🧾 Expense Tracker CLI

A command-line based Expense Tracker built in Python to help you log and manage your expenses locally. Supports adding, updating, deleting, and summarizing expenses, with all data stored in a simple JSON file from your Terminal.

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Features

• Add, update, and delete expense records
• View all expenses in a readable table format
• Filter by category
• Get total or monthly summaries
• Data stored persistently in expenses.json
• Auto-generates unique IDs
• Lightweight and fast – no external dependencies

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• Language: Python 3.8+
• Libraries: Standard Library only (argparse, json, datetime, os)
• Storage: JSON-based (expenses.json)

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📁 Project Structure

expense-tracker-cli/                              
├── main.py             # Entry point: CLI interface using argparse                                                                                  
├── expense.py          # ExpenseManager class (handles business logic)                                                           
├── file.py             # Handles loading/saving data and ID generation                                                    
├── expenses.json       # Local JSON database (auto-generated)                                                                         
└── README.md

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⚙️ Getting Started

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/prakh0/Expense_Tracker_cli.git
cd expense-tracker-cli

2. Run the Application

Make sure you have Python 3 installed.

python3 main.py --help

📚 Example Usage

➕ Add an Expense

python3 main.py add --description "Lunch" --amount 12.5 --category Food

Output:

Expense added successfully (ID: 1)

📃 List All Expenses

python3 main.py list

Output:

| ID  | Date       | Description       | Amount  | Category  |
|-----|------------|-------------------|---------|-----------|
| 1   | 2025-08-02 | Bought vegetables | $250.0  | Groceries |
| 2   | 2025-08-02 | test              | $1500.0 | unknown   |
| 3   | 2025-08-02 | Lunch             | $12.5   | Food      |

🧾 View Summary

python3 main.py summary

Output:

Total expenses: $1762.50

🗓️ Monthly Summary

python3 main.py monthly-summary --month 8

Output:

Total expenses for August: $1762.50

🧼 Delete an Expense

python3 main.py delete --id 1

Output:

Expense with ID 1 deleted successfully.

🛠️ Update an Expense

python3 main.py update --id "2" --description "OTT" --amount 1500 --category Entertainment 

Output:

Expense with ID 2 updated successfully.

📁 Filter by Category

python3 main.py filter-category --category Food

💡 Tips

• You can run --help with any subcommand to see its arguments:

  python3 main.py --help