Our new finance assistant is a Robot: how ClickUp and n8n work for us
Anyone who runs an agency or consulting firm knows that the work doesn’t end with project delivery. In fact, that’s often when another, less-loved chapter begins: administration. Certificates of delivery, reports, emails, invoicing, and tracking payments.
It’s an endless manual process that consumes a huge amount of time and energy. It's easy to make mistakes—a wrong email address or a typo in an amount can set the process back for days, all the while pulling the team away from real, creative work.
At Alias Innovations, we know this pain intimately. After a while, we had to face the fact that our team's valuable hours were being spent manually creating invoices and certificates. We wanted to save ourselves these hours, so the goal became to effectively automate this workflow. Of course we turned to ClickUp to provide the foundation, as it's where we manage our projects, but that alone wasn't enough.
The Solution: A Little Low-Code Magic
The real breakthrough came with n8n, a low-code platform. It acts as a digital glue that can connect our various software tools so they can communicate without human intervention.
The ClickUp + n8n duo provided the perfect basis for building a complex billing integration.
However, we also knew that even the most sophisticated workflow automation will fail if it has to work with inaccurate information.
That’s why the key to the entire process is a template we created in ClickUp. It functions as a form with predefined fields, which allows us to minimize the potential for error and ensure the system always works with the correct, formatted data.
Here’s how ClickUp + n8n work in practice
The Reporter and Postman
When we complete a project in ClickUp, Wall-e immediately springs into action.
It grabs the relevant data, generates a formal certificate of delivery as a PDF, and sends it to the client using a professional email template.
The Smart Approver
The email contains a unique, encrypted link that the client can click to approve the delivery, which the system instantly logs. If there’s no response within seven days, the system automatically considers the report approved. Of course, there's also an option to reject the report, which sends an immediate notification to the project manager.
The Autonomous Accountant
The moment an approval is given, Wall-e is already knocking on the door of our billing software (Billingo). It passes along the necessary data, and the software automatically issues and emails the official invoice to the client. No more manual invoicing.
The Tidy Archivist
Wall-e likes things neat. It immediately uploads the issued invoice to our financial records in ClickUp and places a copy in our accountant’s shared Google Drive folder.
The Financial Watchdog
The cycle closes with the payment. Billingo’s bank synchronization detects the incoming transfer and sets the invoice status to 'Paid.'
Seeing this, Wall-e updates the invoice status in ClickUp as well. The entire process is completed without us having to spend a single minute on administration.
What did we gain with this automation?
At first glance, the time savings are the most obvious benefit. For a ten-person team, this system frees up the equivalent of one full-time employees’ hours each month. But the real advantages come after that.
Since the potential for error has dropped to virtually zero, our processes have become much more reliable. Thanks to accurate and fast reporting, payments also arrive sooner.
This predictable, professional operation not only gives us peace of mind but is also appreciated by our clients.
And perhaps most importantly, that our team has been freed from monotonous tasks and can finally focus on what they do best.
What's Next?
ClickUp is a fantastic tool on its own, but with an n8n-based workflow automation, we can unlock its true power and build a fully integrated corporate system.
Would you like an automated assistant like this to handle administration at your company? Feel free to contact us, and we'll help you design and build your own workflow automation solution!
We develop integrations like this and others on an international level, so our expert colleague can help you in English, German and Hungarian.
