Description
Summary Background I run a small business (African Power Markets) and want to automate how I capture and file expense receipts. I've started building this in Make.com but I'm stuck on the FreshBooks OAuth connection, which keeps failing. I need help getting the connection working and finishing the build. What's already in place A Make.com account (EU region — eu1.make.com) A FreshBooks account (Plus plan) with a custom Developer Application already created ("APM Receipts automation") Application Type currently set to "Private App" — may need to change to a Public/Web App type for OAuth redirect flow to work Redirect URI set to https://www.integromat.com/oauth/cb/freshbooks Scopes added: user:profile:read, user:expenses:read, user:clients:read (and one was mistakenly added as user:estimates:write instead of user:expenses:write — needs correcting) A dedicated Gmail inbox for receipts A Dropbox account for backup storage The problem When creating a FreshBooks connection inside Make, it fails immediately with "Status Code Error: 400" — before FreshBooks even shows a login screen. This suggests something wrong with the app configuration (Application Type, scopes, or Client ID/Secret) rather than a login/credentials issue. Need someone who can diagnose the actual HTTP error (via browser network tab or Make's execution log) and fix it — not just guess again. What I need built (Make.com scenario) Scenario 1 — Receipt intake: Trigger: new email arrives at my gmail receipts account with an attachment Save a copy of the attachment to Dropbox, in a dynamically-built folder path based on the email date: /2026 Expenses/07 July/ (auto-create year/month folders if they don't exist) Read the first line of the email body as a client name (I'll type a client nickname there, e.g. "Amazon") Look up that nickname in a Google Sheet ("Client Lookup") to get the matching FreshBooks Client ID Attempt to match the receipt to an existing FreshBooks expense (already imported from my bank feed) by date (±3-5 day window) and amount — amount/date to be extracted from the receipt via OCR or a Claude API vision call (happy to discuss best approach) If exactly one confident match is found: attach the receipt file to that existing FreshBooks expense and set the client on it (avoid creating a duplicate expense) If no confident match: log it to a "needs manual review" Google Sheet instead, with the Dropbox link, date, and client Scenario 2 — Monthly reminder email: Runs monthly, pulls that month's FreshBooks expenses with no receipt attached, plus anything logged as unmatched from Scenario 1 Emails me a short summary list so I know what to chase down Deliverables Working FreshBooks connection in Make (root issue diagnosed and documented so I understand what was wrong) Both scenarios built, tested, and left running (or handed to me ready to activate) Brief written explanation of the final architecture and how to maintain/troubleshoot it Access handed back to me (all credentials/connections under my own Make and FreshBooks accounts, not the freelancer's) Nice to have (open to discussion on approach/cost) Recommendation on the most reliable OCR/data-extraction method for the receipt matching step Budget & timeline Looking for a fixed-price quote. Expecting this to be a small, well-defined job (a few hours) given most of the scoping/architecture is already done — open to your estimate.