Personal Finance Tracker

A minimal personal finance tracker with goals, transactions, reports, and saving logs. Built with Node.js, Express, EJS, and PostgreSQL.

Features

• User auth (middleware-protected API routes)
• Transactions: create, update, soft-delete
• Transactions listing with sorting and pagination (page/limit)
• Goals: create, update, soft-delete
• Goal saving logs: view history and add new savings
• Reports: monthly spending summary per user
• EJS views, modular front-end scripts, and shared styles

Tech Stack

• Backend: Node.js (ESM), Express
• DB: PostgreSQL (pg)
• Views: EJS
• Front-end: vanilla JS modules, CSS

Project Structure

.
├─ controllers/           # Route handlers (business logic)
│  ├─ accessControllers.js
│  ├─ authControllers.js
│  ├─ goalController.js
│  ├─ goalLogController.js
│  ├─ reportsController.js
│  └─ transactionController.js
├─ middleware/
│  ├─ authMiddleware.js   # checks for access token and its validity
│  └─ pageMiddleware.js   # checks for refresh token and its validity 
├─ models/                # DB access
│  ├─ db.js               # pg Pool
│  ├─ goalLogModel.js
│  ├─ goalModel.js
│  ├─ reportsModel.js
│  └─ transactionModel.js
│  └─ userModel.js
├─ public/                # Static assets
│  ├─ js/
│  │  ├─ auth.js
│  │  ├─ goal.js
│  │  ├─ home.js
│  │  ├─ homeEl.js
│  │  ├─ reports.js
│  │  └─ transaction.js
│  │  └─ util.js
│  │  └─ verification.js
│  │  └─ verificationEl.js
│  └─ styles/
│     ├─ base.css
│     ├─ validation.css
│     └─ home.css
├─ routes/
│  ├─ goalRoutes.js
│  ├─ accessRoutes.js
│  ├─ userRoutes.js
│  └─ transactionRoutes.js
├─ views/
│  ├─ home.ejs
│  └─ validation.ejs
├─ schema.sql             # DB schema & view
├─ server.js              # App entrypoint
├─ package.json
├─ package-lock.json
├─ .gitIgnore
└─ .env

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• PostgreSQL 13+
• A .env file with DB and JWT configuration

Create .env in project root:

PORT=3000
DB_USER=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=yourpassword
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_NAME=expense_tracker
JWT_SECRET=replace-with-strong-secret

Database Setup

1. Create database:

   createdb expense_tracker

2. Apply schema:

   psql -U postgres -d expense_tracker -f schema.sql

This creates:

• users, transactions, goals, goal_saving_log tables
• monthly_summary view for reports

Install & Run

Install dependencies:

npm install

To Start run :

npm start

Open in browser:

http://localhost:PORT (Insert the port number here)

API Overview

• Transactions:

  • GET /api/transactions?sortBy=created_at|transaction_name|transaction_amount&sortOrder=ASC|DESC&page=1&limit=10&filterByName=
    • Response: { data: [...], page, limit, hasMore }
  • POST /api/transactions body: { name, amount, detail? }
  • PUT /api/transactions/:id body: { name, amount, detail? }
  • DELETE /api/transactions/:id

• Goals:

  • GET /api/goals

  • POST /api/goals body: { name, totalAmount, freq, goalDeadline }

  • PUT /api/goals/:id

  • DELETE /api/goals/:id

  • Goal Logs:

    • GET /api/goals/goalLog/:goalId
    • POST /api/goals/goalLog body: { goalId,amount, note? }

  • Reports:

    • GET /api/goals/reports/monthly-summary
      • Response: { data: [{ year, month, total_spent }, ...] }

All /api/* routes are protected by authMiddleware, which should set req.user = { id, ... }.

Front-end Entry

• views/home.ejs loads /js/home.js as module.
• public/js/home.js generates/retrieves an access token and calls:
  • allEvents() from homeEl.js
• homeEl.js wires tab switching and calls:
  • goalEvents()
  • transactionEvents()
  • reportsEvents()

License

MIT