Expense Tracker

Full-featured, multi-user expense tracker. React frontend, Express + SQLite (Node's built-in node:sqlite) backend, JWT auth.

Setup

npm install
npm --prefix server install
npm --prefix client install

Run

npm run dev

This starts the API on http://localhost:4000 and the frontend on http://localhost:5173.

Or run them separately:

npm --prefix server run dev   # API on :4000
npm --prefix client run dev   # UI on :5173

Test

npm test

Runs the backend test suite (vitest + supertest) covering migrations, auth, accounts, transactions, rules, recurring items, budgets, summary, insights, statement import, goals, backup/restore and CSV export.

Features

• Quick Add from any page: amount + payee + Save. Category, account and time fill themselves in.
• Income, expenses and transfers across accounts (cash, bank/UPI, credit card, wallet) with running balances. Card bill payments are transfers, so they're not double-counted.
• Auto-categorise rules (starter rules for Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, Amazon, Netflix, Jio…), plus learning from your past payees.
• Recurring items that add themselves (rent, salary, SIP) or wait for you to confirm the amount (electricity).
• Tags like goa-trip, filters and search, CSV export.
• Bank statement import (Excel or CSV, no PDF): pick the file, check the column mapping the app guessed, review the rows and import. Duplicates are flagged, transfers between your own accounts can be marked, the format is remembered for next time, and any import can be undone.
• Budgets per category or overall, with progress bars and over-budget warnings.
• Savings goals: "Goa trip, ₹40,000 by March" tells you how much to put aside each month and whether you're on track. Goal money is a separate tally and never changes account balances.
• Home shows this month's money in/out, savings rate, where it went, a 6-month trend, balances, goals and what's coming up. An account picker narrows Home and Insights to a single account.
• Insights (Home + Insights page): pace and safe-to-spend per day, what changed vs last month and why, small leaks, unusual spends, untracked subscriptions, weekend and late-night habits, savings rate — all computed from your own data, no AI service.
• Backup and restore: download everything as one JSON file and load it back into the same or a new account. Restore only adds what's missing — you get a preview first, existing data is never changed, and restoring the same file twice adds nothing.
• Bento-style interface: sidebar navigation and rounded, softly tinted tiles; collapses to a top bar on phones.
• Multi-user login (JWT + bcryptjs), self-hosted, no paid APIs.

Existing databases upgrade automatically on first start: old expenses move into a "Cash" account.

Project layout

server/   Express API — routes/, services/ (insights, recurring, statement import, goals, backup), migrations.js, tests/
client/   React + Vite UI — src/pages/, src/components/, src/api.js

Notes

• Requires Node 22.5+ for node:sqlite. Tested on Node v26.
• The SQLite database file (server/data.db) is created automatically on first run and is git-ignored. Use Backup in the app (next to your email) to keep a copy of your data.