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)

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…

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

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:

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!