n8n Workflow: Consolidate and Report Monthly Financial PDFs with Google Drive and Slack

This n8n workflow is designed to automate the process of consolidating financial data and reporting it via Slack. It acts as a foundational structure for a more complex automation, hinting at capabilities like processing monthly financial PDFs, likely stored in Google Drive, and then summarizing or alerting about them in Slack.

What it does

This workflow provides the basic scaffolding for a financial reporting automation. While the full logic for processing PDFs is not present in this JSON, the structure indicates the following steps:

1. Scheduled Trigger: The workflow is designed to be initiated at regular intervals, suggesting a recurring task like monthly reporting.
2. Google Drive Interaction: It includes a Google Drive node, indicating that it will interact with files stored in Google Drive. This is likely where the "monthly financial PDFs" would be accessed.
3. Conditional Logic: An "If" node is present, allowing for conditional branching based on certain criteria. This could be used to check for specific file types, report statuses, or other conditions before proceeding.
4. Data Aggregation: An "Aggregate" node is included, which is used to combine multiple items into a single item or to perform calculations on a set of data. This would be crucial for consolidating financial data from various PDFs.
5. Slack Notification: A Slack node is configured, implying that the final output or a summary of the processed financial data will be posted as a message to a Slack channel.
6. Sticky Note: A sticky note is present, likely for internal documentation or reminders within the workflow.

Prerequisites/Requirements

To use this workflow, you will need:

• n8n Instance: A running n8n instance.
• Google Drive Account: Configured n8n credentials for Google Drive to access your financial PDFs.
• Slack Account: Configured n8n credentials for Slack to post messages.

Setup/Usage

1. Import the workflow: Download the provided JSON and import it into your n8n instance.
2. Configure Credentials:
   • Set up your Google Drive credentials in n8n.
   • Set up your Slack credentials in n8n.
3. Customize Nodes:
   • Schedule Trigger: Adjust the schedule to your desired frequency (e.g., once a month).
   • Google Drive: Configure the Google Drive node to specify the folder where your financial PDFs are located and the operation to perform (e.g., "Get All" files, "Download" specific files).
   • If: Define the conditions for the "If" node based on your specific reporting logic (e.g., check if files exist, check file names for specific months).
   • Aggregate: Configure the "Aggregate" node to combine the data from your PDFs as needed. This will likely involve preceding nodes for PDF parsing (e.g., using an OCR or PDF parsing service, which are not included in this base workflow).
   • Slack: Customize the Slack node to specify the channel, message content, and any other details for your financial report notification.
4. Add PDF Processing Logic: To make this workflow fully functional for "consolidating monthly financial PDFs," you will need to add nodes for:
   • PDF Reading/Parsing: Nodes that can extract text or data from PDF files (e.g., using a custom code node with a library, or an external OCR service).
   • Data Transformation: Further nodes to clean, structure, and calculate the financial data extracted from the PDFs before aggregation.
5. Activate the Workflow: Once configured, activate the workflow to start the automated process.