Nexus Accounts

Nexus Account is an API which can be used to perform different accounting tasks such as creating Journal, Ledger, Trial Balance, Profit & Loss Account and Balance Sheet. It is also useful to create Flexible Budget or an Inventory.

Prerequisites

To work with the api you must have to install the following:

• NodeJS - Node.js® is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.
• MongoDB Server - NoSql Database and server
• Postman - API development environment

Installation

Before doing anything you have to clone or download(and unzip) the project folder, open terminal and navigate to the project folder and run:

npm install

This will install all the dependencies required by the project.

Getting Started

To start using this API, start your local database server, open terminal and navigate to the project folder and run:

npm run start

If an error occur, check your database server or check if you have installed the prerequisites correctly.

If there was no error, open Postman and create and send a new get request to:

http://localhost:3000/

Expected Output:

{
	message: "Welcome!"
}

Firstly, you have to create a new user for working with the API.

Send a post request to:

http://localhost:3000/user/register

Along with 'id' and 'password' field in the 'x-www-form-urlencoded' option for the body of the request in postman:

id	demouserid
password	demo

Expected Output:

{
    "success": "User registered and Logged In!"
}

Once you get this message, you are ready to work with the api.

Routes

Url for all these routes is http://localhost:3000 and parameters for POST request are sent through 'x-www-form-urlencoded' method.

User Routes

URL	Parameters	Method	Description
/user/register	id password	POST	Register a user
/user/login	id password	POST	Login a user
/user/logout	None	POST	Logout a user

Accounting Route

URL	Parameters	Method	Description
/journal/add	from to date (MM/DD/YYYY) debit credit narration	POST	Add new entry into journal
/journal	None	GET	Get all journal entry
/journal/update	from to entryDate (MM/DD/YYYY) updateDate (MM/DD/YYYY) amount narration action ('increase' or 'decrease')	POST	Update a journal entry
/ledger/update	None	GET	Update the ledger
/ledger	None	GET	Get ledger
/trial	None	Get	Get trial balance
/final/pnl	None	GET	Get Profit and Loss Account
/final/balance	None	GET	Get Balance Sheet

Flexible Budget Route

URL	Parameters	Method	Description
/flexBudget/add	name type ("fixed" or "variable") cost (only if 'type' is "fixed") costPerUnit (only if 'type' is "variable")	POST	Add an entry to budget
/flexBudget	units (Number)	POST	Get the flexible budget

Inventory Route

URL	Parameters	Method	Description
/inventory/add	name category quantity thresholdQuantity expiry (format '05 September 2019') cost	POST	Add an item to inventory
/inventory/update	name category usedQuantity	POST	Update an item in inventory
/inventory	None	GET	Get the inventory

Repos for Seperate Access to the API's

• Budget API
• Inventory-Debit
• Inventory
• Maps API
• Ledger
• Transaction
• Journal
• Balance Sheet
• Trail Balance
• Profit and Loss Account
• Login Signup

Authentication

I used express-session to manage sessions to authenticate. We have isUserLoggedIn, isUserLoggedOut middleware function which checks if the user is authenticated or not. The session token is stored in the database using connect-mongo package and is deleted when the user logout

async function isUserLoggedIn (req, res, next) {
  try {
    if (!(req.session && req.session.user)) {
      return res.status(401).send({
        error: "Unauthorized Access!"
      });
    }else {
      const user = await User.findOne({ _id : req.session.user._id })
      if(user) {
        next();
      } else {
        req.session.user = null;
        return res.status(401).send({
          error: "Unauthorized Access!"
        });
      }
    }
  } catch(e) {
    res.status(400).send({
      error: e
    })
  }
}


// Function to check whether the user is logged out
function isUserLoggedOut (req, res, next) {
  if (req.session && req.session.user) {
    return res.status(200).send({
      message: "User already Logged In!"
    });
  }
  next();
}

module.exports = {
  isUserLoggedIn,
  isUserLoggedOut
}

Note: some of the APIs which are mentionted above are not authenticate so please remember to add it. So it will help to proctect the private routes.

Deployment

This api can be hosted on platform like heroku, aws, and others. MongoDB Atlas or Matlab can be used for remote database.
For instance, the application can be deployed on Heroku by creating and registering an account. Following, create a new app and choose a deployment method (terminal or github) and follow the instruction there. Remote database can be created using Mongodb Atlas or Matlab.
For Mongodb Atlas, you need to just to create your account and make a new cluster and link the cluster to your application through a URL. Following the given steps, you would have a remote application up and running.

Contributing

If you are the helping and contributing one, your efforts and suggestion are always welcomed.