting of your sales.
Create QuickBooks Online customers with sales receipts for new Stripe payments
Create invoices based on emails
If you get an email notifying you that someone is interested in your services, your next step is probably to send an invoice. But how do you quickly and easily get that information from your email? Hopefully not by copying and pasting, which makes it very easy to accidentally grab incorrect or miss important information.
Instead, Zapier can use email notifications to create invoices. With Zapier's built-in email parser tool, you can extract data from the email, like the person's name, the amount, and the services. This saves you time since you won't have to add the new customer to your accounting software manually, and ensures that invoices are sent promptly.
Upload documents for bookkeeping purposes in Lexware Office from new email attachments
Send QuickBooks Online invoices from new emails parsed by Zapier
Create new Xero invoices from parsed emails by Zapier
Upload documents to your accounting software
You may store documents in an app like Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive for record-keeping purposes, but you also need a copy in your accounting software. With accounting automation, you can send files from your cloud storage to your accounting software, rather than upload the file twice.
You can even have the uploaded files create and send invoices. Since Zapier's automation is based on using a specific folder as a trigger, you can have different folders trigger different workflows. For example, an upload to a designated folder might send an invoice to a specific client.
Pro Tip: You can also automate saving email file attachments directly to your Google Drive. Here's how.
Upload documents for bookkeeping purposes from new files in Google Drive folders to Lexware Office
Upload new documents for bookkeeping purposes from new files in OneDrive to Lexware Office
Create sales receipts in QuickBooks Online for new Google Drive folders
Send updated Google Drive files as sales invoices by email with Xero
Add transactions to a spreadsheet or database
Spreadsheets are a frequent supplement to accounting software. Whether you need more robust reporting than your accounting software can provide or need a more detailed breakdown, spreadsheets fill the gaps.
While you can typically download transactions from your accounting software, this is usually for bulk actions (such as a month-end review). With Zapier, you can send transactions to a spreadsheet as they occur. That way, you can review them in your spreadsheet immediately and don't have to export transactions from your accounting software constantly.
Add new QuickBooks Online invoices to Google Sheets spreadsheet rows
Create Google Sheet rows for new Splitwise expenses
You can even send transaction data to a database like Airtable for more complex or customizable use cases, especially if Airtable is your central hub for other parts of your business.
Create Airtable records for new QuickBooks Online invoices
Send notifications based on invoices and payments
Very often, sending an invoice or receiving a payment triggers another action in your company, whether it's reaching out to a customer or starting a new project. The people who need to be informed about those invoices and payments aren't necessarily the same as those working in your accounting software.
Whether your preferred method of communication is Slack or email (or both!), you can set up a Zap to automatically send notifications based on new invoices or received payments.
Send Slack messages for new invoices in QuickBooks Online
Send gmail emails for new QuickBooks Online payments
Send Slack channel messages for new payments in Xero
Send Gmail messages when new payments are received in Xero
Add new customers to your marketing apps
New customers often mean adding customer information to several different apps. If you're already adding customer contact information to your accounting software, why not save a step and add that customer to your marketing apps?
Whether you're using an email service provider like Mailchimp or a CRM like Salesforce, you can create new customer records based on adding new customers or creating invoices within your accounting software. Within these apps, you may have additional automation set up, such as adding tags to the customer or kicking off a welcome sequence.
Create Mailchimp subscribers from new Wave customers
Create Salesforce records for new QuickBooks Online invoices
Add new Mailchimp subscribers from new contacts in Xero
Subscribe new Zoho Books customers to a list on Mailchimp
Connect your accounting software to the apps you use every day
Accounting automation in software can do a lot of things, such as categorizing transactions or setting up recurring invoices. While this type of automation can save your accounting team a lot of time, it doesn't cover the full spectrum of tasks that are related to accounting but occur within other apps.
Whether you have a high volume of transactions or a small team, accounting automation can keep your business running smoothly. You won't have to worry about delayed communication, extra steps, or errors because your systems are out of sync.
Don't see the apps you use in the workflows we shared? Zapier connects with thousands of apps. Check out our App Directory to start automating your accounting app.
Related reading:
This article was originally published in April 2021, written by Joanna Rutter. It was most recently updated by Anna Burgess Yang in December 2024.
