BillTracker

BillTracker is a private, self-hosted bill planning app for households and small personal setups. It tracks recurring bills, payments, monthly cash buckets, due dates, categories, debt payoff, imports, exports, and backups from one local installation.

It runs as a Node/Express app with a React/Vite frontend and stores data in SQLite. It is designed for people who want their bill data under their own control instead of inside a third-party budgeting service.

Demo Server: https://t1.scheller.ltd/
Username: guest · Password: guest123

Highlights

• Private-by-design self-hosted bill tracking with local SQLite storage
• Month-by-month tracker grouped by 1st-14th and 15th-31st
• Period-aware remaining balance that switches between the 1st and 15th buckets
• Bills, categories, payments, notes, skipped months, history ranges, and inactive bill handling
• Debt snowball page with payoff projections, avalanche comparison, APR math, and amortization schedules
• Analytics, calendar, monthly summary, income, starting cash, and printable reports
• XLSX import, import by bill, user export/import, Excel export, import history, and admin backups
• Local username/password login with optional authentik/OIDC
• Admin panel for users, backups, cleanup, auth settings, system status, roadmap, and migrations
• Public About, Privacy, and Release Notes pages

Screenshots

Who This Is For

BillTracker is built for self-hosters who want a practical bill dashboard without sending personal finance data to an outside service.

Good fit:

• Home servers, NAS boxes, small VPS deployments, Portainer, or Docker Compose
• Single-user or multi-user households
• People who split monthly cash around the 1st and 15th
• Users who want import/export and database backup control
• Authentik/OIDC users who want optional SSO

Not a full replacement for:

• Double-entry accounting
• Bank syncing
• Investment tracking
• Tax software

Quick Start With Docker

The included Compose file runs the published image on host port 3030 and stores all persistent app data under /data inside the container.

docker compose up -d

Open:

http://localhost:3030

On first start, seed an admin account with:

environment:
  INIT_ADMIN_USER: admin
  INIT_ADMIN_PASS: change-this-password

Optional regular user seed:

environment:
  INIT_REGULAR_USER: regularuser
  INIT_REGULAR_PASS: changeme123

Passwords must be at least 8 characters. Remove or rotate first-run seed values after initial setup.

Persistent Data

For Docker, keep /data mounted. The container defaults to:

DB_PATH=/data/db/bills.db
BACKUP_PATH=/data/backups

Back up the mounted /data directory like you would any other sensitive financial data.

Node Install

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run API and Vite UI for development:

npm run dev

Build and start production:

npm run build
npm start

The production server serves dist/ and listens on PORT, defaulting to 3000.

Useful scripts:

npm run dev:api
npm run dev:ui
npm run build
npm run check
npm start

npm run check runs backend CommonJS syntax checks and a Vite production build.

Product Map

Tracker

The Tracker is the main monthly view. It shows active bills for the selected month, grouped into:

• 1st-14th
• 15th-31st

You can record payments, quick-pay bills, skip a bill for the month, add monthly notes, override monthly amounts, and navigate between months. The summary cards show starting cash, total paid, active period balance, overdue amount, previous month paid, and trend.

Bills

Bills store the recurring source data:

• name, expected amount, due day, category
• active/inactive state
• billing cycle
• autopay and 2FA markers
• notes and account details
• optional debt fields such as balance, APR, and minimum payment
• inactive bill history ranges

Debt Snowball

The Snowball page focuses on debt payoff planning:

• snowball and avalanche ordering
• minimum-only baseline
• live payoff projections
• APR snapshots
• amortization schedules
• drag ordering and debt exclusion

Calendar, Summary, And Analytics

• Calendar shows due dates, payments, and month progress.
• Summary handles income, starting amounts, and monthly planning.
• Analytics provides spending trends, category views, bill history, filters, heatmaps, and print output.

Data Tools

BillTracker includes:

• XLSX spreadsheet import with preview
• import by bill
• user SQLite import/export
• Excel workbook export
• import history
• admin database backup, restore, download, cleanup, and retention tools

Privacy Model

BillTracker is intended to run privately in your own environment.

• Bill data stays in your SQLite database.
• The app does not use third-party analytics, advertising, or telemetry.
• The public Privacy page explains the app’s local-first behavior.
• Login device details shown in Profile are visible to that user in the app UI, not exposed through the Admin UI.
• Optional update checks are for software update availability, not bill-data collection.

Admins can manage users, reset passwords, configure authentication, and manage backups, but normal bill data is scoped to the signed-in user.

Authentication

BillTracker supports local username/password login by default. Admins can create users, reset passwords, promote/demote users, and activate/deactivate accounts.

Optional authentik/OIDC login can be enabled from Admin. OIDC uses authorization code flow with PKCE, state and nonce validation, and openid-client token validation.

