Connect Gmail or Outlook to your Inbox
Pull receipts and supplier invoices in from the mailbox you already use, and let Travada Books match them to your transactions.
By Travada SystemsUpdated 2 min read
Most receipts and supplier invoices already arrive by email. Connect your Gmail or Outlook mailbox and Travada Books collects the PDF attachments into your Inbox, reads them, and suggests which transaction each one belongs to.
Connect your mailbox
- Open the menu under your business name at the bottom of the sidebar and choose Integrations.
- Find Gmail or Outlook. Turn on its switch, or open the card and select Connect Gmail or Connect Outlook.
- Sign in to your Google or Microsoft account and allow access. Travada Books asks to read your messages and attachments, to find receipts and invoices, and to see your basic account details, to show which mailbox is connected.
- You're brought back to your Inbox, and a message confirms the connection.
The card now shows Connected as and your email address.
What gets collected
On the first sync, Travada Books looks back over the last 30 days of email for messages with PDF attachments. After that it checks for new ones regularly on its own.
Each PDF becomes an item in your Inbox. Travada Books reads the amount, currency, invoice number and sender, and saves a copy of the file to your Vault, so your documents stay in one place.
Confirm the matches
When Travada Books finds a transaction that fits a receipt, the item shows a Suggested match.
- Open the item in your Inbox and check the suggestion against the receipt.
- Select Confirm to attach the receipt to that transaction, or Decline if it's wrong.
Travada Books learns from what you confirm, so matches from the same supplier get better over time.
Manage the connection
Open Integrations, then the Gmail or Outlook card:
- Sync now checks for new email straight away.
- Disconnect stops collecting from that mailbox.
- If the connection stops working, the account shows as Disconnected. Select Reconnect and sign in again.
Good to know: Only PDF attachments are collected, not the emails themselves. If a supplier sends newsletters or other noise you don't want, block them in Settings, then Inbox, under Blocked senders. And if you'd rather not connect a mailbox at all, every organisation has its own inbox email address (also under Settings, then Inbox). Forward receipts there and they land in your Inbox the same way.
Next steps
- Import a bank or M-Pesa statement so there are transactions for your receipts to match.