Finance Tracker
What It Does
Finance Tracker is a full-stack web app that bridges the gap between monthly budgeting in Excel and long-term financial analysis. Each month's budget and actual spending gets recorded (manual entry or Excel upload), and the app builds a historical picture across every category. Two zones: a Data Hub for entering and browsing monthly sheets, and an Insights Dashboard with charts for spending trends, category breakdowns, savings rate, net worth, and budget accuracy scoring. Variance alerts flag categories that are consistently 20%+ over or under budget. Year-over-year comparisons show the same month last year vs. this year. Categories are fully configurable (needs, savings, wants), and the whole thing is PIN-locked for privacy. Designed to answer one question: how have my spending and savings actually trended over time?
Key Features
- Monthly budget vs. actual tracking with Excel import or manual entry
- Insights dashboard: spending trends, category breakdowns, savings rate, net worth
- Budget accuracy scoring: quantifies how realistic each category's budget is
- Variance alerts for categories consistently 20%+ over or under budget
- Year-over-year comparisons for the same month across years
- Configurable categories organized by needs, savings, and wants
- PIN-locked interface with brute force protection
Why I Built It
Excel is great for a single month's budget, but it can't answer 'how has my spending trended over the last year?' I needed a system that turns monthly snapshots into historical trend data with real insights.
What I Learned
Learned how to design a dual-zone interface that separates data entry from analytics cleanly. Built a flexible category system that adapts to any budget structure, and implemented chart-heavy dashboards with Recharts that make financial trends immediately readable.