My own Invoicing and business management App

Project Overview

I tried to use already existing invoicing apps, some are free online and open-source, some are paid, but after trying a lot of them out - I realized that none of them were suitable for my needs, so I decided to create my own. The existing solutions were either too complex or not suitable for my needs and specific functionality I needed. That's why I decided to build my own. I had some experience building small apps in Python, so I decided to use Python to build the app. Using Flask as the framework and the backend, Flask-SQLAlchemy for the database I could easily create a simple and efficient structure that is suitable for both a local and an online version.

I quickly created the routes and the basic structure of the app. I used some help from ChatGPT and Deepseek to figure out the structure and functionality I wanted for each of the modules.

Technical Details

Python and Flask offer excellent performance and speed. The app is blazing fast locally.I chose TailwindCSS for styling to maintain consistency and speed up development.

Each functionality is implemented as a separate module, which makes the app very modular and easy to maintain, and I used a universal routes.py file to route the data to the correct module.

Key Features

• Modern, minimalist design
• Responsive across all devices
• Fast loading times
• AI ready - for future features
• Very easy to develop additional modules

Challenges & Solutions

One of the main challenges was learning Python and Flask. I didn't have much experience with these tools, but I managed to learn them quickly and efficiently - at least enough to build the things I wanted to build. I'm still learning and connecting the dots, but with each new functionality I create, I'm getting better and better at it.

Hint: Using AI to help me with the ins and outs really helped a lot!

Current Progress

I've developed all the modules I needed to make it fully functional:

• Invoice module
• Quotes module
• Clients module
• Items & Services module
• Payments module
• Tasks module
• Expenses module
• Reports module
• Settings module

All of the modules are connected and working together, with a simple and intuitive interface. All of the CRUD operations are implemented. I'm very happy with the result so far. You can create quotes and transform them into invoices, manage clients, items and services, record payments and link them to quotes or invoices, add tasks for yourself and link invoices, quotes or payments to those tasks, add and track expenses, create income reports, tax reports, expenses reports and I've created a simple and intuitive settings module where you can change the appearance of the app and add your company information.

Future Development

• Integrate AI features
• Create an email module with an inbox and outbox
• Create a PDF generator module - customize your PDF designs
• Implement a calendar module
• Finish the dashboard to show all relevant data and make the dashboard customizable
• Integrate a payments portal - make it easy for clients to pay you via a simple link

I'm still working on the future development ideas, but I'm very excited about the progress I've made so far. I'm also very happy with the current state of the app, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with you and making it available for download. I'll soon share the project on GitHub where you can check out the code and contribute to the development.