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.

How It Works (Overview)

You send a message to your Telegram bot
→ Photo of a receipt, PDF, or just text like "Nov 10 – 2500 NGN – Uber"

Switch node detects the message type: Photo → Branch 0 Document (PDF/other) → Branch 1
Pure text → Branch 2 (goes straight to query agent)

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

Spending Query Path (Text questions) Second AI Agent with access to the live Google Sheet + calculator + memory Answers anything: totals, breakdowns, comparisons, trends, percentages…

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.

Setup Steps (Step-by-Step)

Prerequisites n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted) Telegram bot (created via @BotFather) Google account

1. Create Telegram Bot Message @BotFather → /newbot Copy the bot token In n8n → Credentials → New Telegram API credential → paste token

2. Google Setup Make a copy of the sheet above
   → Copy the new spreadsheet ID from the URL Create a Google Drive folder called "Monthly receipts" (or any name) → copy folder ID Enable Gemini API in Google Cloud (or use your existing key) 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!

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!