MoneyTrail

MoneyTrail is a full-stack web application for managing small-business products, expenses, sales entries, and accounting summaries. It provides a simple dashboard-style interface for tracking business operations and reviewing financial activity in one place.

Live Demo

View the live app

Features

• Manage product records with category, scent, color, bottle size, cost, and selling price information
• Add, edit, delete, search, filter, and paginate product entries
• Record business expenses with category, date, description, exchange rate, paid amount, and unit price
• Track sales transactions with product name, business type, quantity, unit price, and total amount
• Generate accounting-style summaries from sales and expenses
• Responsive React frontend with reusable table, filter, dropdown, and pagination components
• Express and MongoDB backend with REST API routes for products, expenses, and sales

Tech Stack

Frontend

• React
• Vite
• React Router
• Tailwind CSS
• React Icons

Backend

• Node.js
• Express.js
• MongoDB
• Mongoose
• dotenv

Deployment

• Render

Project Structure

MoneyTrail/
├── api/
│   ├── controllers/
│   ├── models/
│   ├── routes/
│   ├── utils/
│   └── index.js
├── frontend/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/
│   │   ├── pages/
│   │   └── utils/
│   ├── package.json
│   └── vite.config.js
├── .env.example
├── .gitignore
├── package.json
└── README.md

Main Pages

• Home — Overview page for the application
• Products — Product inventory management
• Sales — Sales transaction tracking
• Expenses — Business expense tracking
• Accounting — Financial summary view based on sales and expenses

API Routes

Health Check

GET /api/health

Returns a simple status message confirming that the API is running.

Products

GET    /api/products
POST   /api/products
PUT    /api/products/:id
DELETE /api/products/:id

Sales

GET    /api/sales
POST   /api/sales
PUT    /api/sales/:id
DELETE /api/sales/:id

Expenses

GET    /api/expenses
POST   /api/expenses
PUT    /api/expenses/:id
DELETE /api/expenses/:id

Accounting

GET /api/accounting/summary

Returns a basic accounting summary, including total sales, total expenses, number of sales, and number of expenses.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Make sure you have installed:

• Node.js
• npm
• MongoDB Atlas account or local MongoDB database

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root directory:

MONGO=your_mongodb_connection_string
PORT=3000

An example file is included as .env.example.

Do not commit your real .env file to GitHub.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/rhouhou/MoneyTrail.git
cd MoneyTrail

Install backend dependencies:

npm install

Install frontend dependencies:

cd frontend
npm install
cd ..

Running the App Locally

Start the backend server from the root directory:

npm run dev:backend

The backend runs on:

http://localhost:3000

In a second terminal, start the frontend development server:

npm run dev:frontend

The frontend runs with Vite, usually at:

http://localhost:5173

During development, frontend API requests are proxied to the backend server at:

http://localhost:3000

You can also still start the backend with:

npm run dev

Production Build

Build the frontend and install dependencies:

npm run build

Start the production server:

npm start

The Express server serves the built frontend from:

frontend/dist

Screenshots

Home

Products

Sales

Expenses

Accounting

Current Status

MoneyTrail is a portfolio project demonstrating a MERN-style business management dashboard. The core product, sales, expense, and accounting summary features are implemented.

The backend includes REST API routes for products, sales, expenses, and accounting summaries. It also includes MongoDB ID validation, schema validation, clearer API error responses, a health check endpoint, API 404 handling, security headers, request size limits, and basic rate limiting.

The frontend includes product, sales, and expense management pages with filtering, pagination, add/edit/delete actions, loading states, success messages, and basic error handling for failed fetch, save, edit, and delete actions.

The project is deployed on Render and can also be run locally with a MongoDB connection string.

Planned Improvements

• Add user authentication and protected routes
• Add role-based access for business/admin users
• Add automated backend tests for API routes
• Improve accounting summaries with date filters
• Add charts for sales, expenses, and profit trends
• Add export options for accounting reports
• Improve responsive design for smaller screens
• Clean and standardize field names across models and frontend forms
• Add demo screenshots and sample data

Known Limitations

• Authentication and user roles are not currently implemented
• The app is intended as a portfolio/demo project
• Financial summaries are basic and should be reviewed before use in real business settings
• Environment variables must be configured before deployment

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.