Coconut
Year
March 2018 - December 2020
Type
iOS, Android, Web
Role
Lead Designer
Coconut helps self-employed people manage their business finances.
Joining shortly after beta launch, I led the end-to-end design for core banking and accounting features across iOS, Android and web, supporting company growth from 1000 to 15,000+ self-employed customers and 500 accountant partners.
The opportunity
Self-employed people needed intuitive financial tools to handle complex scenarios like VAT compliance, multiple accounts and accountant collaboration.
My approach
As the only designer, I established design processes and cross-functional workflows that improved collaboration with engineering and product managers, whilst delivering visual and user experience design, interaction design and prototyping across Product, Marketing, and Growth. This included design handoff processes, review cycles, user research and documentation standards.
I designed and shipped 10+ major features including:
Open Banking integration
New Accounts tab
Invoicing with automatic reconciliation
Rollout of iOS Beta to Android
Personal & Business Profiles
Ltd Companies
Subscription Billing & Scheduled Payments
Referrals, Crowdfunding and Onboarding improvements
Open Banking
Open Banking integration allowed customers to connect external bank accounts and credit cards, centralising financial records for better bookkeeping and tax management.
A key design challenge was creating account setup flows that correctly categorised transactions based on user type (Sole Trader vs Limited Company) and account type (business vs personal), ensuring accurate tax calculations and VAT suggestions.
VAT Management
The VAT recording feature enabled customers to record VAT on transactions and invoices, meeting HMRC's Making Tax Digital compliance requirements.
A key design challenge was creating an intelligent VAT rate application system that automatically applies rates when confident (eg. insurance as exempt) but prompts users to confirm suggestions when uncertain, balancing automation with accuracy for tax compliance.
Invoicing
In January 2019, we launched an invoicing tool, allowing you to create, send and track your invoices within the Coconut app.
Invoices are automatically marked as paid when the matching payment enters your Coconut account, removing the need to reconcile payments against invoices. If you’re VAT registered, you can add VAT to line items and we'll suggest a VAT rate once the payment has been recieved.
Accountant Portal
We created the Coconut Accountant Portal to save accountants time by eliminating manual bookkeeping and improving collaboration between accountants and their clients.
Accountants can see their client's transactions in real-time including the category and VAT rate, as well as view any receipts or notes that have been added. If corrections are needed they can change the category and VAT rate as well as export the data to CSV.
Existing Coconut customers can invite their accountants to the portal or accountants can invite their clients to open a Coconut account.
I chatted to 11:FS on their Homescreen podcast about some of these challenges along with more general discussions about Open Banking, VAT management, auto categorisation of your spending and designing for the freelance market. You can watch the podcast below.
Credits
Lead Designer - Joëlle Snaith
Lead Engineer - Jaymz Campbell