LZ Books Tax Summary
Q4 2023 - Q1 2024
THE CHALLENGE
Create a new center within LZ Books to help customers understand what they’ll owe in taxes, maximize their deductions, and minimize the stress of tax time. By doing so, prove that LZ Books customers are more likely to attach other LegalZoom products such as LZ Tax.
ROLE
As the design lead for this project, I influenced the shaping of our initial scope, became a subject matter expert quickly, and partnered closely with product and engineering to align on execution.
RESULTS
About ⅓ of customers who filed with LZ Tax in 2024 used LZ Books to share their transactions, with 63% of them passing the initial bookkeeping assessment, which validated our hypothesis that customers saw a value between Books & Tax.
Background
The biggest hypothesis underpinning the LZ Books strategy was that we can offer a low cost bookkeeping solution to drive ongoing engagement and attach opportunities for LegalZoom. 4 months after the LZ Books launch, we decided to first test that hypothesis with tax.
I very quickly designed a system of tax touch points within LZ Books, including the entire Tax summary page, widgets, reports, and educational content, so that customers understand how their bookkeeping throughout the year is related to their taxes at the end of the year.
Project Highlights
Reminders and tasks
Keep track of when taxes are due and know what steps to take to be ready and maximize your deductions.
Tax estimate
Based off the info provided about your business, get an estimate of how much you might owe in taxes and how much you’re saving in taxes by maximizing deductions.
Show me the math
Get a detailed breakdown of how the tax estimates are calculated. Learn about small business taxes, how it’s related to your personal taxes, and how deductions impact your tax burden.
Pre-filled Schedule C
Based on all of your income and expense information in LZ Books, we populate your Schedule C form so that you can easily attach it to your 1040.
Process snapshot
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I made sure to look into other bookkeeping products to see how they incorporate tax. There were some interesting things, but no industry standard, so I knew I needed to do my own problem solving.
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When designing, I like to make sure I understand the problem space deeply. Taxes are really complicated, and there was only so much I was learning from conversations at work. So, I looked into all the forms a small business would need to see the relationship between line-items. When I’m stuck I go to the source and try to map out the underlying system.
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The saying “teaching others is the best way to learn” really is true! While I was learning about small business taxes, I would do share-outs with my design team. It forced me to present things visually and simply for people with no tax background. This laid the foundation for the final designs, since small businesses owners also don’t tend to have much tax experience. I wanted the page to be an informational and educational experience.
This is just a high level sneak peek of what my process was like during this project. I’m happy to dive into deeper detail upon request.
SKILLS TO HIGHLIGHT
Understanding problems deeply
When I work on projects, I want to make sure I have a strong foundation of understanding to build upon. I believe that if that foundation is shaky, my resulting designs will be shaky too. So, I investigate by reading, researching, drawing lots of diagrams, validating my understanding with experts, and teaching what I learn back to others.
Advocating for design changes
Once I realized that there was a gap in our team’s understanding of tax, I advocated for time and space to truly understand the problem, and I advocated for us to change our designs. I was able to use my learnings and explorations to push back on the roadmap and help us ship something of better quality.
Untangling complexity
I love working on challenging problems and trying to grasp how the system works. I’m energized by the process and love coming out on the other side accomplished. One of my skills is making the complex simple for customers and this project demonstrated that through my portrayal of difficult tax concepts.