Until now, fixing a tariff or renaming an address in FinMan meant opening the web app. That's fine at your desk — but most of us deal with utilities on the move: standing in front of the meter, reading a price-change letter, or settling up with a tenant. So we moved the whole thing into the bot. You can now manage your addresses, services and tariffs directly from the Telegram or WhatsApp Utilities menu, no browser required.
Why edit from the bot at all?
The bot is already where you submit meter readings and run your monthly bill flow. Keeping management there means one less context switch. When a price changes, you fix it in the same chat where you'll enter next month's reading. When you add a new flat, you set up its services on the spot. And because Telegram and WhatsApp share the same FinMan core, the steps are identical on both — only the buttons look slightly different.
The structure: addresses → services → tariffs
FinMan organizes utilities in three levels, and the bot menu mirrors them exactly:
- Address — a home, flat or property (e.g. "Main flat").
- Service — electricity, water, gas, and so on, attached to an address. Each service can have a shared meter toggle.
- Tariff — the pricing under a service. A tariff has a name, a type (metered, subscription or manual) and a price.
Once you understand those three layers, the menu navigation is obvious: you drill down, edit, and back out.
The flow, step by step
- Open the bot and go to the Utilities menu.
- Pick an address. From here you can rename it, open its list of services, or add a brand-new service inline.
- Open a service. You can rename it, toggle whether it uses a shared meter, or jump into its tariffs.
- Open a tariff. Here you rename it, change its type (metered / subscription / manual), or set a new price.
- Need something new? You can add an address, a service or a tariff right where you are — no need to start over in the web app.
Every change saves immediately and applies the next time you compute a bill or submit a reading.
A practical example: a day/night electricity price change
Say your provider raises the night rate on your multi-tariff electricity. Here's the whole job, done from your phone in under a minute:
- Open Utilities and pick Main flat.
- Open the Electricity service. You'll see your two tariffs — Day and Night.
- Open the Night tariff, choose to set its price, and type the new amount.
- Done. Your day rate stays untouched; only the night price updated.
Because FinMan tracks tariff changes over time, your older readings keep using the price that was in effect then — so past bills stay correct and the new price only affects future calculations. You don't have to "fix history" or recalculate anything by hand.
Tip: update a tariff before you submit the reading that falls under the new price. Set the price first, then send your meter reading (or a meter photo) so the difference is calculated against the right number.
Choosing the right tariff type
The three tariff types cover most billing situations:
- Metered — priced per unit consumed, calculated from your meter readings (the classic electricity/water/gas case).
- Subscription — a fixed recurring charge that doesn't depend on usage (a standing fee or service charge).
- Manual — for amounts you key in yourself when there's no clean formula.
If your provider changes how something is billed — say a usage line becomes a flat fee — you can switch a tariff's type from the bot in the same place you'd edit its price.
Landlords: share an address with your tenant
This update is especially handy if you rent out a property. You can share an address so your tenant gets read-only access to its services and tariffs. They can see exactly which services exist and what the current prices are — useful when they submit their own meter readings — but they can't rename anything, change a price, or alter a tariff type. You stay in control of the setup; they just contribute readings. Combined with FinMan's tenant invitations and utility splitting, the whole landlord/tenant cycle now lives in the bot.
A few habits that keep it tidy
- Name things clearly. "Day" and "Night" beat "Tariff 1" and "Tariff 2" when you're editing in a hurry.
- Toggle shared meters thoughtfully. Turn the shared-meter switch on only for services that genuinely share one physical meter across the address.
- Update prices as soon as you hear. The moment a price-change notice arrives, fix the tariff — then your next bill is right without any catch-up math.
That's the whole point of moving management into the bot: the place where you already read meters and pay bills is now the place where you keep the setup correct. No browser, no waiting until you're home — just open the chat, drill down, and change what you need.