This is a bot for the Telegram messaging app using their bot platform. The code is open-source and consequently anybody could set up an own instance of the bot. To learn how to do so, see this section. The official hosted version is available as @ExpenseBot. To learn more about this bot, please refer to this blog article or just send the bot a message with the /help command.
This bot’s purpose is to help people manage their daily expenses and keep track of their financial situation. Users can add expenses from wherever they are using a few simple commands from within the chat and have an eye on how much they have spent in a month or a day. This obviates the need for confusing Excel spreadsheets or paper notes.
In order to host this bot on your own, you need a few things.
- Server to run the bot on (since the bot uses the long polling method to get updates instead of the web-hook one, you don't need HTTPS certificates or ports to be exposed)
- Node.js (preferbly at the latest version)
- A MongoDB database (you can use mlab.com to get a free, hosted MongoDB)
- A bot token, which you get from registering a new bot to the @BotFather
To configure your bot, clone this repository and then edit config.json file.
DB_URL: your MongoDB's complete URL including hostname, port, username, password and database name (if using mlab, you can simply copy this from their website)DB_COLLECTION: the name of the database collection where your data should be stored, e.g. "expenses_live"BOT_TOKEN: the token you got from the BotFatherBOT_NAME: the bot's name, e.g. "ExpenseBot" in my caseBOT_TELEGRAM_USERNAME: the bot's actual unique Telegram username, e.g. "@ExpenseBot" in my case (note that this can differ from theBOT_NAME, which is not unique)
$ npm startMIT @ Ferdinand Mütsch