Financial Ledger in Node JS, Mongo DB, and Vue JS

A Financial Ledger script is created in Node JS, Mongo DB, and Vue JS. A financial ledger is used to track your daily finances, for example, your income, your expenses, etc. This script allows you to track your total income, total spending, and your current total balance. They are referred to as “stats” in the script. You can debit the entry by entering the amount that is negative. And you can credit an entry by simply writing its amount.

We have used the HTML and CSS code from this codepen. We have made it dynamic by using the latest technologies like, Vue JS for front-end, Node JS for back-end, and Mongo DB as the database. It has complete CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operation. It has the following features:

Insert data in Mongo DB using Node JS.
Fetch all documents from Mongo DB.
Update specific document in Mongo DB.
Delete documents from Mongo DB.
Case-insensitive search in Mongo DB documents.
Search by sub-string from Mongo DB document’s keys.
Realtime data insert.
Real-time update.
Realtime deletes.
“Load more” capability.
Datetimepicker library.
EJS templating engine.
Express-formidable for handling form fields.
Skip, limit and sort in Mongo DB.

Video tutorial:

1. Insert Data in Mongo DB using Node JS

An interface that allows you to enter the values (time, description, and amount), created in Vue JS. It binds those input field values to the Vue JS model. To enter the time, we are using a library datetimepicker. We are calling an AJAX request to the Node JS server with the input field values as FormData object when the form submits. That will simply insert a new document in Mongo DB collection “entries”. When the data is inserted, it is also inserted in the Vue JS array. This allows the new data to be appended automatically without having to refresh the page. The stat values automatically are updated based on if the entry is debit or credit.

2. Fetch All Documents from Mongo DB

An AJAX request is sent from the client to view all the data from the database. The server will return all the documents sorting from latest to oldest i.e. newest records will be shown first. The sorting is performed based on the date field selected during insertion. When the data is returned, it is concatenated in the Vue JS array that allows the user to view the data when the page loads. When the data is fetched, the stats are also updated automatically.

3. Update Specific Document in Mongo DB

To update specific documents, we are using Mongo DB auto-generated ObjectId field “_id”. This allows you to search the document, then we can perform the update query. To update the document, we are using HTML’s contenteditable attribute that allows you to edit the HTML node innerHTML by just typing in it. When the content of that div changes, we are sending an AJAX request to the Node JS server that performs the update query. If you update the amount value, then the stats will also get a change in real-time.

4. Delete Documents from Mongo DB

Deleting an entry will remove the document from the Mongo DB collection too. The row will be removed and the stats will be updated too.

5. Case insensitive Search Mongo DB

You can search the entries by description you have put during the insertion, or you can search the entries by either they are debited or credited. For example, you can write “debit” in the search box and it will show all the entries that are debited. The same goes for the “credit” search query.

6. Sub-string Search Mongo DB

While searching by description, you do not need to know the exact words. You can type the part of the description you have remembered and it will search the record anyway.

7. Realtime Mongo DB Data Insert

When a new entry is added, it is automatically prepended in the list using Vue JS. You do not have to refresh the page to view the new entries.

8. Realtime Update in Mongo DB

The same goes for the updation. You can update the entry’s description or the amount by simply typing in its box. When you start typing it automatically gets updated in the Mongo DB too. Also, the stats values also get updated if there is any change in the amount.

9. Realtime Delete in Mongo DB

With each entry, there is a minus (-) sign. On clicking that button, it will remove the entry from the list and also from the Mongo DB. The stats also gets updated accordingly.

10. Load More Capability

In the real-world, when you are creating a financial ledger, there will be hundreds of entries. So loading all entries when the page loads will slow down your application. So what we do is, load a few entries when the page loads. Then we show a button called “Load more”. Upon clicking that button, we will fetch the next entries from Mongo DB and so on. We will be using AJAX to fetch more entries.

11. Datetimepicker Javascript

In the financial ledger, it is important to enter the date the entry was added. So on the web, we have a library called datetimepicker by XDSoft. We are using this library to enter dates and times easily.

12. EJS Templating Engine in Node JS

In Node JS, to render files, there is an engine called EJS. It is used to render HTML files. The rendered files will have an extension “.ejs” instead of “.html” or “.php”.

13. Express Formidable Module in Node JS

In Node JS, to handle FormData object sent using AJAX, we are using a Node JS module named express-formidable. As the complete app is in Javascript, so there are a lot of AJAX requests in this app. Each AJAX request will send a FormData object to send values that the server will process.

14. Skip, Limit and Sort in Mongo DB

While fetching the records from Mongo DB, you can skip the records that are already been displayed to the user. Similarly, to load the data faster, you can limit the number of records to be fetched from Mongo DB in one request. To display the latest entries added, you can sort the records fetched from Mongo DB.

The price of the premium version of the script is just $20.

How to buy:

You can download the required assets from here:

Assets Download