Expense Tracker
Know where your money goes. This skill logs your business expenses, categorizes them automatically, tracks spending against your budget, and flags when you're overspending in any category — so tax time is easy and budget surprises are rare.
Run it monthly for a full report, or log expenses on the fly throughout the month.
What You Get
- Expenses logged and categorized by type (software, marketing, travel, meals, etc.)
- Budget tracking with real-time remaining balance per category
- Overspending alerts when you approach or exceed budget limits
- Monthly expense report with totals, trends, and top categories
- Tax-ready categorization for easy handoff to your accountant
- Receipt/note attachment for each expense entry
Setup
Required
- Expense log — A CSV file, Google Sheet, or any structured list your agent can read and write to. Columns: date, description, amount, category, notes.
Optional (but recommended)
- Budget file — Monthly budget with limits per category (if not set, the agent will track without limits)
- Bank/card integration — connect to Plaid, bank CSV exports, or credit card statements for auto-import
- Receipt storage — folder for receipt photos/PDFs referenced by expense entries
- Delivery channel — Telegram/Discord for budget alerts and monthly reports
Configuration
Tell your agent:
- Expense log location — file path or Google Sheet URL
- Budget limits — monthly budget per category (e.g., Software: $200, Marketing: $500)
- Categories — your expense categories (defaults: Software/SaaS, Marketing, Travel, Meals, Office, Professional Services, Education, Miscellaneous)
- Alert threshold — when to warn about overspending (default: 80% of category budget)
- Report schedule — when to generate monthly report (default: 1st of each month)
- Currency — your currency (default: USD)
- Tax categories — map your categories to tax deduction types if needed
How It Works
Step 1: Log Expenses
When user says "log an expense" or provides expense info:
- Parse: amount, description, date (default: today), category (auto-detect or ask)
- Auto-categorize based on description keywords:
- "Slack", "Notion", "AWS", "subscription" → Software/SaaS
- "Facebook ads", "Google ads", "sponsorship" → Marketing
- "flight", "hotel", "Uber", "gas" → Travel
- "lunch", "dinner", "coffee", "restaurant" → Meals
- "office supplies", "desk", "monitor" → Office
- "lawyer", "accountant", "consultant" → Professional Services
- "course", "book", "conference" → Education
- Append to expense log with timestamp
- Show running total for the category this month
Step 2: Track Against Budget
For each category with a budget limit:
- Calculate: spent this month, remaining budget, percentage used
- If approaching threshold (80%): send a warning
- If exceeded: send an alert with amount over budget
Step 3: Generate Monthly Report
🧾 Expense Report — [Month Year]
💵 MONTHLY SUMMARY
Total spent: $[X] | Budget: $[X] | Remaining: $[X]
[X]% of total budget used
📊 BY CATEGORY
| Category | Spent | Budget | Remaining | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software/SaaS | $420 | $500 | $80 | 🟡 84% |
| Marketing | $1,200 | $1,500 | $300 | 🟡 80% |
| Travel | $350 | $400 | $50 | 🟡 88% |
| Meals | $180 | $300 | $120 | 🟢 60% |
| Office | $0 | $200 | $200 | 🟢 0% |
| Professional Svcs | $500 | $500 | $0 | 🔴 100%|
| Education | $49 | $200 | $151 | 🟢 25% |
| Miscellaneous | $75 | $100 | $25 | 🟡 75% |
⚠️ ALERTS
• Professional Services at 100% — $500 of $500 used
• Travel at 88% — only $50 remaining
• Software approaching limit — $80 remaining
📋 TOP EXPENSES THIS MONTH
1. Marketing consultant — $500 (Professional Svcs)
2. Facebook Ads — $600 (Marketing)
3. Google Ads — $400 (Marketing)
4. Flight to NYC — $280 (Travel)
5. Annual Notion plan — $120 (Software)
📈 TRENDS
• Spending is [up/down] [X]% vs last month
• Largest increase: [category] (+$[X])
• Under budget in [X] of [X] categories
Step 4: Deliver & Archive
- Send monthly report via configured channel
- Save to
memory/expenses/YYYY-MM.mdfor historical reference - Export expense data in CSV format for accountant if requested
Examples
User: "Log $49 for Notion annual plan"
Agent:
Logged: $49.00 — Notion annual plan Category: Software/SaaS (auto-detected) Software budget: $420 of $500 used (84%) — $80 remaining
User: "How am I doing on my budget this month?"
Agent runs the report and responds with the full monthly summary.
User: "Export my expenses for tax prep"
Agent: Exports a CSV with all expenses categorized by tax deduction type, ready for the accountant.
User: "Set up monthly expense reports on the 1st"
Agent: Configures cron for the 1st of each month at 9:00 AM, confirms:
"Monthly expense report scheduled for the 1st of each month. I'll summarize your spending, flag any overages, and send it to your Telegram."
Customization Ideas
- Receipt OCR — scan receipt photos and auto-extract amount, vendor, date
- Recurring expense tracking — auto-log subscriptions and recurring charges
- Multi-currency support — convert expenses in different currencies
- Profit & loss — combine with invoice tracker for a simple P&L statement
- Quarterly tax estimates — calculate estimated quarterly tax payments based on expenses
- Team expense approval — if you have employees, review and approve their expense submissions
Want More?
This skill handles expense logging and budget tracking. But if you want:
- Custom integrations — connect to QuickBooks, Wave, Plaid, or your bank for automatic transaction import
- Advanced automations — auto-categorize from bank feeds, generate P&L statements, calculate tax estimates
- Full system setup — identity, memory, security, and 5 custom automations built specifically for your workflow
DoctorClaw sets up complete OpenClaw systems for businesses:
- Guided Setup ($495) — 2-hour live walkthrough. Everything configured, integrated, and running by the end of the call.
- Done-For-You ($1,995) — 7-day custom build. 5 automations, 3 integrations, full security, 30-day support. You do nothing except answer a short intake form.