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Kid's Portal View
Parent's Portal View
Parent's add chores for kid with payment option
Scan with QR code in kid's portal (only registered qr codes)
Change profile options for both portals
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Scan this QR for confirmation of payment (registered)
Scan this QR for confirmation of payment (registered)

Inspiration

Managing pocket money in most families is still done the old-fashioned way — cash handed over, mental notes, or a notebook that never gets updated. As students learning full-stack development, we wanted to solve a problem we could relate to personally: how do parents and kids keep track of allowances, spending, and savings goals in a way that's transparent for everyone? That question became the starting point for Pocket Money Pro — an app where parents and children each get their own account, and money management becomes a shared, visible process instead of a guessing game.

What it does

Pocket Money Pro is a full-stack pocket money management app built for families.

Parent & Child Accounts — separate roles and views, so parents and kids see exactly what's relevant to them.
Account Linking — a parent can link to one or more child accounts to manage their pocket money in one place.
Allowance & Expense Tracking — every transaction (allowance added, money spent) is logged and synced in real time, so balances are always accurate across devices.
Wishlist System — kids can add items they want to their wishlist, and parents can review and approve or decline requests based on the child's available balance.
Secure Authentication — sign-up and sign-in are handled through Firebase Authentication.

How we built it

We split the project into two collaborating parts:

Frontend: Built with Flutter (Dart), giving us a single codebase for Android and iOS, with real-time UI updates as data changes.
Backend: Built with Node.js and Express, handling secure server-side operations — particularly Firebase Admin actions that shouldn't run directly from the client.
Database & Auth: Firebase Firestore powers real-time data sync between parent and child accounts, while Firebase Authentication manages secure sign-up/sign-in for both roles.

The two of us divided the work by layer: one focused entirely on the Flutter frontend and app experience, while the other built out the Node.js/Express backend and Firebase integration. This let us work in parallel and merge our pieces once the API contracts were defined.

Challenges we ran into

Keeping data in sync in real time between a parent's view and their child's view without conflicts or stale balances.
Designing the wishlist approval flow so that a child's request is checked against their actual available balance before a parent can approve it.
Coordinating frontend and backend work as two contributors working on different stacks (Flutter vs. Node.js/Express) and making sure our data models matched up cleanly.
Securing Firebase credentials properly — making sure service account keys and environment variables never ended up committed to version control.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully building a working full-stack app end-to-end: Flutter frontend, Node.js/Express backend, and Firebase for auth and real-time data.
Getting parent-child account linking and real-time balance syncing working smoothly.
Designing a wishlist approval flow that ties directly into real account balances rather than being a static list.
Deploying the backend live on Railway with automatic redeploys on every push to main.

What we learned

How to structure a real-time, multi-role app (parent vs. child) using Firebase Firestore.
Practical experience securing sensitive credentials (service account keys, environment variables) in a full-stack project.
How to divide and coordinate work across a Flutter frontend and a Node.js/Express backend as a two-person team.
Deployment workflows for Node.js backends using Railway, including managing environment variables and service account JSON in a hosted environment.

What's next for Pocket Money Pro

Adding savings goals and progress tracking alongside the wishlist system.
Push notifications for parents when a child submits a new wishlist request or spends money.
Analytics/insights for parents on their child's spending habits over time.
Polishing and publishing the app to the Play Store and App Store for broader use.