Log Receipts to Notion Expense Tracker with Make and OpenAI (No Code)

If you want a notion expense tracker that logs every receipt automatically, one no-code Make scenario does the whole job — Gmail catches the receipt, OpenAI reads the merchant, date, and total, and your Notion tracker fills itself, newest first. No typing totals by hand, no lost receipts, no code.

What you need

• A Make account with a scenario that triggers on new receipts
• An OpenAI API key
• A Gmail inbox where your receipts land
• A Notion database with columns for date, merchant, category, and total
• Two dummy receipts to test with — a test coffee receipt and a demo taxi fare

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The problem: receipts pile up and the totals are a guess

Receipts pile up in your inbox and your wallet, and every one of them needs typing into a spreadsheet before you know what you spent. A coffee here, a subscription there, a taxi fare — by the end of the month the numbers are a guess, and the receipts are gone.

The fix: Make, OpenAI, and Notion

One Make scenario watches your Gmail for new receipts, sends each one to OpenAI, and OpenAI reads the merchant, the date, and the total. Make writes that row straight into a Notion expense tracker — date, merchant, category, total — and your spending is logged before you even open Notion. This is a simple tracker built in minutes on Notion's free plan, with no template for sale.

The five steps

1. The receipt arrives — Connect Gmail to Make with a watch trigger, or use a label for receipts. Every time a receipt email lands, Make catches the attachment or the email body, and the scenario starts.
2. OpenAI reads the receipt — Add an OpenAI module with a short extraction prompt: read this receipt and reply with the merchant, the date, the total, and a category like food, travel, or software, in JSON only.
3. Read the fields — OpenAI replies with the merchant, date, total, and category. Parse that JSON in Make, so the merchant, date, total, and category become fields you can use in the next step.
4. Log it in Notion — Add a Notion module that creates a new page in your expense tracker database for every receipt: date, merchant, category, and total.
5. Test with dummy receipts — Fire two test receipts through — a coffee and a taxi fare — and watch the rows land in Notion. Demo Coffee at 4.50 should land under food; a demo taxi at 12.00 should land under travel.

The extraction prompt and a sample reply

Send OpenAI a prompt like this:

Read this receipt and reply with the merchant, the date, the total, and a category like food, travel, or software — in JSON only. 

OpenAI replies with something like this:

{ "merchant": "Demo Coffee", "date": "2026-11-11", "total": 4.50, "category": "food" } 

Parse the JSON in Make, then map the fields into your Notion database. Sort the tracker newest first so today's spending is always on top.

The finished result

Every receipt logged in your Notion expense tracker, no typing, no template to buy. Open Notion and the spending is already there, sorted by category so you can see where the money goes.

Watch the full tutorial on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oxRxMp6Z-LA — and subscribe to StackScale for a new automation tutorial every day.