Trolley’s new invoice ingestion feature eliminates the friction of processing invoices by automatically extracting, validating, and routing invoices the moment they arrive via email or Slack. Powered by AI, it turns unstructured attachments into clean, actionable data that syncs directly into your payout workflow.
If you work in payouts or finance operations, you know the drill: invoices come in from every direction. Someone has to manually enter that data into an ERP system before a single payment can be made.
It’s repetitive, error-prone, and slow. And every delay between “invoice received” and “invoice processed” creates friction, for your team and for the people waiting to get paid.
That’s why we built our invoice ingestion capabilities, a new feature in Trolley that automates invoice processing, connects your payout operations from start to finish, and makes life easier for both recipients and finance teams.
It’s the next evolution in PayoutOps and RecipientOps, where submitting an invoice is as simple as sending an email, and getting paid takes minutes, not hours.
What we cover
Why invoice ingestion matters
For most businesses, invoice processing is still a manual process hidden inside a highly automated workflow. Someone opens an attachment, copies line items, double-checks totals, and re-enters everything into their payout or accounting system. Multiply that by dozens (or hundreds) of invoices a week, and it becomes a full-time job just to keep up.
Even small mistakes—a wrong decimal, a mismatched recipient, a missing due date—can create delays that ripple through the payout cycle. And when your recipients are contractors, creators, or partners who depend on timely payments, those delays impact trust.
This feature removes that bottleneck. It’s automation designed for accuracy and speed, transforming unstructured invoices into structured data you can actually use.
How it works: from inbox to invoice in minutes
1. Submit anywhere
Every recipient, contractor, or partner has their preferred way of sending invoices — and that’s fine.
With Trolley’s invoice ingestion, they can submit invoices through multiple channels, including:
- Email: Send to a dedicated submission address
- Slack: Upload directly to your finance or any pre-defined channel
- Attachments supported: PDF, JPG, or PNG
No portals to log into. No specific templates to follow. They send it where you already work.
2. AI extracts the details
Once received, Trolley’s AI-powered ingestion tool automatically extracts all the key details, including:
- Line items and descriptions
- Invoice number and due date
- Amounts and currencies
- Recipient name and email
The system interprets context—like currencies or tax-reportable items—and structures data for immediate use in your payout workflow. Invoices appear clean, organized, and ready for approval.
3. Recipients matched or created automatically
Speaking of saving manual data entry and verification, each invoice is automatically checked against your existing recipient records.
- If there’s a match, it links instantly.
- If there isn’t, Trolley creates a new recipient record using the details on the invoice.
That means even if someone invoices your company for the first time, they can still be paid quickly.
4. Notifications and tracking built in
Once an invoice is ingested, both the submitter and your team receive notifications confirming it’s been processed.
Each invoice is automatically tagged by its source channel (e.g., Ingested:Email or Ingested:Slack) for easy tracking.
All of this fits seamlessly within your two-step approval process, maintaining your existing controls while removing the tedious first step: getting the invoice into the system.
Built for both sides of the payout experience
Trolley is working to raise the bar for both payout operations and recipient operations, and this invoice ingestion feature brings automation that helps both sides.
For finance and operations teams
- Less manual entry. Save hours each week by letting Trolley handle extraction and setup.
- Accurate data from the start. Digital invoices are extracted with near-perfect accuracy, with an option for merchants to review before processing it.
- Easy reconciliation. Once payments are made, invoice data can sync directly to your ERP. This eliminates duplicate entries and improves reporting.
- Built-in financial controls. Automation works within your existing approval framework, so you maintain visibility and compliance at every step.
For recipients, creators, and contractors
- Getting paid feels effortless. They send their invoice (by email or Slack) and it’s automatically processed.
- No back-and-forth. No need to chase confirmation or worry about missing information.
- Faster payouts, better experience. Reducing manual processing means quicker payments and stronger trust between your platform and your recipients.
The foundation for smarter, faster finance operations
Every automation we build at Trolley has a simple goal: to make operations more connected and efficient across your organization.
This invoice ingestion feature does exactly that. It gives finance teams clean, structured invoice data the moment it arrives, so everything that follows, approvals, payouts, tax reporting, and ERP syncing, happen faster and with fewer errors.
By bringing invoices directly into your payout workflow, you’re creating a single source of truth that every team can rely on. Finance, operations, compliance, and even customer success can all gain access to the same accurate recipient and payment data.
The result? Less time chasing details, fewer bottlenecks in your payout cycle, and a more transparent experience for recipients who just want to know one thing: when will I get paid?
That’s the kind of trust and efficiency Trolley is built to deliver.
Ready to experience it?
Want to see how automated invoice ingestion fits into your payout operations? Our team can walk you through how it works, from invoice submission and recipient creation to reconciliation and reporting.
Whether you’re managing hundreds of contractor invoices or just looking to reduce manual entry, we’ll show you how Trolley can simplify every step of your workflow.
Let’s make paying others faster, easier, and more accurate.
Talk to our team and see how Trolley-powered invoice ingestion can streamline your payouts.