Important behavior:

• Admin role is never granted by default through OIDC.
• OIDC admin access requires a configured admin group.
• Local login cannot be disabled unless OIDC is configured, enabled, and mapped to an admin group.
• The default seeded admin is restricted to admin routes and cannot access personal tracker data.

See Authentik-Integration.md for setup details.

Configuration

Most settings are configured in the web UI:

• User settings: Settings/Profile
• Server settings: Admin
• Authentication settings: Admin
• Backup and cleanup settings: Admin

Common environment variables:

PORT=3000
NODE_ENV=production
DB_PATH=/path/to/bills.db
BACKUP_PATH=/path/to/backups
INIT_ADMIN_USER=admin
INIT_ADMIN_PASS=change-this-password
INIT_REGULAR_USER=regularuser
INIT_REGULAR_PASS=changeme123
SESSION_CLEANUP_INTERVAL_MS=86400000
HTTPS=true
COOKIE_SECURE=true
CORS_ORIGIN=https://bills.example.com
CSRF_HTTP_ONLY=false
CSRF_SAME_SITE=strict
CSRF_SECURE=true
CSRF_COOKIE_NAME=bt_csrf_token

OIDC fallback environment variables are used when matching Admin database settings are blank:

OIDC_PROVIDER_NAME=authentik
OIDC_ISSUER_URL=https://auth.example.com/application/o/bills/.well-known/openid-configuration
OIDC_CLIENT_ID=<client-id>
OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET=<client-secret>
OIDC_TOKEN_AUTH_METHOD=client_secret_basic
OIDC_REDIRECT_URI=https://bills.example.com/api/auth/oidc/callback
OIDC_SCOPES="openid email profile groups"
OIDC_ADMIN_GROUP=bill-tracker-admins
OIDC_AUTO_PROVISION=true

Database-backed Admin settings take precedence over environment fallback values.

Reverse Proxy And HTTPS

Run BillTracker behind HTTPS for normal use. If TLS terminates at a reverse proxy, forward:

X-Forwarded-Proto: https

Recommended production posture:

HTTPS=true
COOKIE_SECURE=true
CSRF_SECURE=true
CSRF_SAME_SITE=strict

For plain HTTP development only, you may need:

CSRF_SECURE=false
COOKIE_SECURE=false

Leave CORS_ORIGIN unset for normal same-origin deployments. Set it only if the frontend and backend are intentionally served from different origins.

Security Notes

• Auth is required for user data routes.
• Admin routes require an admin session.
• User-owned bill, category, payment, import, export, and settings routes derive ownership from the authenticated session.
• CSRF uses a double-submit cookie pattern. The SPA reads bt_csrf_token with document.cookie and sends it as x-csrf-token on mutating requests.
• Do not set CSRF_HTTP_ONLY=true for this SPA unless token delivery changes.
• Session cookies are HTTP-only and SameSite-protected.
• Password changes rotate the current session and invalidate other sessions.
• Rate limits protect local login, password changes, imports, exports, admin actions, and OIDC routes.
• Security headers include CSP nonces and standard hardening headers.
• Audit logging records security-sensitive events such as login, logout, password changes, role changes, CSRF failures, and migration operations.

Backups and exports can contain sensitive financial data. The app writes SQLite backup files with restrictive permissions, but backup/export encryption is not implemented. Protect downloaded files and mounted volumes yourself.

Upgrading

For a Node install:

git pull
npm install
npm run build
npm start

Restart your process manager after building.

For Docker:

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

If you build locally, rebuild the image and recreate the container.

The app initializes the schema and runs additive migrations on startup. The Docker entrypoint also runs scripts/migrate-db.js before starting unless:

RUN_DB_MIGRATIONS=false

Project Structure

client/      React app, pages, layout, UI components
db/          SQLite connection, schema, startup migrations
middleware/  auth checks, CSRF, rate limits, security headers
routes/      Express API routes
services/    auth, OIDC, backups, imports, cleanup, status, audit logic
workers/     background tasks
setup/       first-run admin setup
scripts/     migrations, seed data, smoke/import tests
docs/        technical references and integration guides

Documentation

• HISTORY.md: release history
• CSRF-SPA-Setup.md: CSRF behavior for the SPA
• Authentik-Integration.md: authentik/OIDC setup
• Engineering_Reference_Manual.md: deeper implementation reference

Known Limitations

• Admin backups and user exports are not encrypted by the app.
• Bank sync is not implemented.
• OIDC single logout is not implemented.
• Rate limiting is in-memory, so counters reset on restart and are not shared across multiple app instances.
• Multiple OIDC providers are not currently supported.
• The XLSX parser dependency has known upstream security advisories; import routes are authenticated, file-size limited, and parse spreadsheet cells as data.

License

License: Not specified.