PennyWise

Home Tab
Account Tab
Finances Tab
Transactions Page
Books Tab
Student Loans Graph

Inspiration

We were inspired by the growing need for students to manage their finances in a straightforward, accessible, and user-friendly way. Students often struggle with budgeting and keeping track of expenses while juggling their academic responsibilities. We designed PennyWise to empower students by offering a one-stop solution- whether it be monitoring transactions, allocating educational funds, or mapping loan repayment.

What it does

Our website includes:

Add Accounts: Users can add their bank account details.
Dashboard: A concise consolidation of financial data including recent activity.
Finances Tab: Allows users to record incomes, expenditures, and savings. Utilizes a tabular visualization to better assess financial habits.
Books Tab: Students can input books and their prices to keep track of expenses. These get added to the dashboard for easy access and reflection.
Loans Tab: Provides a graph displaying the loan balance, payments, and schedule, so students can easily track loan progress and trends.

How we built it

Front-end: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
Back-end: Python (Django), and SQLite

Challenges we ran into

The back-end required navigating a completely new framework (django). Including multiple tables while ensuring the design remains cohesive posed a hurdle. Additionally, back-end integration with the front-end was one of our biggest challenges.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As hackathon new-bees with limited technical experience, we are proud to be able to put together something functional and productive. For example, integrating full-fledged back-end with front-end for the first time was as rewarding as it was challenging. Working with meticulous data while venturing various unfamiliar frameworks in less than 24 hours polished our skill sets immensely.

What we learned

Through this experience, we learned how to work effectively as a team under tight time constraints, leveraged advanced SQL techniques for backend development and gained hands-on experience building a website.

What's next for PennyWise

We hope to utilize Plaid API in the future to seamlessly link user bank accounts. We plan to add a calendar feature that enables users to set deadlines. Also, we wish to integrate generative AI to provide student loan repayment advice and find student discounts. We also want to be able to create a tab wherein students can manage their subscriptions.