Project Overview

Flexible Chart of Accounts

Flexible Chart of Accounts is an comprehensive accounting foundation in FreshBooks that can be customized for the needs of business owners, while keeping accounting user-friendly.

Note: “Flexible” is a name used for project purposes to distinguish between the old and the new functionality. In product, this feature enchancement uses its original name.

Chart of Accounts

Chart of Accounts

Feature Explained

What is Chart of Accounts?

A Chart of Accounts is the foundation of the accounting software. Think of the Chart of Accounts as a table of contents or a map of business accounts. It’s a great overview of all accounts to keep business owners organized.

A well designed Chart of Accounts should include all the accounts a company uses to run their business and none of the accounts they don’t need.

At FreshBooks, the CoA impacts multiple product areas, including Expenses, Reports, Bills, and Bank Reconciliation.

  • The Chart of Accounts can look different for every business. Examples:

    1. A fitness studio might show 3 different Income Accounts: Membership Sales, Fitness Class Sales, Product Sales

    2. An advertising agency might have many specific advertising sub accounts including: Podcast Advertising, Online Advertising and Print Advertising

Problem Definition

Not robust, lacks functionality

Previously, FreshBooks only supported default Chart of Accounts. This worked well enough for small business owners, but it did not support the needs of scaling businesses or the accountants that support them.

Problems with the previous CoA

  • It did not contain accounts used commonly by small and scaling businesses

  • Owners did not have access to the accounting features and have to create a separate accountant login in order to access them 

  • Owners could not create, edit, archive, delete, or indicate the hierarchy of an account

  • Owners could not specify accounts at transaction level (expenses)

  • It did not easily reconcile with reports

UX Strategy

UX strategy

Vision

A platform where small business owners can effortlessly capture their finances, confidently partner with accountants, and gain insight to grow their business, all without having to learn accounting.

Goal

An comprehensive accounting foundation that can be customized for the needs of business owners.

Plan

Give owners access to accounting features only available to accountants, in a user-friendly way.

Process

Design thinking

The design thinking process was comprehensive, involving collaboration with a cross-functional team on a large, complex, and high-impact project for FreshBooks.

Discovery

• UX audit

• User interviews

• Personas

• Journey map

• Competitive analysis

Ideation

• User flows

• Wireframes

• High-fidelity design

Prototyping

• High-fidelity prototype

Testing

• Usability testing

• A/B testing

Implementation

• Final design

• Design handoff

Discovery

UX audit

We ran a UX audit to identify usability and experience issues with the previous CoA.

User interviews

User interviews were conducted with both business owners and accountants. Owners expressed a need for a product that grows with them as their accounting needs change. Most owners that had an accountant had the impression that FreshBooks was not the accountant’s preferred software because of its inflexibility to grow with them.

Note: to protect the identities of participants, generic images/names are used here.

Journey map

Based on a synthesis from the user interviews conducted, I’ve created a journey map that gave a holistic view of the previous accounting user experience by uncovering pain points throughout a series of interactions with the aim to identify opportunities for improvement.

Competitive analysis

Most competitors do offer the abilty for owners to customize their Chart of Accounts, but their accounting functionality isn’t so user-friendly and thus requires accountant’s help. The aim was to identify product-market fit.

Ideation

User flow

When creating the user flow, in order to showcase processes and steps that users need to go through in order to accomplish their goals, I leveraged existing functionality but included new enhancements.

Testing

Usability testing

I conducted usability testing using a prototype, asking participants to complete tasks in CoA, Expenses, and Reports. The goal was to identify potential usability issues and validate our assumptions. Task success rates indicated that the new solution is user-friendly and likely to enhance workflow efficiency.

Note: to protect the identities of participants, generic images/names are used here.

A/B testing

To gather quantitative data, I also conducted A/B testing to evaluate the findability of the Cost of Goods Sold category within Expenses, comparing two design variants.

