Personal finance tracker with Telegram Bot, Google Gemini Vision, and Sheets
# Personal Finance AI Agent – Telegram Bot (n8n Workflow)
A fully automated Telegram-based personal finance tracker that:
- Accepts receipts as **images**, **PDFs**, or plain text
- Uses Google Gemini Vision for OCR & intelligent extraction
- Logs every expense into **Google Sheets**
- Stores receipt images/PDFs in **Google Drive**
- Answers natural-language spending questions ("How much did I spend on food last month?", "Compare this month vs last month", etc.)
Built entirely with **n8n** – 100% self-hostable, no-code/low-code.
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## How It Works (Overview)
1. **You send a message to your Telegram bot**
→ Photo of a receipt, PDF, or just text like "Nov 10 – 2500 NGN – Uber"
2. **Switch node** detects the message type:
- Photo → Branch 0
- Document (PDF/other) → Branch 1
- Pure text → Branch 2 (goes straight to query agent)
3. **Receipt Processing Path (Images & PDFs)**
- Files downloaded from Telegram → uploaded to Google Drive ("Monthly receipts" folder)
- Images → OCR with Gemini Vision
PDFs → native PDF text extraction
- Extracted text + Drive link → merged → sent to Gemini AI Agent
- AI extracts: Date (YYYY-MM-DD) • Amount (NGN) • Description • Category
(food, transportation, subscriptions, takeouts, entertainment, gift, electricity, repairs, other stuffs)
- Clean JSON → appended to Google Sheets → friendly confirmation sent back
4. **Spending Query Path (Text questions)**
- Second AI Agent with access to the live Google Sheet + calculator + memory
- Answers anything: totals, breakdowns, comparisons, trends, percentages…
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## Live Google Sheet (Template)
You can make a copy of the exact sheet the bot uses:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kwWJquPpwL9vt9U06a4f4phXq5jZjaGazvh2V69FGoc/edit?usp=sharing
Just click **File → Make a copy** and use your copy’s ID in the workflow.
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## Setup Steps (Step-by-Step)
### Prerequisites
- n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)
- Telegram bot (created via @BotFather)
- Google account
### 1. Create Telegram Bot
1. Message @BotFather → `/newbot`
2. Copy the bot token
3. In n8n → Credentials → New **Telegram API** credential → paste token
### 2. Google Setup
1. **Make a copy** of the sheet above
→ Copy the new spreadsheet ID from the URL
2. Create a Google Drive folder called **"Monthly receipts"** (or any name) → copy folder ID
3. Enable Gemini API in Google Cloud (or use your existing key)
4. In n8n create these credentials:
- Google Sheets OAuth2 API
- Google Drive OAuth2 API
- Google Gemini (PaLM) API
### 3. Import Workflow
- Copy the full JSON from the original file
- n8n → Workflows → Import → paste → Import
### 4. Update IDs & Credentials
After import, configure these nodes:
| Node | What to Change |
|-----------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|
| Telegram Trigger + all Telegram nodes | Your Telegram credential |
| Google Sheets nodes | Your Google Sheets credential + new Sheet ID |
| Google Drive "Upload file" nodes | Paste your "Monthly receipts" folder ID |
| Gemini nodes | Your Gemini credential |
| AI Agent & AI Agent1 | Verify model, memory, tools are connected |
### 5. Activate & Test
- Click **Activate**
- Start chatting with your bot on Telegram
**Test commands**
- Send a photo/PDF receipt
- Type: `How much did I spend last month?`
- Type: `Show me food spending this month vs last month`
You’ll get instant replies and see new rows appear in your sheet!
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## Features
- Zero manual entry ever again
- Works with handwritten receipts
- Smart categorization
- Natural-language spending insights
- All data stays 100% in your Google account
- Completely private & self-hostable
- NGN-native (Naira)
Never track expenses manually again!
