One post tagged with "populate"

Excel Invoice Template in Power Automate: Fill It from a SharePoint List and Archive Every Invoice as PDF/A with PDF4me

September 15, 2026 · 32 min read

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PDF4me Excel - Populate is a Power Automate action that fills an Excel invoice template with JSON data. Here a new SharePoint list item supplies the data, Populate writes it into the template's smart markers, and three more PDF4me actions turn the workbook into a compressed PDF/A invoice that SharePoint stores automatically.

Search for an excel invoice template and page one is a gallery. Microsoft, Vertex42, QuickBooks and Square all hand you a well-designed blank workbook, and every one of them stops at the download. None of them says how the template gets filled, which in practice means someone copying a customer's details into cells, exporting to PDF, naming the file and dropping it in a folder, one invoice at a time. This flow keeps the part those pages get right, a template anyone can design in Excel, and removes every step that comes after the download.

The flow at a glance

1. When an item is created

SharePoint trigger on the list named Excel Template. Every new row is one invoice.

2. Compose

Reshapes the flat list row into the nested RootData JSON the template expects.

3. Get file content using path

Reads the Excel invoice template from Shared Documents on every run.

4. Excel - Populate

PDF4me Excel. Writes the JSON into the smart markers on sheet 1.

5. Convert to PDF

PDF4me Convert. Renders the populated workbook as Invoice.pdf.

6. PDF - Compress

Optimize Profile Web. Runs before the archival standard is applied.

7. PDF - Create PdfA

Compliance PdfA2b. The step that turns an invoice into a record.

8. Create file

SharePoint writes ExcelArchived.pdf into /Shared Documents/ArchivedExcel.