How a Company in Warsaw Solved a Problem Where a Company Spent More Than 12 Hours Per Week Processing Donation Receipts Manually Using Make

In today’s fast-paced digital world, manual administrative tasks can quickly drain valuable time and resources. 📈 This was precisely the challenge faced by a nonprofit organization based in Warsaw, Poland, which spent over 12 hours per week processing donation receipts manually. This time-consuming process led to delays, errors, and reduced team productivity. In this case study, we explore how automation using Make transformed this tedious workflow, delivering efficiency, accuracy, and improved visibility.

Readers will gain a step-by-step understanding of how we designed and implemented the automation, the architecture behind it, the tools integrated, and the measurable business impact achieved. If you’re a startup CTO, automation engineer, or operations specialist looking to optimize repetitive tasks, this deep dive into Make-driven automation will provide practical insights and inspiration.

Discover practical instructions, real examples, and the benefits of Automation-as-a-Service provided by RestFlow.

The Problem

The client is a mid-sized nonprofit organization based in Warsaw, Poland, operating in the charitable donations sector. Their finance and operations teams were responsible for processing donation receipts—a fundamental step to acknowledge donors and ensure legal compliance.

Prior to automation, the donation receipt processing involved manually checking emails, extracting donor details, generating receipts, and logging entries into a Google Sheet. This labor-intensive workflow consumed over 12 hours each week, with employees dedicating entire workdays to the task.

Key pain points included:

• Time wastage: Over 48 hours per month lost on repetitive manual data entry.
• High error rate: Manual typos and missed emails led to inaccurate receipts and donor dissatisfaction.
• Delayed processing: Receipts were often generated days after donation confirmation, impacting donor experience.
• Lack of visibility: No centralized dashboard or real-time tracking for management to monitor backlog and workflow status.

These inefficiencies slowed internal operations and risked donor trust and compliance, affecting both revenue and organizational reputation.

Our Approach

RestFlow initiated the project with a thorough discovery phase, collaborating closely with the finance and operations teams. We mapped out every step of the manual donation receipt processing, identifying key systems and data handoffs.

The existing tools involved:

• Gmail: Receiving donation confirmation emails.
• Google Sheets: Tracking processed receipts and donor information.
• Manual document generation: Creating PDF receipts manually.

We proposed an automation solution leveraging Make as the low-code integration and orchestration platform. Make was chosen due to its powerful visual workflow editor, robust API integrations, and flexible scheduling and webhook triggers.

Our high-level architecture focused on automating data extraction from emails, validation and enrichment of donor data, automatic generation and emailing of donation receipts, and updating the Google Sheet log. Notification alerts and error handling pathways were included for robustness.

This approach promised to reduce manual effort drastically while improving accuracy and throughput.

The Solution: Architecture & Workflow

The global automation architecture centers around Make as the orchestrator coordinating inputs, processing, and outputs.

• Trigger: Scheduled email monitoring and Gmail webhook for new donation confirmation emails.
• Orchestration tool: Make, handling parsing, conditionals, data transformation, and actions.
• External services integrated: Gmail (email read and send), Google Sheets (data logging), Google Drive (for PDF storage), PDF generation module, Slack (error and status alerts).
• Outputs: Automated PDF donation receipts emailed to donors, updated log in Google Sheets, notifications to operations via Slack.

End-to-end workflow overview:
1. Trigger: Make detects new donation confirmation emails in Gmail using webhook and scheduled polling.
2. Data extraction: Email parsing extracts donor name, donation date, amount, and contact info using regex and parsing tools.
3. Validation: Check extracted data completeness and format; block or flag incomplete data.
4. Enrichment: Search the donor in Google Sheets to check existing entries.
5. Decision branching: If donor found, update donation history; if not, add new donor record.
6. Receipt generation: Fill a PDF template with extracted and enriched data.
7. Email dispatch: Send the receipt PDF to donor’s email.
8. Logging: Update Google Sheets donation log with processed receipt info.
9. Notifications: Send Slack message confirming success or error alerts for failures.

Step-by-Step Node Breakdown 🚀

1. Gmail Watcher and Scheduled Trigger 📧

Trigger Type: Gmail Watch emails + Scheduled webhook every 10 minutes.
Function: Poll new emails with specific subject line “Donation Confirmation”.
Key Fields: Email headers filtered by subject, sender.
Purpose: Initiate workflow immediately after new donation email arrives.

2. Email Parser Node 🔍

Input: Raw email body and attachments.
Role: Extract donor name, email, amount, date using regex expressions.
Example Mapping: Extract amount via regex pattern \d+(\.\d{2})?
Validation: Checks missing or invalid fields trigger error path.

3. Google Sheets Search and Update 📊

Actions: Search donor by email in Google Sheets using filter.
Condition: If donor exists, append donation record; else, create new donor row.
Fields: Donor name, email, total donations, latest amount, timestamp mapped.

4. PDF Template Fill and Storage 📄

Tool: Integrated PDF generation module.
Process: Fill predesigned receipt template with extracted data.
Output: Store receipt PDF in a designated Google Drive folder.

