phoenixclaw-ledger

Passive financial tracking plugin for PhoenixClaw. Automatically detects expenses and income from conversations and payment screenshots. Use when: User mentions money/spending (any language) User shares payment screenshots (WeChat Pay, Alipay, etc.) User asks about finances ("How much did I spend?", "My budget") User wants expense reports ("Monthly summary", "Spending analysis")

PhoenixClaw Ledger: Zero-Effort Financial Tracking

PhoenixClaw Ledger automatically extracts financial transactions from your daily conversations and payment screenshots, requiring zero manual input.

Core Capabilities

Feature	Description
Semantic Expense Detection	AI identifies spending mentions in natural conversation
Screenshot Recognition	Extracts transaction data from payment app screenshots
Smart Categorization	Auto-categorizes based on merchant and context
Budget Tracking	Monthly budget alerts and progress visualization
Financial Insights	Pattern analysis integrated into journal Growth Notes
Goal Management	Savings, budget control, habit, and wishlist goals
Weekly Reports	Automated Sunday 9 PM spending recap
Query Support	Real-time natural language financial inquiries
Spending Trends	Multi-month analytical spending visualization
Transaction Browser	Interactive complete transaction history view

Workflow

As a PhoenixClaw plugin, Ledger hooks into the post-moment-analysis phase:

1. Receive Moments: Get identified moments from PhoenixClaw Core
2. Detect Finances: Scan for expense/income signals in text and media
   • Text: Semantic patterns (see references/expense-detection.md)
   • Media: Payment screenshots (see references/payment-screenshot.md)
3. Extract Data: Parse amount, merchant, category, timestamp
4. Categorize: Apply rules from references/merchant-category-map.md
5. Deduplicate: Prevent double-counting same transaction
6. Store: Write to ~/PhoenixClaw/Finance/ledger.yaml
7. Export: Generate journal section using assets/daily-finance-section.md

Explicit Triggers

While passive by design, users can interact directly:

• "How much did I spend today/this week/this month?"
• "Show my expense breakdown"
• "Set my monthly budget to [amount]"
• "What are my top spending categories?"
• "Generate financial report for [period]"
• "Set a savings goal for [amount] by [date]"
• "Show my spending trends"
• "Browse all my transactions"
• "How am I doing on my goals?"

Output Structure

text

~/PhoenixClaw/
├── Journal/
│   ├── daily/2026-02-02.md    # Contains 💰 Finance section
│   └── weekly/2026-W05.md     # Weekly financial recaps
│
└── Finance/                    # Ledger-specific directory
    ├── ledger.yaml             # Structured transaction data
    ├── budget.yaml             # Budget configuration
    ├── goals.yaml              # Financial goals tracking
    ├── transactions.md         # Transaction browser view
    ├── monthly/
    │   └── 2026-02.md          # Monthly financial reports
    └── yearly/
        └── 2026.md             # Annual summaries

Configuration

Ledger-specific settings in ~/.phoenixclaw/config.yaml:

yaml

plugins:
  phoenixclaw-ledger:
    enabled: true
    default_currency: CNY       # or USD, EUR, etc.
    budget_monthly: 5000        # Monthly budget amount
    categories_custom: []       # User-defined categories
    screenshot_confidence: 0.7  # Min confidence for auto-record

Cron & Scheduled Reports

Ledger uses PhoenixClaw Core's cron infrastructure plus additional scheduled tasks:

Task	Schedule	Description
Daily Processing	10 PM (via Core)	Extracts transactions, generates daily section
Monthly Report	1st of month, 8 AM	Comprehensive monthly financial summary
Weekly Summary	Sunday 9 PM (optional)	Weekly spending recap

Daily Processing (Automatic)

No separate setup required. Ledger hooks into Core's nightly cron:

• Core runs at 10 PM → triggers post-moment-analysis
• Ledger activates, extracts finances, exports to journal

Monthly Report Setup

bash

openclaw cron add \
  --name "PhoenixClaw Ledger monthly report" \
  --cron "0 8 1 * *" \
  --tz "auto" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Generate monthly financial report for the previous month."

See references/cron-setup.md for full configuration details.

Documentation Reference

References (references/)

• expense-detection.md: Semantic patterns for conversation parsing
• payment-screenshot.md: Screenshot recognition and OCR extraction
• merchant-category-map.md: Merchant to category mapping rules
• category-rules.md: Category definitions and hierarchy
• budget-tracking.md: Budget alerts and progress calculation
• financial-insights.md: Pattern analysis for Growth Notes
• cron-setup.md: Scheduled tasks and report automation
• goal-management.md: Financial goals and progress tracking
• query-patterns.md: Natural language query templates and logic

Assets (assets/)

• expense-callout.md: Template for conversation-detected expenses
• receipt-callout.md: Template for screenshot-detected expenses
• daily-finance-section.md: Journal integration template
• monthly-report.md: Monthly summary template
• yearly-report.md: Annual summary template

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