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Mindee n8n integrationAutomate Mindee with n8n.

Someone on the team still retypes invoice totals into a spreadsheet. The Mindee n8n integration hands that job to an OCR API instead: the node exposes 2 operations across 2 resources, invoice and receipt, and brings no trigger of its own. Useful the day paperwork arrives faster than anyone can key it in.

Try the Mindee integration on n8nSee the 2 operations

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Why automate

What does the Mindee n8n integration actually do?

Mindee runs OCR APIs, meaning software that reads the text inside a document and returns it as named fields instead of raw pixels. The n8n node calls two of them: the Invoice OCR API and the Receipt OCR API. You give it a file that is already travelling through the workflow as binary data, it gives back parsed values the next node can map.

Two operations, two resources, no trigger node on the Mindee side.

Start with the expense pile. A mailbox receives supplier invoices as attachments, a Gmail node downloads them, invoice.predict reads each file, and a Google Sheets node appends one row per document with the values Mindee returned. That is exactly the shape of the public template 1466, which pairs the two nodes for expense extraction.

Second shape: the alert. Receipts and invoices land in a shared inbox, the workflow parses them, then posts the result to a Slack channel so the finance owner sees what came in without opening a single attachment. Template 1467 wires mail, Mindee and Slack together for that. It works well when the volume is low but the reaction has to be quick.

Third shape: the file that is not an attachment at all. An HTTP Request node downloads a receipt image from a URL, passes it along as binary data, and receipt.predict reads it. Template 702 does precisely that, and it is the pattern to copy whenever the document sits in cloud storage, in a ticketing tool, or behind a form upload.

Prefer HTTP Request over the dedicated node when the Mindee product you need is not one of those two. The node covers invoice prediction and receipt prediction, nothing else from Mindee's catalogue. An HTTP Request node reaches any other endpoint while reusing the same credential through predefined authentication, so you keep one place to rotate the key.

The known limits are worth stating before you build. There is no Mindee trigger, so a Schedule Trigger, an n8n Webhook or another tool's trigger has to start the run. Each item carries one binary field, so a mail with four attachments needs to be split into four items first. And the parsed output still deserves a human check on edge cases, which is a good reason to route low-confidence documents to a person rather than straight to accounting. If the wiring part is the blocker more than the OCR part, the n8n training covers it, and the n8n review says where the tool fits.

Connect

How do you connect Mindee to n8n?

  1. 01

    Open a Mindee account and pick your API

    Mindee splits its OCR products per document type, and n8n follows that split. The credential documentation lists two supported authentication methods: an Invoice API key, for use with the Invoice OCR API, and a Receipt API key, for use with the Receipt OCR API. Decide which documents the workflow will actually read before creating anything, because the key you generate belongs to one product.

  2. 02

    Generate the API Key

    Both credential types ask for one value, an API Key. Mindee documents how to produce it in its Create and Manage API Keys page, and that is the only field n8n needs on either method. Copy the key straight from Mindee rather than retyping it, since a trailing space is enough to make every call fail later with no obvious reason.

  3. 03

    Save the credential once in n8n

    A credential lives in the Credentials menu of n8n, not inside a workflow. Create it there, paste the key, save, and every Mindee node afterwards offers it in its dropdown. Same behaviour on n8n Cloud and on a self-hosted instance, so a workflow exported from one runs unchanged on the other once the credential exists on both sides.

Actions

What can the Mindee node do?

The Mindee node exposes 2 operations across 2 resources. For each one: the node as you configure it in n8n, the required fields, and our field notes.

Resources × operations matrix
ResourcePredict
Invoice✓
Receipt✓

Invoice

1 operation
01

Predict

invoice.predict

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Sends the file carried by the current item to the Invoice OCR API and returns the invoice as structured data, ready for a sheet, a database or an accounting tool.

Key parameters

  • Input Binary Field: the name of the input binary field containing the file to be uploaded, usually the name the previous node gave the attachment.
  • API Version: which Mindee API version the call targets, among 1, 3 and 4.
  • RAW Data: enabled, n8n hands back the data exactly as received from the API, useful when a field is missing from the shorter output.
Use cases
a supplier invoice arrives by mail every morning and lands as a row in the ledger.

Receipt

1 operation
02

Predict

receipt.predict

What you see in n8n

Notes & use cases

Same call, different Mindee product: the Receipt OCR API reads the crumpled taxi slip or the photographed restaurant ticket, and returns its values as fields.

Key parameters

  • Input Binary Field: points at the binary property holding the receipt file, so several files per run have to be split into one item each.
  • API Version: 1, 3 or 4, pinned when a downstream node expects a stable shape.
  • RAW Data: off by default, on when the workflow archives the full API answer beside the parsed result.
Use cases
expense claims photographed on the road, parsed on arrival, posted to the channel where the manager approves them.
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FAQ

Mindee and n8n, the questions that come next

01Is the Mindee n8n integration free?
On the n8n side, yes. The Mindee node ships with n8n, so there is nothing to install and nothing extra to pay, whether you run n8n Cloud or a self-hosted instance under the Community Edition and its Sustainable Use licence. The workflow is identical in both cases. What sits outside n8n is the Mindee account itself: you create one, you generate an API key, and what that account costs depends on Mindee's own terms, which this page does not cover. Plan the OCR budget with Mindee directly, and treat the n8n part as a wiring cost only.
02Which credentials do you need to connect Mindee to n8n?
A Mindee account first. From there the credential documentation lists two supported authentication methods, and you pick the one matching the documents you parse: an Invoice API key for the Invoice OCR API, or a Receipt API key for the Receipt OCR API. Either one asks for a single value in n8n, the API Key, produced from Mindee's Create and Manage API Keys documentation. The credential is created once in the Credentials menu and reused across every workflow, so a team parsing both invoices and receipts stores both keys and selects the right one per node.
03What are the limits of the Mindee node in n8n?
The node covers two operations, invoice.predict and receipt.predict, and that is the whole surface. Anything else Mindee offers has to go through the HTTP Request node, which calls any endpoint of the API while reusing the same credential through predefined authentication. Two other constraints matter in practice. The file is read from one binary field per item, so a message with several attachments gets split before the node runs. And there is no Mindee trigger node, which means the workflow always starts somewhere else. Nothing here blocks a production setup, but it shapes how you build it.
04Does Mindee trigger an n8n workflow in real time?
No. Mindee has no trigger node in n8n, so nothing on that side wakes a workflow up. The run starts elsewhere and the Mindee node sits further down the chain. Three usual starting points: a Schedule Trigger that fires at a fixed interval and sweeps a mailbox or a folder, an n8n Webhook, meaning a URL that a third-party service calls when something happens on its end, or the trigger of another tool already in the stack. Pick the one that matches how documents reach you, then pass the file along as binary data.
05n8n or Make for Mindee?
It depends on four criteria, and price is only one of them. Hosting: n8n runs self-hosted through Docker or npm, or on n8n Cloud, while Make is a hosted platform with no self-hosting option. Data control follows from that, which weighs heavily when the documents being parsed are invoices with supplier and banking details on them. Cost model: Make bills per operation, so a document-heavy flow behaves differently there. Visual logic differs too, and that one is a matter of habit more than capability. Both run this kind of OCR workflow. The deciding factor is usually where the files are allowed to live.
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