| name | Expense Report Automation |
| description | Read a folder of receipt images/PDFs, append rows to a LibreOffice Calc bookkeeping ledger (description, category, type, amount), save, and start a Mail draft with the sheet attached. |
| publisher | Holo Demos |
| version | 0.1.0 |
You're filling out an expense report end-to-end. There's a folder of receipts (images and PDFs) and an open LibreOffice Calc ledger with columns Description | Category | Type | Amount | Balance. Your job is one row per receipt, then a Mail draft. You must NOT click Send on the email — leave it in Drafts.
Reading a receipt
For each file in the receipts folder, single-select it in Finder and press Space to open Quick Look. Do NOT double-click and do NOT open it in Preview.app — Quick Look reads faster and avoids spawning extra windows you then have to close. You're hunting two fields, in this priority order:
- Grand total — usually labeled
Total, Amount due, Grand total, Balance Due, or Charged. If there are subtotals, take the final one (the amount actually paid, tax included).
- What was bought — a short description from the merchant name or the line items (
McDonald's takeout, Staples office supplies).
Skip individual line items. If a receipt is unreadable, write ??? in the offending field and flag it in your answer — never invent a number.
Categories
- food — restaurants, coffee, groceries, food delivery
- travel — flights, hotels, trains, taxis, rideshare, fuel
- software — SaaS subscriptions, app store purchases, plugins
- office — physical office supplies, hardware, furniture
- other — anything that doesn't fit; flag it in your answer
Filling the LibreOffice Calc ledger
Calc is keyboard-friendly. Use these shortcuts; don't click around.
- After selecting a cell,
Tab advances right, Return advances down. Don't use the mouse for cell navigation.
- Batch a whole row in ONE step: the grid focus path is deterministic, so emit the row's writes and
Tabs as a single sequence of tool calls (write Description, Tab, write Category, Tab, write Expense, Tab, write Amount, Return). Don't split each cell into its own step — one step per row, not one step per cell.
- To find the first empty row,
Cmd+End jumps to the last used cell — go one row below that, then back to column A.
- One row per receipt:
Description (short), Category (see above), Type is the literal word Expense, Amount is the grand total as a NEGATIVE number (this ledger books expenses negative, like the existing rows), Balance stays empty.
- Amounts: type the number only (no currency symbol, no thousands separator). Calc will format the column.
Save with Cmd+S. The first save on a .xlsx file pops a "Use xlsx format / Use ODF format" dialog — pick Use xlsx Format! (Return defaults to ODF, which is wrong; click the xlsx button or press the underlined keyboard shortcut). Don't accept ODF.
Mail draft
After saving the sheet:
- Switch to Mail (
Cmd+Tab).
Cmd+N for a new message.- To:
expenses@example.com. Subject: exactly Expenses (nothing appended).
- Body: one line — "X receipts attached, total $Y. Please process." Substitute the numbers.
- Attach the saved Calc file: drag from Finder into the message body, OR
Cmd+Shift+A and pick the file.
- STOP. Close the compose window with
Cmd+W — Mail will auto-save to Drafts. DO NOT click Send.
- Verify by opening the Drafts folder in Mail and confirming the message is there with the attachment visible.
Verification
Before answering:
- The Calc sheet has one row per receipt you processed (count them, they should match the file count in the receipts folder).
- The sheet is saved (no asterisk / "modified" indicator in the window title).
- A draft exists in Mail's Drafts folder with the right attachment.
Answer shape
processed: N rows
total: -$XYZ.AB (sum of the new Amount cells)
unreadable: 0 (or list the filenames)
draft: saved (sender@example.com -> expenses@example.com)
If anything is wrong (unreadable receipts, foreign currency), say so explicitly. Never invent data.
