Receipt-Photo Expense Logger: snap it, send it, forget it — bookkeeping from your camera roll
An n8n workflow where you photograph any receipt and send it to your Telegram bot; Claude's vision reads the vendor, date, amount, tax, and category, the photo gets archived to Google Drive, and a clean row lands in your expenses sheet — the shoebox of receipts, retired.
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Photo in via Telegram
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Telegram Triggerfires on photos sent to your private bot. Anyone you add to the chat (co-founder, assistant) can log expenses the same way. An optional text caption travels along as a note — 'client lunch, Acme deal'. - 2
Claude reads the receipt
The photo goes to Claude as vision input with a strict prompt: return JSON {vendor, date, total, currency, tax, category, confidence, note}. Dates normalize to ISO, amounts to plain numbers. Low confidence isn't hidden — it's surfaced.
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Archive the original
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Google Drivenode uploads the photo to/Receipts/2026/06/named2026-06-29_starbucks_4.80.jpg— findable by eye even without the sheet. The Drive link goes into the sheet row. - 4
Append the ledger row
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Google Sheetsnode appends: date, vendor, category, amount, tax, note, photo link, confidence flag. ATelegramconfirmation replies '✓ logged: Starbucks $4.80 → meals' so you know it worked before you pocket the phone.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is the extraction on crumpled or foreign receipts?
Vision models read receipts remarkably well — including angled photos, thermal-paper fade, and non-English receipts (amounts and dates are near-universal formats). The workflow writes Claude's confidence into the row; anything it flags as uncertain gets a ⚠️ so your monthly review focuses only on the doubtful ones.
Which expense categories does it use?
You define them once in the prompt — the template ships with a standard small-business set (travel, meals, software, office, inventory, other) and instructs Claude to pick exactly one. Match them to your accountant's chart of accounts and month-end becomes a copy-paste.
Is a Telegram photo good enough for tax records?
The workflow stores the original photo in a dated Google Drive folder and links it in the sheet row — most tax authorities accept digital copies as long as they're legible and complete (check your local rules). You're in a strictly better position than the shoebox: searchable, backed up, linked to the amount.