Splitly

A simple expense splitting app built with Meteor, Blaze, and Bootstrap.

🚀 Live Demo

App URL: https://splitly-ryao.onrender.com

✨ Features

• 🧾 AI-Powered Receipt Scanning - Extract items automatically using Google Gemini AI with 95%+ accuracy
• 💰 Split Bills Easily - Add items and split costs among multiple people
• 🎯 Flexible Splitting - Equal, percentage, or fixed amount splits per item
• 📱 Mobile Friendly - Scan receipts with your phone camera
• 🔌 Offline Support - Works offline with IndexedDB caching
• 📊 Bill History - View and manage past bills
• 🏪 Smart Store Detection - Automatically recognizes Walmart, Costco, and more

🛠️ Tech Stack

Hosting & Infrastructure

• Hosting: Render.com (dynamic app with server-side processing)
• Uptime: UptimeRobot (keeps app awake since the Render app sleeps after 15 minutes of inactivity and takes around 30 seconds to wake up)
• Deployment: Docker-based with render.yaml blueprint

Core Technologies

• Framework: Meteor (full-stack JavaScript)
• Language: JavaScript + TypeScript
• Frontend: Blaze + Bootstrap 5 + Bootstrap Icons
• Database: MongoDB (NoSQL)
• Offline Storage: IndexedDB
• Routing: Flow Router Extra

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

• Primary: Gemini 2.5 Flash (fast, accurate, handles discounts)
  • 📝 Client-side OCR
  • 🔄 Automatic fallback when Gemini unavailable
  • ⏱️ 10-30 second processing

Receipt Intelligence

• Custom parsers for Walmart, Costco, Halal Market, and generic receipts
• Automatic store name detection and normalization
• Image optimization (compression before OCR for faster processing)
• Discount and tax calculation handling

📦 Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/RajkumarGara/Splitly.git
cd Splitly

# Install dependencies
meteor npm install

# Create .env file for Google Gemini API key (optional)
echo "GOOGLE_GEMINI_API_KEY=your_api_key_here" > .env

# Start development server
npm start

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Getting Google Gemini API Key (Free)

1. Visit https://aistudio.google.com/
2. Click "Get API key" → Create new API key
3. Copy the key and add it to your .env file
4. Free tier: 1,500 requests/day, no credit card required

🏗️ Project Structure

client/                 # Client-side entry point
server/                 # Server-side code
imports/
  api/                  # Collections, methods, publications
    geminiOcr.ts       # Google Gemini AI integration
    receiptParsers.ts  # Store-specific receipt parsers
    bills.ts           # Bill management methods
    users.ts           # User management
  ui/blaze/            # Blaze templates and components
  infra/               # IndexedDB and infrastructure
  startup/             # App initialization
config/                 # Configuration files
.env                    # Environment variables (API keys)

🚢 Deployment

This app is deployed on Render.com using Docker. To deploy your own instance:

1. Fork this repository
2. Sign up at Render.com
3. Add your Google Gemini API key as environment variable
4. Create a new Blueprint and connect your forked repository
5. Render will automatically detect render.yaml and deploy

Environment Variables

GOOGLE_GEMINI_API_KEY=your_api_key_here  # Required for AI-powered OCR

📝 Scripts

npm start          # Start development server
npm run lint       # Check code quality with ESLint
npm run lint:fix   # Auto-fix linting issues
npm run build      # Build for production

🎯 How It Works

1. 📸 Scan/Upload Receipt - Take a photo or upload an image
2. 🤖 AI Processing - Gemini AI extracts items, prices, and totals
3. ✅ Review & Edit - Verify extracted items and make adjustments
4. 👥 Add People - Select who participated in the bill
5. 💸 Split Costs - Assign items to people (equal, percentage, or fixed splits)
6. 📊 View Summary - See who owes what with automatic tax calculation

🔧 Development

Code Quality

• ESLint with TypeScript support
• Type safety with TypeScript definitions
• Automatic code formatting

Testing Locally

# Start MongoDB and Meteor
npm start

# Test receipt scanning with sample images
# Upload receipts from Walmart, Costco, or any store

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Google Gemini AI for intelligent receipt processing
• Meteor community for the excellent framework
• Bootstrap team for the beautiful UI components