A RESTful API to manage personal financial records, allowing users to track income, expenses, retrieve past transactions, and get summaries. This project is built using Node.js with Express.js for the backend and SQLite for data storage.
- Objective
- Features
- Requirements
- Technologies Used
- Installation and Setup
- Database Setup
- Project Structure
- API Endpoints
- Postman Screenshots
- Usage
- Error Handling
- Bonus Features
The purpose of this project is to develop an API that allows users to manage their personal financial records, including tracking income, expenses, and generating financial summaries.
- Add, update, delete, and retrieve transactions (income or expense).
- Retrieve summaries of total income, and expenses.
- SQLite database for simplicity and fast setup.
- Node.js: 16.x or later
- Express.js
- SQLite: For local database storage
- Backend Framework: Node.js with Express.js
- Database: SQLite (using sqlite3 package)
- Tools: Postman for API testing
Follow the below instructions in bash to install and set up necessary dependencies
- Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/MMALLIKARJUN2312/Personal-Expense-Tracker.git cd personal-expense-tracker Initialize the project: Initialize a new Node.js project by running:
- Initialize the project:
npm init -y This command quickly creates a package.json file with default values:
3.Install dependencies and necessary packages:
npm install express sqlite3 body-parser cors jsonwebtoken bcrypt
- Install development dependencies:
npm install nodemon --save Install nodemon for automatic server restarts during development:
- Initialize the database:
node initializeDB.js Run the script to initialize the SQLite database
- Run the application:
npm start Start the server using nodemon
This project uses SQLite to store data related to transactions and categories. Below are the database tables used:
- id (INTEGER): Primary key, auto-incremented.
- type (TEXT): The name of user.
- type (TEXT): The password for the respective user.
- id (INTEGER): Primary key, auto-incremented.
- type (TEXT): The type of transaction, either "income" or "expense".
- category (TEXT): The category of the transaction (e.g., "salary", "rent").
- amount (REAL): The amount of the transaction.
- date (TEXT): Date of the transaction in
YYYY-MM-DDformat. - description (TEXT): An optional description for the transaction.
personal_expense_tracker/ │ ├── backend/ │ ├── config/ │ │ ├── db.js // Database connection setup │ │ └── schema.sql // SQL script to create tables for users and transactions │ ├── controllers/ │ │ ├── transactionController.js // Handles all CRUD operations for transactions │ │ └── userController.js // Manages user registration, login, and authentication │ ├── middleware/ │ │ └── authMiddleware.js // Middleware to protect routes and verify JWT tokens │ ├── models/ │ │ └── transactionModel.js // Contains functions to interact with transactions table in the database │ ├── routes/ │ │ ├── transactionRoutes.js // Defines API endpoints for transaction-related operations │ │ └── userRoutes.js // Defines API endpoints for user-related operations │ ├── utils/ │ │ └── initDB.js // Initializes the database and creates tables using the schema │ ├── app.js // Main application file that sets up and starts the server │ ├── package.json // Contains project metadata and lists dependencies │ └── .gitignore // Lists files/folders to ignore in version control │ └── README.md // Documentation file with setup instructions and API details
Endpoint: POST / register
Description: Registering a new user
Request Body:
json {"username" : "Arjun", "password" : "Arjun@2312"}
Response Body:
json { "id": 14, "message": "User registered successfully" }
Endpoint: POST / register
Description: Authenticating a new user
Request Body:
json {"username" : "Arjun", "password" : "Arjun@2312"}
Response Body:
json { "message": "Login successful", "token": <JWT_TOKEN> }
Endpoint: POST / add
Description: Adding a new transaction
Request Body:
json { "type": "expense", "category": "Food", "amount": 5000, "date": "2024-10-10", "description": "Monthly food bill" }
Response Body:
json { "id": 19, "message": "Transaction added successfully" }
Endpoint: GET / transaction
Description: Retrieving all transactions
Response Body:
json [ { "id": 1, "userId": 3, "type": "income", "category": "Salary", "amount": 84000, "date": "2024-09-29", "description": "Monthly salary" }, ...... ]
Endpoint: GET / transaction
Description: Retrieve a transaction by its id
Response Body:
json { "id": 19, "userId": 3, "type": "expense", "category": "Food", "amount": 5000, "date": "2024-10-10", "description": "Monthly food bill" }
Endpoint: PUT / transaction
Description: Update a transaction by its id
Request Body:
json { "type": "expense", "category": "Health", "amount": 1800, "date": "2024-10-19", "description": "Monthly medical bill" }
Response Body:
json { "updatedID": "14", "message": "Transaction updated successfully" }
Endpoint: DELETE / transaction
Description: Delete a transaction by its id
Response Body:
json { "message": "Transaction deleted successfully" }
Endpoint: GET / transaction
Description: Retrieve a summary of transactions by date or category
Response Body:
json [ { "type": "expense", "total": 52900 }, { "type": "income", "total": 257000 } ]
Endpoint: GET / transaction
Description: Retrieve monthly report of transactions
Response Body:
json [ { "month": "2024-10", "category": "Commission", "total": 88000 }, { "month": "2024-10", "category": "Cooking Gas", "total": 900 }, ....... ]
To use the Personal Expense Tracker API:
Start the server using the command: npm start Use Postman or any other API client to send requests to the endpoints defined above Refer to the provided examples for request bodies and expected responses
The API includes basic error handling to manage common issues:
400 Bad Request: Returned when a request has invalid data, such as an invalid transaction ID. 404 Not Found: Returned when a requested resource (like a transaction by ID) does not exist. 500 Internal Server Error: Returned when there is an error in the database operations.
Example of an error response:
json { "error": "Invalid transaction ID" }
User Authentication: Implement user authentication using JSON Web Tokens (JWT) to secure the API. This allows users to register and log in, ensuring their transactions are tied to their accounts.
Pagination: Add pagination to the GET /transactions endpoint to manage large datasets. This can be achieved by using query parameters like page and limit.
Monthly Reports: Create an endpoint to generate reports that summarize spending by category on a monthly basis. This could include total expenses, total income, and net balance for each month.
License This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.