Inspiration
As university students, we strive to be mindful of our spending, but with assignments, tests, and other responsibilities constantly demanding our attention, it's easy to lose track of our finances. When it came time to choose a hackathon project, the idea of a smart finance tracker stood out—it could simplify budgeting and help students stay on top of their financial goals without adding to their workload.
What it does
Our project is an AI-assisted finance tracker designed to help users set meaningful savings goals and achieve them as efficiently as possible. It provides a clear visualization of financial data and uses AI to analyze spending patterns, offering personalized insights and suggestions. Users can create and manage multiple accounts (or savings goals), track their progress, and receive tailored advice to optimize their budgeting strategy. The goal is to make financial planning easier and more intuitive, especially for busy students who need a simple yet powerful tool to stay on top of their finances.
How we built it
Once we settled on our project idea, we began by designing its overall structure—defining the database schema, mapping out the user interface, and outlining the general workflow from the moment a user opens the app. After establishing this high-level design, we refined the details, determining user attributes, tracking transactions, and integrating AI to assist users in reaching their financial goals.
From there, we dove into coding, often staying up late to bring the app to life. Due to time constraints, we encountered challenges that forced us to pivot from some of our initial ideas, requiring compromises in certain areas while strengthening others. Despite these hurdles, we ultimately built something that met our original expectations.
Challenges we ran into
The main challenges we ran into were, connecting to database, and calling the API. We had some trouble at connecting into one of the databse that were made by us, so we decided to switch up and use the databse provided by the gadget itself. Lastly, when we tried to use the Gemini API, it was challenging to integrate it into our project, but we mananged to call from it and give out Ai-generated reponses to our users to help them financially. We had to work under a time constraint which forced us to prioritize different features and make the best with the given environment.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We successfully built a functional financial tracking system that helps users take control of their money. The integration of AI-driven financial advice is one of our main achievements, as it helps users with insights into their spending and practical recommendations tailored to their financial behavior. Additionally, we optimize our UI for seamless user experience making it easy to find what you're looking for, at a glance.
What we learned
Throughout this project, AI-driven data analysis, user experience design, and data security. We learned about how AI can enhance financial decision-making and how to create a user-friendly interface that encourages people to track their spending consistently. Additionally, we improved our skills in back-end development, database management and working with APIs.
What's next for Smart Money
Moving forward, we plan to enhance Smart Money by further refining our AI models to provide even more accurate and insightful financial advice. Additionally, we aim to introduce budgeting templates and automated savings plans to make financial management even more effortless for users. Lastly, we would like to expand our website by expanding support for multiple currencies and integrating with external financial services to provide a more comprehensive financial tracking experience.
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