Make money
make sense.
A full-stack personal finance app that helps you record transactions, organize spending, and see exactly where your money goes — built with ASP.NET Core 8 and React.
Everything you need to see the full picture
A practical layered backend paired with a responsive frontend — built for clarity, not complexity.
Your own space
Registration and login with JWT authentication, and BCrypt password hashing — plaintext passwords are never stored.
Full transaction CRUD
Create, view, edit, and delete personal income and expense records, each scoped to the owning user.
Find it fast
Search by term, filter by type/category/date range, and page through results with server-side sorting.
Ready-to-use categories
Eight seeded global categories: Food, Transport, Shopping, Bills, Entertainment, Health, Salary, and Other.
Financial overview
Dashboard aggregates for income, expenses, balance, category totals, monthly trends, and recent activity.
Safe by design
FluentValidation request rules, centralized exception handling, and DTOs that never expose persistence entities.
What's shipped
The core release is complete — every item below is implemented, working, and part of the current codebase.
Backend
Frontend
Built with
| Backend | ASP.NET Core 8Entity Framework Core 8FluentValidationSwagger / OpenAPI |
| Frontend | ReactViteTailwind CSSReact RouterRecharts |
| Database | SQL Server |
| Auth & Security | JWTBCrypt |
Simple, layered — on purpose
A modular layered monolith. Controllers handle HTTP, services hold the rules, and Entity Framework Core manages persistence. No microservices, no CQRS, no ceremony.
Run it locally
Works on Windows, macOS, or Linux. You'll need the .NET 8 SDK, Node.js with npm, SQL Server (or a compatible instance), and Git.
Clone the repository
Pull the project down and move into the project directory.
Configure and run the backend
Restore packages, apply migrations, and start the API from backend/ExpenseTracker.Api.
Configure and run the frontend
Install dependencies and start the Vite dev server from frontend.
# 1. clone
git clone https://github.com/here-is-leo/expense-tracker.git
cd expense-tracker
# 2. backend
cd backend/ExpenseTracker.Api
dotnet restore
dotnet ef database update
dotnet run{
"ConnectionStrings": {
"DefaultConnection": "Server=localhost;Database=ExpenseTrackerDb;Trusted_Connection=True;TrustServerCertificate=True"
},
"Jwt": {
"Key": "replace-with-a-long-development-secret",
"Issuer": "ExpenseTracker.Api",
"Audience": "ExpenseTracker.Client"
}
}cd ../../frontend
npm install
npm run dev
# .env (if required)
VITE_API_BASE_URL=https://localhost:5001/apiNever commit production secrets — use environment variables, .NET user secrets, or a dedicated secrets manager.
API at a glance
Full endpoint documentation lives in docs/API.md. Swagger UI is available at /swagger in development.
| Method | Endpoint | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| POST | /api/auth/register | Register a user |
| POST | /api/auth/login | Authenticate and receive a JWT |
| GET | /api/transactions | List, filter, sort, and paginate transactions |
| GET | /api/transactions/{id} | Retrieve one owned transaction |
| POST | /api/transactions | Create a transaction |
| PUT | /api/transactions/{id} | Update an owned transaction |
| DELETE | /api/transactions/{id} | Delete an owned transaction |
| GET | /api/categories | List global categories |
| GET | /api/dashboard | Retrieve financial aggregates and recent activity |
Safe by default
JWT-based authentication for every protected API operation
BCrypt password hashing — plaintext passwords are never stored
Ownership checks on user-scoped resources to prevent IDOR vulnerabilities
404 responses for inaccessible resources, so existence is never revealed
Server-side validation with FluentValidation on every request
Centralized exception handling with consistent error responses
DTOs prevent persistence entities from being exposed directly
Fixed-precision decimal / numeric(18,2) values for monetary data
Where it's headed
The core release is feature-complete. Everything below in the current stage is shipped; future stages are exploratory.
Meet the developer
"Reliable software begins with clear boundaries and thoughtful decisions."
@here-is-leo on GitHub →