Spendly

Front Page
Mission Statement
Key Statistics
Competitor Analysis
The Tech Stack
The Database schema
Demo

Inspiration

Managing finances effectively can be a challenge, especially with unpredictable spending habits and lack of real-time insights. We wanted to create an AI-powered tool that simplifies budget tracking, provides smart recommendations, and enhances financial awareness. Spendly was born to help users take control of their spending in a seamless and interactive way.

What it does

Spendly is an AI-powered smart spending tracker that allows users to:

Set a Budget: Users create an account and set their monthly budget. (e.g., $1000/month)
Log Expenses:
- Receipt Scanning: Scan receipts using OpenAI Vision, and an LLM extracts and categorizes expense details.
- Voice Entry: (Future Feature) Use Whisper Speech-to-Text to record expenses verbally. Users can edit and submit transactions.
Dashboard Insights:
- A circular chart displays budget usage.
- Expense categories (e.g., Food: $123, Transport: $50) are highlighted.

How we built it

Account & Budget Setup: Users set their monthly budget.
Expense Logging:
- Computer Vision (OpenAI Vision API) for receipt scanning and automatic categorization.
- Whisper API (planned) for speech-based expense entry.
Dashboard & Insights:
- Built using Chart.js and react-chartjs-2 for interactive spending visualizations.
Tech Stack:
- Frontend: React, JavaScript
- Backend: Python, Flask
- APIs: OpenAI Vision API, Whisper API.

Challenges we ran into

Accurate expense categorization: Fine-tuning the LLM to correctly categorize expenses based on receipt text was complex.
Real-time data visualization: Implementing a responsive dashboard with Chart.js required careful data structuring.
Speech-to-text processing: Whisper’s integration faced initial issues in handling different accents and noisy backgrounds.
Optimizing chatbot responses: Ensuring AI suggestions were truly helpful and personalized for each user.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Successfully built an AI-powered expense tracker with real-time categorization.
Designed an intuitive dashboard that makes budget tracking effortless.
Integrated OpenAI Vision to automate receipt scanning with high accuracy.

What we learned

Combining AI and finance can significantly improve budgeting efficiency.
Data visualization is key to helping users understand their spending habits.
LLM-based expense tracking can greatly simplify financial management.
User experience matters: A simple and clear interface makes all the difference.