# Finance Manager

> Finance Manager is a free personal finance Progressive Web App (PWA) built for India. Track bank accounts, cash wallets, credit cards, and investments in one place. Log income and expenses, set monthly budgets, create savings goals, and split bills with friends — no subscription, no ads, no data selling. Installable on iOS and Android without any app store.

Finance Manager was built by Akshat Gadodia as a privacy-first alternative to subscription personal finance apps. Your data lives on your own server. There are no third-party advertising trackers, and your transaction history is never sold or used for profiling.

## Key Facts

- **Free**: No subscription, no premium tier, no credit card required
- **Private**: JWT-secured API; data stored on your own server; no third-party tracking
- **India-first**: Default currency INR, Indian number formatting (lakhs/crores), live FX rates to INR
- **PWA**: Installable on iOS and Android without the App Store or Play Store
- **Offline-capable**: Last view cached locally; syncs automatically when back online
- **Multi-currency**: Create accounts in any currency; all balances roll up to your base currency

## Core Features

- **Account tracking**: Bank savings and current accounts, cash wallets, credit cards, investment accounts — all grouped in one view
- **Transaction logging**: Income, expense, and transfer transactions with categories, tags, notes, and custom dates
- **Budget management**: Monthly budgets per spending category with optional rollover of unspent amounts
- **Savings goals**: Named goals (Emergency Fund, Vacation, Down Payment) with target amounts and deadline dates; progress updated on each contribution
- **Expense splitting**: Assign transactions (or a share of them) to named people; Finance Manager tracks a running balance so you always know who owes what
- **Reports and analytics**: Dashboard with monthly income/expense/savings summaries; cash-flow trends; category-level spending breakdowns; net worth history
- **CSV import**: Bulk-upload transactions from a bank statement export by mapping date, description, and amount columns
- **Account statement export**: Export any account's transaction history as CSV or PDF
- **Audit log**: Full change history for every account — see every edit, deletion, and balance adjustment

## Who It Is For

- Individuals in India who want a free alternative to paid apps like YNAB, Copilot, or Walnut
- People who want to stop tracking expenses in Google Sheets or Excel and use a purpose-built app
- Users who need their financial data on their own server rather than a company's cloud
- Anyone splitting expenses with roommates, friends, or family members
- Students and young professionals setting their first budget
- Multi-account holders who bank with more than one institution

## Finance Manager vs. Alternatives

### vs. Spreadsheets (Google Sheets / Excel)
- Automatic real-time balance updates — no manual formulas to maintain
- Mobile-first interface; two-tap transaction logging on any phone
- Built-in bill-splitting with running person balances — no VLOOKUP required
- Offline access without needing to open a browser or sync a file

### vs. Paid personal finance apps (YNAB, Copilot, Mint, Walnut)
- Completely free — no subscription, no trial period, no credit card required
- Your data on your own server — not stored with or sold by a third party
- INR-first with Indian number formatting; not retrofitted for India
- All features available from day one — nothing gated behind a paywall

### vs. Your bank's own app
- All banks, wallets, cards, and cash in one unified view
- Category-level monthly budgets with rollover — bank apps have none
- Savings goal tracking with visual progress — bank apps have none
- Split any transaction with any person — track who owes you

### vs. UPI / payment app expense tracking (PhonePe, Paytm)
- Tracks cash, cards, and non-UPI accounts, not just UPI payments
- Full budget and goal layer on top of transaction history
- Exportable statements and audit log for every account
- Works even when you pay with cash or an international card

## Use Cases

- "I want to track all my accounts without logging into multiple banking apps"
- "I want to set a monthly budget for food and know when I'm close to the limit"
- "I split an Airbnb with friends and want to track who owes me"
- "I want to see my net worth across all accounts in one number"
- "I want to import 6 months of bank statements and categorise them"
- "I want a finance app that works offline on my phone"
- "I want to set a ₹5 lakh savings goal and track monthly contributions"

## Technical Summary

- **Frontend**: React + TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS
- **Backend**: Django REST Framework (Python)
- **Authentication**: JWT (no OAuth dependency, no third-party auth)
- **Offline**: Service Worker via Workbox; asset and view caching
- **Currency data**: Live exchange rates via API, converted to base currency (INR default)
- **Deployment**: Self-hosted; Django serves both the API and the compiled React PWA

## Site Map

- https://financemanager.studiobyakshatgadodia.com/ — Landing page: features, how it works, comparison, FAQ
- https://financemanager.studiobyakshatgadodia.com/login — Sign in to your account
- https://financemanager.studiobyakshatgadodia.com/signup — Create a free account (no card required)
- https://financemanager.studiobyakshatgadodia.com/llms.txt — This file: structured site summary for LLMs
- https://financemanager.studiobyakshatgadodia.com/ai-readme.md — Encyclopedic reference documentation (third-person prose, covers all features, glossary, comparisons, technical architecture)

## Author

Finance Manager was designed and built by Akshat Gadodia (https://financemanager.studiobyakshatgadodia.com).