BobRates

BobRates is an iPhone app that helps you track everyday spending and keep tickets, loyalty cards, and QR codes in one place. Add a purchase by typing, speaking, or scanning a receipt. See where your money goes, and find a saved code when you need it.

Inspiration

BobRates started as two bachelor’s projects. One of us studied expense tracking; the other worked on organizing QR codes. We spent about a year researching the problems, trying ideas, and building demos.

We wanted to make both tasks easier in daily life. Recording a coffee should take seconds. Finding a ticket should not mean searching through hundreds of screenshots. Eventually, we brought the two projects together in an app we wanted to use ourselves.

What it does

BobRates organizes expenses into Pockets, so you can keep spending for a trip, your car, or anything else separate. Analytics shows where your money goes, and Home Screen widgets offer a quick view.

Vault keeps tickets, loyalty cards, QR codes, and barcodes organized. You can add expenses manually, by voice, or from a receipt. Manual expense and code tools work offline; an account adds sync and optional AI features.

How we built it

Our early demos were built with React Native. Neither of us knew Swift, but as the project grew, our workflow became a barrier. We used everything we had learned from those prototypes to build a native iPhone app with SwiftUI.

GRDB stores data on the device. Supabase supports accounts and sync. Apple’s scanning and speech tools help capture information, DeepSeek powers requested AI assistance, and RevenueCat manages subscriptions.

Challenges we ran into

Learning Swift while building a full app was our biggest technical challenge. We also had to turn two separate university projects into one simple experience. Expense capture needed to be fast but accurate, and the manual tools needed to remain useful without an internet connection.

Preparing a real App Store release taught us how much care sign-in, purchases, and reliability require.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We turned a year of research and prototypes into a published iPhone app. People can now record expenses in several ways, understand their spending through Pockets and Analytics, and keep useful codes in Vault. We are especially proud that the core manual tools work without an account.

What we learned

Switching from React Native to Swift did not mean starting from zero. The prototypes helped us understand the problems; learning Swift helped us build the experience we had imagined.

We also learned that convenience needs trust. AI can save time, but people need clear results they can check and correct.

What's next for BobRates - AI Finance Assistant

Now that BobRates is in people’s hands, we want to learn where recording an expense still feels slow or confusing. We will use that feedback to improve voice and receipt capture, make spending insights more useful, and keep refining the small interactions people use every day.