recurring expenses

bills that repeat - rent, internet, a subscription - log themselves every month or week. say it once: a fixed amount lands on its day, a changing one gets asked for. private chats.

say it once

a charge that repeats is a rule, not an expense. tell teresa the amount and the day - "the internet is 45 the 3rd of every month", "every friday 200 for the cleaner" - and from then on it logs that expense by itself, dated to the day, at 09:00 in your timezone. it posts one line when it does, so nothing is ever written in silence. it never logs this month's on top unless you say you already paid it.

this works in your private chat with teresa. groups don't have it yet.

when the amount changes

rent in a shared flat, the power bill, the card statement: the day is fixed, the number isn't. leave the amount out and teresa asks for it on the day - one question, then it waits. answer with the number, or reply to the question in words ("it was 43 this time"); either way the expense lands with that amount, dated to the day it was due. if you log it yourself first ("power bill 43"), it notices and doesn't add a second row.

no answer in 7 days and it lets that month go - it never guesses last month's number - and asks again next time.

pausing, changing, stopping

ask what is on repeat and you get the list with the next date and, for the ones that ask, the last few answers. change a rule in words - a new amount, a new day, a last month - or pause it and resume it later; a paused rule skips the months in between, it does not catch up. deleting a rule keeps every expense it already logged.

what it will not do

• guess your clock. the first rule needs your timezone; if teresa doesn't know it yet it asks where you live before setting anything up.
• guess a number. a rule without an amount asks, every time. it never fills in last month's.
• log twice. a month has one row per rule, whatever happens on the server side - a restart, a retry, a late reply.
• ask more than once. one question per period; after 7 days it drops the subject until the next one.
• speak about anything else. these two lines - the logged line and the question - exist because you set the rule up. no reminders, no digests. see who teresa is.