Money on autopilot. Spreadsheets on notice.
The Impact
"Financial visibility without opening a spreadsheet."
Managing household finances across multiple accounts manually is one of those classics. 'I'll do it this weekend' never actually happens. We built a system that ingests transactions automatically, categorizes them with AI, tracks budgets in real time, and sends SMS alerts when something needs attention. All without opening a spreadsheet.
The Problem
âIâll reconcile the accounts this weekend.â Every weekend, for three years.
The typical household finance workflow:
- Log into 3 or 4 bank accounts
- Download or manually review transactions
- Categorize each one into a budget category
- Update a spreadsheet or budgeting app
- Check if youâre on track for savings goals
- Notice something weird, investigate it, forget about it
- Repeat. Or more realistically, donât repeat, and wonder where the money went.
Itâs not complicated work. Itâs tedious work. And tedious work is the first thing that falls off the plate when life gets busy. So the spreadsheet gets stale, the budget gets ignored, and the anomalies get caught three months too late.
What We Built
A financial nervous system for a household.
Automated Transaction Ingestion
Bank accounts connected via Teller API. Transactions flow in automatically. No manual downloads, no CSV imports, no âIâll do it this weekend.â
AI-Powered Categorization
Each transaction gets categorized by an LLM with fallback orchestration on Modal. Grocery vs. dining out. Subscription vs. one-time. The system learns from corrections and gets smarter over time.
Real-Time Budget Tracking
Savings trajectory calculated automatically. Where you are vs. where you should be, updated with every transaction. No more guessing or retroactive spreadsheet audits.
SMS Alert System
Budget warnings, unusual transaction alerts, and weekly summaries sent via Twilio. The important stuff comes to you. You donât have to go looking for it.
Same Stack, Different Pond
Built on the same n8n + Modal + Supabase + Vercel architecture used across every AutomationFrog build. Proven patterns, no experimental infrastructure. đ¸
The Result
Finance visibility became passive, not active.
- Transactions categorized within minutes of posting
- Budget tracked in real time. No manual updates.
- SMS alerts for anything that needs attention
- 5-phase build with 3 phases in production, 2 remaining (dashboard + go-live)
The system turned household finance management from a chore that never happened into a background process that just runs. The spreadsheet still exists. It just doesnât get opened anymore. The alerts handle that job now.
Why This Matters
We build what we use.
This wasnât a client project. It was built for a real family, with real money, solving a real problem. The same patterns, the same stack, the same reliability standards we bring to every client engagement.
When we say âsystems that run while you sleep,â this one literally does. Every night. Categorizing transactions, updating budgets, and texting if somethingâs off. While the family sleeps.