QuickBooks Custom Tags
2020
CUSTOMER PROBLEM
Small business owners can’t figure out how to set up their finances in QuickBooks in a way that lets them track what they want. They end up using the chart of accounts, which is complicated and risky, leaving them frustrated.
THE CHALLENGE
Introduce tags to QBO in order to decouple getting business insights from doing accounting and allow small business owners to track what’s important to them without needing to have extensive accounting knowledge.
ROLE
I owned the visual explorations and final design specifications, and partnered in defining the overall flows and interactions.
Background
Our target audience was business owners and those doing the day-to-day work in any kind of business (typically those who tend to use lots of spreadsheets) who don’t know accounting but need a lightweight way to track front-of-house information.
With custom tags business owners can track the front-of-house data they care about in a flexible way, search for it, and report on it, without having to use the chart of accounts. Since launching to all users in 2020, over 20 million tags have been created, with customers creating tags such as Rent, Gas, and Insurance. The creation of new accounts in the chart of accounts has also decreased.
Overview
Highlights
Tag transactions however you like
Tags are customizable labels you can use on invoices, expenses, and bills
Group tags together
Group tags to run reports to see how specific areas of your business are doing. If you leave a tag ungrouped, you will still be able to use it to organize and search for transactions.
Choose your own colors
Choose from a set of colors to help you customize and identify tags easily.
Manage your tags in one place
You can see all your tags and tag groups, edit them, and create new ones in one spot.
SKILLS TO HIGHLIGHT
Designing micro-interactions
Instead of designing a flow from screen to screen, I had to think of each click to click. I diagrammed out every interaction to make sure we were thinking about the details, and I pushed to make sure that it was an intuitive experience.
Pushing for simplification
I tried to advocate on behalf of the customer that they don’t understand accounting concepts like we do internally. The concept of groups was confusing, so I really tried to push for simplicity. I also tried to make the designs as intuitive as possible instead of us having to explain how to use the feature with educational content.