5. Email Receipt Dispatch 📤

Node: Gmail send email.
Details: Attach generated receipt PDF.
Email Body: Personalized thank you message with confirmation.
Recipients: Donor email address from extracted data.

6. Slack Notification and Error Alerts 🚨

Success path: Notify operations channel on new receipt processed.
Error handling: On parsing or API errors, send alert with error details and failed email copy.
Retry: Workflow configured with exponential backoff retries for transient API errors.

Error Handling, Robustness & Security

Error Handling: The workflow includes retry mechanisms with exponential backoff on Gmail and API failures. Parsing errors trigger fallback logging to a Google Sheet error queue for manual review. Slack alerts immediately notify the ops team on critical failure.

Idempotency: Each email is checked for unique message IDs and donor email/date combination to prevent duplicate receipt processing.

Logging & Observability: Run logs stored in Make dashboard with notifications and audit trail.

Security & Data Protection:

• API credentials and tokens securely stored with scoped least privilege access.
• Personally Identifiable Information (PII) encrypted in transit between services via HTTPS/TLS.
• Access to Make workflows restricted to authorized RestFlow and client personnel only.
• Environment variables and secrets managed within Make’s secure vault.

Performance, Scaling & Extensibility

The workflow is designed to scale by using webhook triggers from Gmail supplemented with scheduled polling to ensure no emails are missed, even under high volumes.

Batch processing of donations is supported by queueing unprocessed emails in a Google Sheet buffer sheet to avoid API throttling.

Parallelization of PDF generation and email sending nodes optimizes throughput during peak donation periods.

Modular design allows for easy extension to other communication channels or additional donation platforms.

RestFlow’s managed hosting environment ensures high availability and automatic versioning of workflows for safe deployments.

Tool	Cost	Pros	Cons
n8n	Free to $40/month (cloud)	Open-source, highly customizable, self-hosting option	Slightly steeper learning curve, fewer prebuilt connectors
Make	Starts at $9/month	Powerful visual builder, broad app integrations, flexible scheduling	Pricing scales with operations, rate limits apply
Zapier	Starts at $19.99/month	Huge library of apps, simple to start, strong community	Limited complex logic, can be expensive at scale

Integration Method	Pros	Cons
Webhook Trigger	Real-time processing, efficient resource use	Requires setup per source, possible missed events if down
Polling Scheduler	Simple to implement, fault-tolerant	Delays based on polling interval, increased API calls

Storage Type	Cost	Pros	Cons
Google Sheets	Free (with Google Workspace limits)	Easy setup, accessible, integrates well with Make	Limited row capacity, slower with big data
Relational Database (e.g., PostgreSQL)	Varies by host	Scalable, supports complex queries, strong concurrency	Setup complexity, requires database maintenance

Results & Business Impact

After deployment of the Make automation workflow by RestFlow, the client saw substantial improvements:

• Time savings: Reduced manual processing from 12 hours to under 90 minutes per week – a 88% reduction in time spent.[Source: to be added]
• Error reduction: Donor data typos and missing information errors declined by over 90% due to automated validation.[Source: to be added]
• Faster SLA: Donation receipts are now sent within minutes of receipt emails, greatly enhancing donor satisfaction.
• Improved visibility: Real-time status logging and Slack notifications provide clear workflow monitoring and inbox backlog tracking.

The finance and operations teams can now redirect their efforts to higher-value work, improving overall organizational efficiency and donor trust.

Are you looking to streamline your repetitive processes? Explore the Automation Template Marketplace for ready-made workflows that can jumpstart your automation journey.

Pilot Phase & Maintenance Disclaimer

It’s important to mention that this automation solution underwent a pilot phase during which the workflow was run under monitored, controlled conditions with real donation emails. This phase enabled us to identify and fix edge cases such as irregular email formatting and network interruptions.

Following successful pilot completion, RestFlow has assumed ongoing responsibility for managed hosting, continuous monitoring, workflow updates, and audits. This ensures sustained reliability and immediate response to any changes in client systems or APIs.

Automation is an iterative journey, and long-term maintenance is critical to maintaining seamless business continuity.

Conclusion

The nonprofit in Warsaw successfully resolved the time-consuming manual donation receipt processing challenge by deploying an expertly designed Make automation workflow powered by RestFlow’s Automation-as-a-Service. This solution streamlined data extraction from emails, automated receipt generation, and logging with Google Sheets, while integrating Slack alerts for team transparency.

The results speak for themselves: over 88% time savings, improved accuracy, and accelerated donor acknowledgment. The organization now enjoys smoother internal operations and better donor relationships.

RestFlow stands ready to design, implement, host, monitor, and maintain automation workflows tailored to your unique business needs. Whether you want to reduce manual overhead like this Warsaw team or digitize complex processes, RestFlow offers the expertise and managed services to deliver.

If you’re inspired to begin your automation journey, explore the Automation Template Marketplace or create your free RestFlow account today to unlock your team’s potential.