Invoice Automation for Agencies
Agency AP is mostly pass-through cost that has to land against the right client. Freelance designers, contract developers, media spend, stock licences, print vendors, production crews. Get the client coding wrong and either you eat the cost or you bill it to the wrong account and have an awkward conversation.
The volume is high and irregular. A big campaign month can triple the invoice count, and it arrives exactly when everyone is busiest delivering the campaign.
ZapBooks reads the agency inbox, extracts every invoice and receipt, applies your vendor coding rules and posts bills into QuickBooks Online or Xero for review.
What makes AP hard in marketing and creative agencies
The volume is one problem. The shape of the documents is usually the bigger one.
Recoverable client costs
Pass-through costs that never get coded to a client never get rebilled, and margin on that project quietly disappears.
Freelancer invoice chaos
Every freelancer invoices in their own format, on their own schedule, from their own email address.
Ad platform receipts everywhere
Media spend receipts arrive as HTML email from half a dozen platforms and rarely as tidy PDFs.
Volume spikes with campaigns
AP work peaks exactly when the delivery team has no spare capacity.
How it works
- 1
Connect the agency accounts mailbox
Where freelancers, vendors and platforms already send invoices.
- 2
Both PDFs and in-body receipts extracted
Ad platforms send HTML receipts; those are handled the same as attachments.
- 3
Client and project references captured
Job numbers and client names in the invoice text are surfaced so recoverable costs get coded at review rather than guessed at month end.
- 4
Per-vendor coding rules
Recurring freelancers and platforms code the same way every time.
- 5
Posted to QuickBooks or Xero
Where your project or class structure carries the client allocation.
Documents it handles
- Freelancer and contractor invoices
- Ad platform and media buy receipts
- Stock photo, font and asset licence receipts
- Print and production vendor invoices
- Software and SaaS subscription receipts
- Venue, travel and event invoices
What lands in your ledger
- Client allocation runs through the projects, classes or tracking categories in QuickBooks or Xero; ZapBooks feeds them clean data.
- Job numbers and client references appearing in the invoice text are captured so recoverable costs are identified while the context is fresh.
- Unlimited volume on Pro means a campaign-heavy month costs the same as a quiet one.
- Flat pricing with no seats means account managers and the finance contractor can all have access.
Questions from marketing and creative agencies
Ready to stop typing invoices?
Connect your inbox and your accounting software. ZapBooks reads the invoices, extracts the data and posts coded bills to QuickBooks, Xero or Excel.
14-day free trial. No credit card required.