If you miss what Walnut used to be — Hisaab is the closest thing

Walnut popularised SMS-based expense tracking in India a decade ago. As its parent company shifted focus to lending, the original tracker fell out of step with what users actually wanted. Here's a different shape for the same job.

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Free tier · 20 messages and 2 questions per day

For a long stretch in the mid-2010s, Walnut was the default answer when someone in India asked, How do I track my expenses? The pitch was simple: install the app, give it SMS permission, and let it auto-categorise every UPI / card / bank notification.

That model has aged. SMS permissions are now sharply restricted on Android. UPI receipts are noisier than ever. And the company behind Walnut moved on to lending, leaving the tracker app in maintenance mode.

Hisaab takes the opposite tack: you tell it what you spent, in any language you want. No SMS access. No bank linking. No noisy auto-categories.

Why SMS-based trackers are increasingly painful

Google has tightened SMS-permission rules. Most users now hit warning dialogs whenever an app asks. Even after granting access, modern UPI and card SMS templates are inconsistent — different banks format messages differently, marketing SMS gets misread as expenses, and refunds appear as new charges.

The result: a tracker that's right 80% of the time, which means you spend half your evening fixing bad rows. That's worse than not tracking at all.

What a Telegram-based tracker fixes

Telegram already works on every phone. There's no extra app to install. There's no permission dialog. There's nothing to lose if you switch phones.

The trade-off is small but real: you have to type the expense yourself. For most people, that turns out to be the feature, not the bug — typing forces a half-second of mindfulness about what you just spent, and the resulting data is clean instead of noisy.

Hisaab goes from text to structured row in one round trip. "500 groceries" becomes ₹500 · groceries · Groceries in under a second.

What you give up

Honest trade-offs:

No automatic logging. If you want a tracker that pulls SMS in the background, Hisaab is the wrong tool.
No investment / NAV tracking. Hisaab is just expenses. Pair it with a separate platform for mutual funds.
INR-first. The bot defaults to ₹ and IST timezone.

Side by side

Feature	Walnut (legacy SMS-based trackers)	Hisaab
Logging method	You text the bot	Auto-parses SMS / push notifications
Permissions needed	None	SMS, notifications, sometimes contacts
Accuracy	Exactly what you typed	Variable — bank SMS templates change
Offline notes	Cash is just another text	Auto-misses cash transactions
Privacy	Hisaab only sees what you send	App reads every SMS on the device
Open source	Yes (MIT)	No
Pricing	Free tier (20 msgs / 2 questions per day)	Free with ads

Frequently asked

Why is the SMS-tracker model less popular now?

Two reasons. First, Google has restricted SMS permissions on Android — apps need a special Play Store review to ask for them. Second, modern UPI and card alerts come from many sources with inconsistent templates, so accuracy keeps slipping. Manually-entered tracking is small but reliable.

Does Hisaab read my bank SMS?

No. Hisaab has no SMS permission and no bank-account integration. The only thing it sees is the text you send to the Telegram bot.

Can I track cash expenses with Hisaab?

Yes — that's actually one of the reasons people switch from SMS-based trackers. 200 chai, 50 auto, 1500 cash for groceries all work the same way as digital payments. Hisaab doesn't care how you paid.

Will I have to manually enter every expense?

Yes. If that sounds like a chore, give it a week — most users find that texting an expense takes 3-4 seconds and becomes habit faster than expected. The trade-off is data you actually trust.

Try Hisaab — free, no install.

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