The short answer: switch on alfred_’s Log every invoice routine. Every Friday at 5 PM it finds the invoices, receipts and bills that arrived in your email in the last 7 days, including PDF attachments, and adds each one to a note titled “Invoices” with the vendor, the amount, the due date and whether it looks paid.
Vendor bills for a portfolio don’t arrive in one shape. The plumber emails a PDF. The landscaper’s invoice comes from an invoicing service. The water utility sends a “your bill is ready” notice. The HVAC company emails a receipt after charging the card on file. By month end, someone is searching the inbox for “invoice” and retyping amounts into a spreadsheet. This routine keeps that list for you, every week. It’s a log to review, not the books.
The native way, and where it stops
Gmail can find most of these with search operators: has:attachment finds mail with attachments, and filename:pdf narrows it to PDFs (Gmail Help). Save that search as a filter and Gmail can “send email to a label” as it arrives (Gmail Help).
Outlook does the same with rules, which can “automatically move them to other folders” based on sender or other conditions (Microsoft Support).
Where they stop: a label or a folder collects the emails. It doesn’t read them. You still open each PDF to find the vendor, the amount and the due date, and type them somewhere. And a bill whose subject says “Statement” or “Service summary” can slip past a filter built on the word “invoice.”
Property management software can take over bill entry. AppFolio says its Smart Bill Entry reads incoming invoices, extracts the data and maps it “to the correct fields in your database,” and that the technology can “receive, read, and code invoices on your behalf for your approval” (AppFolio). If your bills already flow into your accounting system, that’s the path for coding and paying them, and this routine doesn’t replace it.
Where it stops: it works on the bills that reach it. The receipt the HVAC company emailed to your own inbox after charging the card stays in your inbox until someone sends it along.
Log every invoice: the Friday list
Open Routines in alfred_ on the desktop, find Log every invoice, and switch it on. (The iPhone app has a Routines screen too.) It runs every Friday at 5 PM. The week’s run arrives by email and is on the web in alfred_, and the running list itself lives in your alfred_ notes (how notes work). Routines come with an alfred_ subscription; plans are on the pricing page.
Each Friday it:
- Finds invoices, receipts and bills that arrived in your email in the last 7 days, including PDF attachments.
- Adds each one to the note titled “Invoices” with the vendor, the amount, the due date, and whether it looks paid.
- Says so if nothing arrived.
Because each week is added to the same note, it becomes one running list you can scroll back through.
If you also want the emails themselves in one place, that’s a rule, not a routine. Write it in plain words, like “move emails from our plumber, our landscaper and our pest control company into a folder called Vendor bills,” and alfred_ files them as they arrive. The routine then gives you the rows; the folder keeps the originals.
What it looks like
Example, invented for this post: one Friday's rows in the Invoices note.
| Vendor | Amount | Due date | Looks paid? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing company | $485.00 | October 1 | No |
| Landscaping company | $1,200.00 | On receipt | No |
| HVAC company (receipt) | $310.00 | None | Yes, card charged |
| Water utility | $742.18 | October 5 | No |
| Pest control (receipt) | $95.00 | None | Yes, autopay |
What it leaves out
- Coding and posting. No GL accounts, no bill entry, nothing sent to AppFolio, Buildium or QuickBooks.
- Sorting by building. Rows aren’t grouped by property. If the address matters, it’s on the invoice.
- Payment status you can rely on. “Looks paid” is read from the email, such as a receipt or a “payment received” line, not checked against your bank or ledger.
- Mail it can’t see. Invoices sent to an inbox you haven’t connected. And a “log in to view your invoice” email with no amount in it can only produce a thin row.
What it changes for the office
- No manual reporting. The Friday rows replace the month-end inbox search and the retyping.
- Nothing slips. A due date inside a PDF nobody opened shows up as a row by Friday.
- The owner of the company sees status without chasing. The week’s run arrives as an email, so forwarding it to your bookkeeper or your managing broker is one step. There’s no shared dashboard; the note is in your alfred_.
- Managers stay on the properties. Nobody spends Friday afternoon copying amounts out of PDFs.
Where each step happens
- Desktop, in the office: switch the routine on, open the Invoices note, and check the rows against your accounting system before anything is paid.
- Email, Friday at 5 PM: the week’s run, also on the web in alfred_. This routine doesn’t arrive by text.
- Text, on the road: ask alfred_ to find a specific bill (“find the plumber’s invoice from this week”) and forward it to your bookkeeper. Forwarding shows you the email first and waits for your yes. More on texting alfred_.
- iPhone app: your notes are in the app’s Workspace, and invoice attachments open in the app.
The honest caveat
Amounts and due dates are read from emails and PDFs, and a blurry scan or an unusual invoice layout can be misread. Treat every row as a pointer to the original, and check the invoice itself before you pay it or post it.