Telegram Receipt OCR to Google Sheets via n8n + OpenAI

Turn Telegram receipt photos into structured expense rows in Google Sheets (with n8n + OpenAI OCR)

Send a receipt image to your Telegram bot, and this n8n workflow automatically extracts the vendor, date, total amount, and tax using OpenAI (gpt-4.1-mini), then appends the results to your Google Sheets expense tracker—fully automated.

What this workflow does

• Triggers on Telegram receipts: When a receipt image/document is sent to your Telegram bot, n8n downloads the file via the Telegram Trigger.
• Creates a public image URL: The workflow uploads the image using UploadToURL to generate a permanent public link.
• Extracts receipt fields with OpenAI: It sends the public image URL to OpenAI (gpt-4.1-mini) and instructs the model to return strict JSON containing vendor, date, total amount, and tax.
• Writes to Google Sheets: The workflow parses the JSON response and appends a new row to the specified spreadsheet tab with: Vendor, Date, Tax, and Total Amount.

Use cases

• Personal or team expense tracking: Capture receipts from a mobile device in Telegram and keep a clean Google Sheets ledger.
• SaaS operator workflows: Route receipt images from staff to a centralized sheet without manual data entry.
• Automation engineers: Use this as a practical template for Telegram → OCR → Google Sheets pipelines.

Technical details

• n8n Telegram Trigger for receipt image/document intake
• UploadToURL to generate a public image URL for processing
• OpenAI via n8nn8n-nodes-langchainopen ai using gpt-4.1-mini to extract fields as strict JSON
• Google Sheets with OAuth2 to append rows to the target expense tracker tab

Setup requirement: Ensure your Google Sheet contains columns for Vendor, Date, Tax, and Total Amount, and configure Telegram, UploadToURL, and OpenAI credentials in n8n.