Skip to main content

AI Assistant

What is the AI Assistant?​

UnderControl's AI Assistant helps you work faster by understanding images and text. Snap a photo of a receipt and AI extracts the expense details. Describe a task in plain English and AI creates it for you. It's like having a smart helper that handles the tedious data entry.

Key AI Features​

Expense from Receipt (Vision)​

Take a photo of any receipt and AI will extract:

  • Amount and currency
  • Merchant name
  • Date of purchase
  • Category suggestion
  • Description

You can upload receipts by dragging and dropping, pasting from clipboard (Ctrl+V), or selecting files. Batch upload is supported for processing multiple receipts at once.

Expense from Text​

Type a natural description and AI creates a structured expense:

  • "Lunch at Starbucks $15.50" becomes a properly categorized expense
  • "Uber ride home 23 dollars" gets parsed into amount, vendor, and category

Task from Image​

Upload a screenshot or photo and AI creates a task with:

  • Extracted title and description
  • Suggested tags
  • Relevant details from the image

Task from Text​

Describe what you need to do in plain language:

  • "Buy groceries for the dinner party on Saturday" becomes a structured task
  • AI extracts the title, description, and any relevant tags

Text Refinement​

Polish your writing with AI assistance. Works in task titles, descriptions, and notes - AI improves grammar, clarity, and tone while keeping your meaning.

Natural Language Queries​

Ask questions about your tasks in plain English:

  • "Show me overdue tasks"
  • "What tasks are due this week?"
  • AI translates your question into a query and shows matching results

Supported AI Providers​

UnderControl works with a wide range of AI providers:

Premium Providers​

  • OpenAI - GPT-4o and other OpenAI models
  • Anthropic - Claude models (Sonnet, Opus, Haiku)

OpenAI-Compatible Services​

  • Azure OpenAI, DeepSeek, Moonshot, Zhipu AI, Aliyun Qwen, Together AI, Fireworks AI

Free Tier Providers​

  • GitHub Models, Google AI Studio, Groq

Local Deployment​

  • Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM - Run AI models on your own hardware

Setting Up AI​

  1. Go to your Profile settings
  2. Find the AI Providers section
  3. Click Add Provider
  4. Select your provider type (OpenAI, Anthropic, or compatible service)
  5. Enter your API key and select a model
  6. Toggle backend and/or frontend availability
  7. Test the configuration to make sure it works

You can add multiple providers and reorder them by priority. UnderControl uses the first available provider.

System-Level Providers​

If your administrator has configured system-level AI providers, those are available to all users who haven't set up their own. Your personal providers always take priority over system providers.

How AI Configuration Works​

UnderControl uses a three-tier priority system:

  1. Your personal provider (highest priority) - API key you configure yourself
  2. Admin provider - System-wide provider set by your administrator
  3. Startup provider (lowest priority) - Server-level default configuration
tip

Setting up your own AI provider gives you the most control and ensures AI features work even if system providers change.

Apple Shortcuts Integration​

On iOS and macOS, you can use Apple Shortcuts for quick AI-powered capture:

  • Snap a photo → AI creates an expense
  • Share text → AI creates a task
  • Download the shortcut from the Subscribe/Download page

Tips for Success​

  1. Good lighting for receipts - Clear, well-lit receipt photos give the best AI extraction results

  2. Be specific with text input - "Coffee at Blue Bottle $5.50 today" works better than "bought coffee"

  3. Review AI results - Always check what AI extracted before saving, especially amounts and dates

  4. Set up your own provider - Personal API keys give you reliable, consistent AI access

  5. Try natural language queries - Ask questions about your tasks in everyday language

How AI Works with Other Features​

With Expenses​

AI vision turns receipt photos into structured expenses, automatically linked to the right budget. Text parsing handles quick expense entry from descriptions.

With Tasks​

Create tasks from images or text descriptions. AI summaries can be generated on a schedule to keep you informed about task progress.

With Resources​

Uploaded images are stored as resources and can be analyzed by AI. Receipt images are automatically linked to the expenses they create.

Getting Started​

  1. Configure a provider - Add your AI provider in Profile settings
  2. Try receipt scanning - Upload a receipt photo when creating an expense
  3. Create a task from text - Describe a task in plain English and let AI structure it
  4. Explore natural language queries - Ask questions about your tasks