applications case study

PiSplit

OCR-driven expense workflow that converts receipts into itemized splits, balances, and reimbursement tracking.

A self-hosted expense workflow that uses OCR and structured review to turn receipt photos into itemized shared expenses, balances, and reimbursements.

RoleBuilder / Operator

CategoryApplications / Household Finance

StatusActive System (v1 Live)

Overview

PiSplit is a self-hosted household expense workflow designed to make shared purchases easier to capture, review, and settle. It combines receipt upload, OCR extraction, itemized review, and balance tracking so expenses can be recorded without relying on third-party consumer finance apps.

Problem

Shared expenses are easy to forget, frustrating to split manually, and especially messy when a single receipt includes both shared and personal items. I wanted a private workflow that could ingest a receipt photo, extract line items, assign participants, and maintain running balances across the household.

Architecture

Diagram View

Phone / Browser Upload
          │
          ▼
       PiSplit UI
          │
          ▼
     OCR + Parsing Layer
 Tesseract • receipt extraction • item detection
          │
          ▼
    Split / Review Engine
 participants • itemized assignment • totals
          │
          ▼
      FastAPI Backend
 expense creation • balances • settlements
          │
          ▼
       PostgreSQL
 receipts • expenses • household ledger

Layered View

Input Layer

Phone upload Web UI Receipt images

Processing Layer

Tesseract OCR receipt parsing AI-assisted analysis

Application Layer

FastAPI service expense creation itemized split workflows

Persistence Layer

PostgreSQL receipt storage balances + settlements

Internal web access and homelab-hosted application routing connect the workflow end to end

Public-safe architecture for the PiSplit household finance workflow.

Implementation

PiSplit is implemented as a Dockerized FastAPI service backed by PostgreSQL. Receipt images are uploaded through a lightweight web UI, processed with OCR, converted into candidate line items, and then reviewed as structured shared expenses with participant-specific splits.

Capabilities

Receipt upload from phone or desktop
OCR-based text extraction
Itemized expense creation
Household balance tracking
Settlement suggestions
Structured reimbursement workflow

Outcome

PiSplit reduces manual household expense overhead by turning messy receipts into a cleaner, faster workflow for review, balances, and reimbursements.

What’s Next

Smarter receipt parsing
Model-assisted item classification
Improved phone upload flow
Better split suggestions

Media / Visuals