LifeTrack – CSE Senior Design

Team Name

All About It

Timeline

Fall 2018 – Spring 2019

Students

Kyle Benjamin
Trang Hoang
Adam Madet
Marc-Alain Muteba
Ayo Shittu-Durodoye
John Tieken

Abstract

LifeTrack strives to make it easier for individuals to manage personal finances. Individuals will be able to plan for recurring expenses while ensuring they will be able to meet future financial obligations and goals. Users will be able to maintain a broad-level view on the performance of their finances and when necessary drill down into the details to better understand how to better manage their money.

LifeTrack allows users to input income and expenses while scheduling recurring expenses. Additionally, users are provided with historical financial performance analysis and financial projections based upon the user’s entered income and expense expectations. Finances from all sources are compiled into a single form in which the user assesses their overall financial performance.

Background

According to a report from CareerBuilder, 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have little to no plan for retirement. Even the 10% of Americans earning more than $100,000 per year say they have difficulty making ends meet.[1]

Therefore, LifeTrack is born to help users better manage their finances. Our goal is to create an user friendly GUI that interacts well with customers and help them achieve their financial stability. Some of our features include controlling expenses, manage debts, build up savings, and create investment plans. LifeTrack also provides financial tips and tricks collected from our financial experts and top well-known financial websites.

Project Requirements

LifeTrack shall be deployed as a web application
LifeTrack shall allow users to input expenses
LifeTrack shall allow users to name to all financial transactions
LifeTrack shall allow users to categorize all financial transactions
LifeTrack shall allow users to date all financial transactions
LifeTrack shall allow users to make edits to any previously entered financial information
LifeTrack shall allow users to delete any previously entered financial information
LifeTrack shall allow users to view previously entered financial data in a table
LifeTrack shall allow users to budget specified amounts for expense categories of their choosing
LifeTrack shall allow users to create financial goals the system

System Overview

LifeTrack allows users to create accounts to track their assets using the User Accounts layer. Upon creation of the account, the user can input data in the Data Input layer which will be used in the production of graphs and charts in the Graphs/Charts layer to provide a visual snapshot of their current status as well as their progress toward financial goals. The user data will also be used to develop budgets in the Budget layer for spending necessary funds. Status will be tracked and when user-specified thresholds/conditions are met, the Notifications layer will notify the user of the threshold condition, allowing the user to make any necessary adjustments.

Results

While LifeTrack sought to meet the original goals, several planned specifications remain unmet due to the demands of a final semester and unexpected challenges implementing the project. Though the initially planned to implement the front end using React, learning the new system proved to be more time-consuming than originally expected, so the team reverted to the more familiar Angular.

Delays learning the systems limited opportunities to implement features, so some of the original ideas, such as keeping track of stock values based on current market price were unable to be implemented.