Project case study
MessMate: a mess meal tracking platform
A mobile-first PWA that digitizes daily meal tracking, billing and payment reminders for a mess business with 50+ real customers.
The problem
A mess / tiffin business serving 50+ real customers tracked daily meals in a paper notebook, which led to errors in balances and payments. MessMate replaces it with a fast, mobile-first app.
Features
- Real-time meal, balance and payment tracking
- Read-only, token-authenticated customer view
- Offline-first behavior with Firestore persistence and a service worker
- Bilingual English / Hindi interface
- Usage-based billing with variable meal plans and carry-forward balances
- Automated payment reminders
Engineering decisions
- Atomic batched transactions keep each customer's meal balance, payment records and public view consistent under concurrent updates.
- Custom Firestore Security Rules restrict all writes to one authenticated owner account, while customers get a read-only view.
- PWA architecture so it installs on a phone and works with poor connectivity.
Tech stack
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | JavaScript, PWA, service worker |
| Backend | Firebase (Firestore, Authentication) |
| Hosting | Netlify |
About the developer
Built by Swayam Verma, a Java & Spring Boot backend developer and B.Tech CSE student from Bhopal, India. See my portfolio, GitHub and LinkedIn.