Finance Desktop

Personal finance tracking desktop app — track income, expenses, budgets, and savings goals with everything running locally.

Overview

A portable Windows desktop application for personal finance management. No external database or server required — everything runs locally with an embedded SQLite database.

• Fully Offline — no cloud, no accounts, your data stays on your machine
• Portable — single .exe, no installation required
• Monorepo — NestJS REST API backend + React frontend in one workspace

Features

Core

• Accounts — checking, savings, credit, investment, cash with balances
• Transactions — income, fixed costs, variable expenses, transfers with pagination and month navigation
• Categories — organize transactions, track fixed vs variable costs
• Recurring Rules — automatic transaction posting (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly)
• Budgets — spending limits per category with progress tracking and projections

Analytics

• Monthly Summary — income, fixed costs, variable expenses, savings at a glance
• Category Breakdown — where your money goes each month
• Net Worth Trend — balance over time across all accounts (up to 12 months)
• Budget vs Actual — track spending against budget limits
• Recurring Costs — overview of fixed monthly obligations
• Savings History — 6-month income vs expenses comparison

Additional

• Tags & Payees — label and organize transactions
• Savings Goals — track progress toward targets with contributions
• Export/Import — JSON full backup, CSV transaction export, restore with replace or merge
• Audit Log — automatic tracking of all data changes
• Settings — currency, first day of month/week preferences
• Command Palette — quick keyboard navigation (Ctrl+K)
• Swagger Docs — full API documentation at /api/docs (dev mode)

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Desktop	Electron 41
Frontend	React 19 + TypeScript 6 + Vite 8
Styling	Tailwind CSS 4 + Framer Motion 12
Backend	NestJS 11
ORM	Prisma 7 + better-sqlite3 adapter
Database	SQLite (file-based, portable)
Charts	Recharts

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+

Development

npm install                 # install all workspace dependencies
npm run dev                 # start backend + frontend + Electron

The dev server waits for both the backend (port 8080) and frontend (port 5173) before opening the Electron window.

Commands

npm run dev                 # full dev environment
npm run dev:backend         # backend only (NestJS, port 8080)
npm test                    # run 201 backend tests
npm run lint                # lint both packages
npm run typecheck           # type-check both packages
bash build-all.sh           # build portable Windows EXE

Production Build

bash build-all.sh

Output: packages/desktop/dist/Finance Desktop-<version>-portable.exe (~105 MB)

The portable executable bundles the backend, frontend, and database — no installation required.

Project Structure

packages/
├── backend/                NestJS REST API (port 8080)
│   ├── prisma/             Database schema and migrations
│   ├── prisma.config.ts    Prisma 7 datasource configuration
│   └── src/
│       ├── generated/      Prisma client (auto-generated)
│       ├── modules/        Feature modules (14 total)
│       │   ├── accounts/       CRUD + balance tracking
│       │   ├── analytics/      Summaries, trends, breakdowns
│       │   ├── audit/          Change tracking interceptor
│       │   ├── budgets/        Per-category spending limits
│       │   ├── categories/     Income/expense classification
│       │   ├── export/         JSON/CSV export, JSON import
│       │   ├── goals/          Savings goals + contributions
│       │   ├── health/         Health check endpoint
│       │   ├── payees/         Transaction payees
│       │   ├── recurring-rules/ Auto-post scheduling
│       │   ├── seed/           Initial data setup
│       │   ├── settings/       App preferences
│       │   ├── tags/           Transaction labels
│       │   └── transactions/   Paginated with date filtering
│       ├── prisma/         PrismaService (better-sqlite3 adapter)
│       └── common/         Shared filters, interceptors, DTOs
└── desktop/                Electron + React frontend
    ├── electron/           Main process (backend fork, migrations)
    └── src/
        ├── pages/          13 pages (Dashboard → Settings)
        ├── components/     UI (SidePanel, CommandPalette, SparkLine, etc.)
        ├── api/            Backend client + types
        └── hooks/          Shared React hooks

API

Base URL: http://127.0.0.1:8080/api

Endpoint	Description
GET /api/health	Health check
/api/accounts	CRUD accounts
/api/categories	CRUD categories
/api/transactions	CRUD with pagination and date filtering
/api/recurring-rules	CRUD recurring rules + generate next
/api/budgets	CRUD budget limits
/api/tags	CRUD transaction tags
/api/payees	CRUD payees
/api/goals	CRUD savings goals + contributions
/api/settings	App preferences
/api/analytics/*	Month summary, category breakdown, net worth, budget vs actual, recurring costs
/api/export/*	JSON/CSV export, JSON import
/api/audit/*	Audit log queries
/api/docs	Swagger UI (dev mode only)

Testing

201 backend unit tests across 18 suites.

npm test                    # all tests
npm -w @finance/backend run test:cov   # with coverage report

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Run npm run lint and npm run typecheck
5. Run npm test
6. Submit a pull request

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.