CardSense

Maximize your credit card rewards and savings

CardSense is a full-stack personal finance app that helps you track spending, set monthly budgets, manage credit cards, and choose the best card for each purchase category. One Django backend powers both the Web (React) and Mobile (Expo) clients.

Introduction

Many cardholders pay more interest than they need to, or use the wrong card for everyday purchases and miss category rewards (groceries, dining, gas, travel, and more). CardSense tackles both problems:

• Budget tracking — set a monthly cap and get alerts as you approach it
• Rewards optimization — log transactions, import CSV, and get card recommendations from your wallet
• Unified account — sign in on Web or Mobile with the same data

Features

Area	What you can do
Dashboard	Month-to-date spending, rewards, budget status, recent transactions
Transactions	Add, edit, list; bulk CSV import
Budgets	Create monthly budgets; threshold alerts (50% / 70% / 90%)
Cards	Browse catalog, add cards to your wallet, view reward rules
Optimizer	Category selections and personalized recommendations
Assistant	AI chat (Google Gemini) — card picks, rewards tips, wallet-aware Q&A; history syncs across Web & Mobile
Analytics	Dashboard metrics via the shared API

Quick start

Run each tier in its own terminal from the repository root.

1. Backend (required)

python -m venv .venv
# Windows:  .venv\Scripts\activate
# macOS/Linux:  source .venv/bin/activate

pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install djangorestframework django-cors-headers python-dotenv google-generativeai

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

API: http://127.0.0.1:8000/api · Admin: http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/

2. Web

cd web
npm install
npm start

Opens http://localhost:3000.

3. Mobile

cd mobile
npm install
npx expo start

Use Expo Go, an Android emulator, or iOS Simulator. For a physical device, point the app at your machine’s LAN IP (see installation.md).

Tech stack

Layer	Stack
Backend	Python, Django, Django REST Framework, SQLite (dev)
Web	React, TypeScript, Create React App
Mobile	Expo, React Native, Expo Router, TypeScript

Design

For mobile: CardSense Figma file

Documentation

Full guides live under docs/. Start here instead of duplicating setup or API details in this file.

Document	For
docs/installation.md	Project layout, scripts, env vars, setup, troubleshooting
docs/usage.md	Sign up, Web & Mobile workflows, feature walkthrough
docs/documentation.md	Architecture, data models, REST API
docs/preview.md	UI screenshots (Web & Mobile);

Repository history: This repo combines the archived CardSense_Web and CardSense_App projects into one monorepo. Details: documentation.md §1.4.