Expense Tracker MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for tracking personal expenses with SQLite database storage. This server integrates with Claude Desktop to provide expense management capabilities through natural language.

Features

• ✅ Add, update, and delete expenses

• ✅ List expenses by date range

• ✅ Summarize expenses by category

• ✅ Flexible deletion by multiple criteria

• ✅ Predefined expense categories

• ✅ SQLite database for persistent storage

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10 or higher

• uv package manager

• Claude Desktop app

Installation

1. Install uv

Windows (PowerShell):

macOS/Linux:

2. Initialize Project

3. Install Dependencies

4. Create the Server

Create a file named main.py and paste the expense tracker code (from the document provided).

5. Test the Server

Configuration

Claude Desktop Setup

1. Open Claude Desktop configuration file:

   • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

   • Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add the MCP server configuration:

Important: Replace C:/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Desktop/expense-tracker-mcp-server with your actual project path.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Usage

Once configured, you can interact with the expense tracker through Claude using natural language:

Add Expense

List Expenses

Update Expense

Delete Expense

Summarize Expenses

View Categories

Available Tools

add_expense

Add a new expense to the tracker.

Parameters:

• date (string): Date in YYYY-MM-DD format

• amount (float): Expense amount

• category (string): Expense category

• subcategory (string, optional): Subcategory

• note (string, optional): Additional notes

list_expenses

List all expenses within a date range.

Parameters:

• start_date (string): Start date (YYYY-MM-DD)

• end_date (string): End date (YYYY-MM-DD)

update

Update an existing expense (only provided fields will be updated).

Parameters:

• cid (int): Expense ID to update

• date (string, optional): New date

• amount (float, optional): New amount

• category (string, optional): New category

• subcategory (string, optional): New subcategory

• note (string, optional): New note

delete

Delete expenses based on various criteria.

Parameters:

• id (int, optional): Delete by ID

• date (string, optional): Delete by date

• category (string, optional): Delete by category

• subcategory (string, optional): Delete by subcategory

• amount (float, optional): Delete by amount

• note (string, optional): Delete by note

• start_date & end_date (strings, optional): Delete by date range

summarize

Get expense summaries grouped by category.

Parameters:

• start_date (string): Start date (YYYY-MM-DD)

• end_date (string): End date (YYYY-MM-DD)

• category (string, optional): Filter by specific category

Available Resources

expense://categories

Returns the list of available expense categories in JSON format.

Database Schema

File Structure

Default Categories

The server comes with these default categories:

• food

• transport

• entertainment

• utilities

• healthcare

You can modify categories.json to add or remove categories.

Troubleshooting

Server not appearing in Claude Desktop

1. Check the configuration file path is correct

2. Ensure the command path points to your project directory

3. Restart Claude Desktop completely

4. Check Claude Desktop logs for errors

Database errors

If you encounter database errors:

Import errors

Development

To modify the server:

1. Edit main.py

2. Test changes: uv run main.py

3. Restart Claude Desktop to load changes

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit issues or pull requests.

Support

For issues related to:

• MCP Protocol: MCP Documentation

• FastMCP: FastMCP GitHub

• Claude Desktop: Anthropic Support