BudEase

🎯 Inspiration Managing personal finances as a student or young professional can be overwhelming — bank apps are either too complex or lack meaningful guidance. We wanted to create an intuitive, mobile-first AI-powered assistant that not only tracks spending, but actively helps users budget, plan, and build financial habits. Think of it as a friendly, intelligent version of your bank, built for the next generation.

💡 What it does BudEase is an AI-powered financial wellness app designed for young adults. It connects to your bank account (via Powens or file import), automatically categorizes transactions, splits your income into sub-accounts (like savings goals or bills), and provides real-time, conversational financial advice via an AI chat assistant.

Core features: 🎯 Smart sub-accounts with progress tracking 🧠 AI assistant for financial questions and insights 📊 Auto-budgeting with 50/30/20 split 📥 CSV/OFX/PDF import fallback if bank sync fails 🔁 Recurring payment detection (e.g. Netflix, gym) ✨ Emotionally supportive, goal-driven UX

🛠 How we built it Frontend: React Native for mobile-first experience, with web PWA fallback Backend: Supabase for user auth, transaction storage, and metadata AI Integration: OpenAI API for assistant + custom logic for categorization memory Banking: Powens API for live account sync + secure OAuth Fallback: CSV, OFX, PDF upload + smart parsing & mapping engine UX: Modular design system (8px grid, haptics, microinteractions) built in Figma

🧱 Challenges we ran into 🏦 Powens integration required significant OAuth and security handling (not yet handled because one shot prompt) 🧾 Condensed yet detailed prompt 🧠 Balancing AI responses to stay helpful but not overly generic 📱 Maintaining smooth mobile performance while handling rich data and animations

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of Built a fully functional budgeting app in days with complete UX polish Implemented robust error handling and fallback flows for real-world edge cases Created a delightful and human-centered interface users actually enjoy using Achieved a truly AI-enhanced experience — not just chat, but memory, nudges, and learning (coming soon)

📚 What we learned AI is most useful when tightly scoped and clearly guided by user intent Great UX = anticipating user confusion and offering friendly next steps Even in finance, emotional design and clarity matter more than dashboards Users don’t need 100 features — just the right 5, executed flawlessly

🚀 What's next for BudEase 🧾 PDF and email receipt parsing for even more input flexibility 📱 Launch on App Store and Play Store with analytics layer 🧠 Smarter AI: detect financial stress, offer savings tips, forecast spend 🧪 User testing with students and freelancers to improve UX 🔒 Add open-source fallback to Powens for broader EU coverage

Built With

• bolt
• react
• supabase
• tailwind