Version A

In Version A, participants had to switch between categories to find Cost of Goods Sold category using a Segmented Control. Although initial testing showed good findability, we later uncovered significant accessibility issues. The segmented control wasn’t accessible via keyboard since users couldn’t navigate to it using the tab or arrow keys. Screen readers also skipped it entirely, providing no announcement or interaction cues.

Version B

In Version B, participants had to scroll when interacting with a dropdown in order to find the Cost of Goods Sold category. The other option was to search using the input field above. Testing proved that participants found the navigation seamless and easy to use. In the end, we decided to go with this solution due to accessibility issues found in Version A.

Solution

Robust yet simple accounting

A comprehensive accounting foundation that can be customized for the needs of small to scaling businesses, while keeping accounting user-friendly. Flexible Chart of Account is about fortifying FreshBooks’ foundation to scale. Making the foundation more robust and customizable unblocks future accounting features.

Improvements

  • It now contains accounts used commonly by small and scaling businesses

  • Owners now have access to the accounting features and don’t have to create a separate accountant login in order to access them 

  • Owners can now create, edit, archive, delete, and indicate the hierarchy of an account

  • Owners can now specify accounts at transaction level (expenses)

  • It now easily reconciles with reports

  • Owners can now create Journal Entries

  • Owners can disable these features in Settings > Advanced Accounting

Note: Advanced Accounting and customizable Chart of Accounts are only available on Plus, Premium, and Select plans while Trial users can access the feature for 30 days.

Chart of Accounts - After
Chart of Accounts - Reports - After

Outcome

Final design

All product areas that encompass the Flexible Chart of Accounts (i.e., Chart of Accounts, Expenses, Reports) were designed leveraging product’s well established design system. The goal was to uphold consistency and achieve ease of use.

Design system

For the Expense dropdown menu, I improved the design system by introducing headers inside the component. The goal was to visually separate two Expense categories (Operating Expenses and Cost of Goods Sold), and to better organize the information for the scrolling interaction.

Accessibility

By introducing headers in the Expense dropdown menu, I ensured accessibility in Expenses. The segmented control initially considered had accessibility issues: it wasn’t keyboard-accessible and screen readers skipped it entirely.

Note: The mobile app uses a segmented control to maintain consistency with the mobile experience, and it was designed to be accessible.

Design principles

  • Adapt to the Task

  • Maintain Flow

  • Set Expectations

  • Don't Add, Evolve

Chart of Accounts

Chart of Accounts

Expense Category - Cost of Goods Sold

Expense Category - Cost of Goods Sold

Expense Report

Expense Report

Profit and Loss Report

Profit & Loss Report

Settings - Accounting

Settings - Accounting

Chart of Accounts - Expense Categories - Mobile App

Expense Categories - Mobile App (iOS)

Result

Impact

The feature enhancement had a substantial impact as evidenced by success metrics, and customer feedback.

35,000+

MAU (monthly active users)

85%

adoption rate

88%

engagement rate

+44

NPS (net promoter score)

Metrics

  • Adoption rate (85%) was calculated by the proportion of users who enabled Advanced Accounting and upgraded to Plus, Premium, or Select plans after adopting accounting features during their Trial period, since launch.

  • Engagement rate (88%) was calculated based on users who performed meaningful actions, such as creating, editing, and archiving accounts, as well as creating journal entries, per month.

  • Net promoter score (+44) was calculated using feedback gathered through Pendo surveys delivered in-app and via email. The majority of respondents gave a 9 or 10, praising the flexibility of the new chart structure, the ease of customizing account categories, and the clarity it brought to their financial reporting workflows.

Customer feedback

“FreshBooks is incredibly user-friendly, especially for small business owners who aren’t accounting experts.”

Sales Marketing Professional | Business Owner

Project Details

Project details

Role: Product Design, User Research

Company: FreshBooks

Team: Product Designer, Product Manager, Engineering

Framework: Agile

Tools:

  • Design: Figma, Zeroheight, Miro

  • Project management: Jira, Confluence

  • Research: UserInterviews.com

  • Analytics: FullStory, Pendo, Looker

Year: 2022

Platforms: Web, Mobile

Link: FreshBooks.com