Automated Invoice Creation from PDF Packing Slips Using AI and No-Code Tools

X-Cel Technologies needed a faster, more reliable way to turn incoming packing slips into invoices — without tying up their team.

We built a smart, automated workflow that pulls packing slip PDFs from email, extracts and cleans the data with AI, and generates QuickBooks invoices instantly — no manual input, no delays. The system auto-creates missing products, handles edge cases, and notifies team about created invoices. Fully integrated with their existing tools and built to scale as their vendor list grows.

X-Cel Technologies, a custom electronics distributor, handles a constant flow of shipments from multiple vendors — each with PDF packing slips that needed to be processed manually.

Pain Points:

• Manual data entry into QuickBooks
• Too much time spent on low-value admin work
• Packing slips buried in emails with no system
• Billing delays hurting cash flow
• Inflexible workflows that don’t scale
• No tracking or alert system for issues

We implemented a fully automated, no-code solution using Make, Parsio, and ChatGPT. The system is triggered by incoming emails with attached packing slips. It extracts structured data, validates and normalizes it using AI, checks against existing QuickBooks entries, creates any missing product records, and generates invoices — all without human input. Original packing slips are attached to the invoice for full traceability.

This solution directly addressed X-Cel’s pain points by eliminating manual PDF processing, speeding up invoice generation, and ensuring consistent data flow to QuickBooks with zero manual intervention post-launch.

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Key Solution Components:

• Email-triggered automation with PDF parsing via Parsio
• Intelligent data validation and formatting with ChatGPT
• Product lookup and auto-creation in QuickBooks
• Invoice generation with slip attachment
• Automated email and SMS notifications

Strategic Highlights:

• Flexible architecture for easy scaling to new suppliers
• Human oversight limited only to pricing updates when needed

The automation we’ve built fully replaced a manual, error-prone invoicing creation process with a reliable system that runs independently. Invoices are now generated in under a minute, without human input, and exceptions are flagged instantly. What used to be a daily bottleneck is now a hands-off workflow that scales effortlessly as the business grows.

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