live at: https://budget-buddy-frontend.vercel.app/

This repository is dedicated to the Backend. To view Frontend, please click here

A budgeting app designed to track expenses across various in categories with an automated email system for overspending alerts.

Table of Contents

• Setup Guide
  • Prerequisites
  • Clone the Repository
  • Backend Setup
• Configuration
• Features
• Usage
• Api Endpoints
• Technologies
• Testing
• Contributing
• Licensing

Setup Guide

This section provides step-by-step guidance for setting up Budget Buddy on your local environment.

Prerequisites

Before setting up Budget Buddy, ensure you have the following installed:

• Budget Buddy requires Python 3.7 or later.

• Budget Buddy uses Poetry for managing Python dependencies.

Clone the Repository

git clone [email protected]:Linda-Njau/BudgetBuddyBackend.git

Backend Setup

Navigate into the BudgetBuddyBackend folder.

cd BudgetBuddyBackend

Install Poetry if not already installed. (Please note that Poetry should always be installed within a virtual environment)

curl -sSL https://install.python-poetry.org | python3 -

Install dependencies.

poetry install

Activate the virtual environment created by Poetry.

poetry shell

Run the Flask app

python3 run.py

This will start the backend server.

Configuration

To access the email notification feature, you need to obtain a SendGrid API key. Follow these steps to set up your own SendGrid API key:

1. Create a New API Key:

   • Once logged in, navigate to the SendGrid Dashboard.
   • In the left sidebar, click on "Settings" and then select "API Keys."
   • Click the "Create API Key" button.
   • Provide a name for your API key and select the appropriate permissions.
   • Click "Create & View" to generate the API key.

2. Copy Your API Key:

   • Copy the generated API key. This key is sensitive information, so handle it with care.

3. Set Up Environment Variable:

   • Open the .env file in the root of your project.

   • Ensure you add the .env file to your .gitignore file.

   • Add the following line, replacing <your_sendgrid_api_key> with the API key you copied:

     SENDGRID_API_KEY=<your_sendgrid_api_key>
     

   • Save the file.

• Now you can use the sendgrid_api_key variable in your code to authenticate with SendGrid and send emails.

Features

The following are the main features offered by Budget Buddy:

• Automated email notification system whenever spending exceeds a certain threshold.
• Recording expenditure according to different categories.
• Filtering system by month and category.

Usage

To use BudgetBuddy, follow the following steps:

1. Create an account.
2. Add your expenditure records by specifying the amount, date, and category.
3. Easily Filter and view your expenditure by month and category.
4. Keep an eye on your email for overspending notifications.

API Endpoints

Users

HTTP Verbs	Endpoints	Action
POST	/users	Sign up a new user account
POST	/login	Log in an existing user
GET	/users/int:user_id	Retrieve a user's data
GET	/users	Retrieve all users and their respective data
PUT	/users/int:user_id	Update all the information of a user
PATCH	/users/int:user_id	Update select information of a user
DELETE	/users/int:user_id	Delete a single user

Payment Entries

HTTP Verbs	Endpoints	Action
POST	/payment_entries	Create a new payment entry
GET	/payment_entries/int:payment_entry_id	Retrieve data for a specific payment entry
GET	/users/int:user_id/payment_entries	Retrieve all the payment entries of a specific user
PUT	/payment_entries/int:payment_entry_id	Update a payment entry's data
PATCH	/payment_entries/int:payment_entry_id	Update select information of a payment entry
DELETE	/payment_entries/int:payment_entry_id	Delete a single payment entry

Query Parameters

The /users/<int:user_id>/payment_entries endpoint supports the following optional query parameters to filter results:

• month (int): Filter payment entries by month (1-12).
• payment_category (PaymentCategory Enum): Filter payment entries by category.
• start_date (date): Filter payment entries starting from the specified date.
• end_date (date): Filter payment entries until the specified date.

Example Usage:

GET /users/123/payment_entries?month=1&payment_category=FOOD&start_date=2023-01-01&end_date=2023-01-31

Testing

To run Tests:

• Navigate to the root folder

1. To runs all the tests:

python3 -m unittest discover -v

2. To run a specific Test suite:

python3 -m unittest app.tests.test_user.TestUserEndpoints

• Replace "test_user" with the filename and "TestUserEndpoints" with the class name.

3. To run a single test:

python3 -m unittest app.tests.test_payment_entries.TestPaymentEntriesEndpoints.test_create_payment_entry

• Replace "test_payment_entries" with the filename, "TestPaymentEntriesEndpoints" with the class name and "test_create_payment_entry" with the name of the test function.

Technologies

1. APScheduler: In-process task scheduler with Cron-like capabilities.
2. Flask: A simple framework for building complex web applications.
3. Sendgrid: Email api third-party service.
4. SQLalchemy: Database Abstraction Library.
5. SQLite: file-based relational database commonly used for testing.

Contributing

If you'd like to contribute, please fork the repository and use a feature branch. Pull requests are warmly welcome.

Licensing

The code in this project is licensed under MIT license.