Automated Refund Draft Builder
An internal Hawaii Life tool that prepares Gmail refund notices, pairs each guest with the relevant PDF attachments, and groups the drafts for accounting review.
Keeping the guest and the documents together
Refund communication combines a repetitive writing task with a detail that cannot be treated casually: the message and its attachments must belong to the same guest. Preparing a batch means finding the documents, checking the recipient, composing the notice, and keeping track of what still needs review.
I built this tool for Hawaii Life’s reservations accounting work to assemble those pieces in Gmail. The output is a set of guest-specific drafts that Accounting can inspect before sending.
How a draft comes together
- Map the recipient. Recipient mapping connects the reservation information with the guest who should receive the notice.
- Find the attachments. A document index identifies the relevant PDFs in Google Drive. Shortcut handling resolves a Drive shortcut to its target document.
- Build the message. Google Apps Script combines the guest’s details, branded HTML, and selected attachments into a Gmail draft.
- Prepare the batch for review. Validation safeguards support the assembly process, and labels help Accounting find and review the drafts together.
Review remains an explicit step
Accounting can check the addressee, wording, and attachments in the email before it goes out. The automation handles the repeated assembly work while keeping the final message available for a person to assess.
The tool’s responsibility is refund communication. Payment processing and approval of the refund amount remain in the accounting workflow that supplies the notice.