Inspiration
As college students, although we take our finances seriously, our transactions are often casual. Online banking tools are good at organizing official transactions, however what about those promises for a friend to pay the other back? Here, our code is the solution: CashTracker, a personalized cash flow management tool that tracks both spending and accrued casual transactions between peers on a monthly basis.
What it does
This algorithm aims to outline a back-end program that allows the user to set budget limits for different categories of spending, such as needs and wants. The program then analyzes the user’s income and spending to provide a score from 0 to 5, with 5 being the best, on the user’s finances for the month. Additional tips and warnings are provided based on the score given.
How we built it
In order to create this program, we initially created a paper outline with a rough idea of the flow of the program. Over the course of the Technica hackathon, we discussed and redrew our plan before dividing the methods between our team members. We used Java as our primary programming language and Eclipse IDE as our interface. This process took many reevaluations and roadblocks before reaching our final product.
Challenges we ran into
In our code, we were unable to store the data inputted by the user inside a secure database that contains a history of the transactions. Because of this, changes in the total spent are not tracked to keep the data safe and private.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
As students with very limited coding knowledge and experience, we were able to create a program that takes in as many factors of a student’s finances as possible and shows the user a simple score based on their spending habits. Additional advice is also provided for moving forward the rest of the month.
What we learned
We reinforced fundamental Java knowledge while exploring ways to develop a scoring system for casual finances.
What's next for CashTracker
We want to be able to store data in a secure database, create an aesthetic and accessible user interface. Also, in the future we hope CashTracker can provide a more in depth analysis and thereby a more comprehensive score with not just basic tips and warnings but actual advice that can positively impact the user’s finances.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.