Expense tracking with AI: the easiest way to see where your money goes

Tracking what you spend is just as important as saving. Personally or in a business, we need to monitor our income, but above all our expenses. And today artificial intelligence makes it much easier.

From a notebook to Excel

I used to write everything down in a notebook: groceries, recurring expenses, everything personal. Then I moved to Excel, something very simple: one sheet of income and expenses where I added up what I spent and subtracted it from what came in. Basically, a simple calculator.

The jump to artificial intelligence

Now I've upgraded the process and use artificial intelligence, specifically Claude. I created a new project called "Expense tracking" and asked it to generate a monthly report. I uploaded screenshots of my Excel so it could build everything from there, without me having to keep editing spreadsheets.

I did it because I want to be able to tell it how much I spent on anything, whether five or ten dollars, and have it recorded. Recurring expenses don't worry me because I already know where they go. What I want is to see which category I spend the most on, in other words, where my money is really going.

Automatic reports, no complications

I asked for a monthly report and it generated:

• Transaction tables organized by date.
• A monthly report with my expenses by category.
• A yearly report to see the full picture.

If I log something in August, it stays in August; if I log it in September, it goes to September, and so on.

How to get started

1. Create a project or chat used only for your finances.
2. Explain what you want: log expenses, group them by category and get a monthly report.
3. If you already have a spreadsheet, upload a screenshot so it starts from there.
4. Every time you spend something, tell it in one sentence. The AI does the rest.

My recommendation

This is super useful and I think everyone should do it. It's very simple: you tell it what you need and then keep logging your income and expenses. I hope this tip helps you.