Solo: Web & Mobile App Design

Problem

Solo, a fintech startup in New Zealand, sought to revolutionise the accounting industry with user-friendly tax software specifically for sole traders. Starting from scratch, the project entailed extensive market research, product strategy, designing both web and mobile applications, and continuously optimising the product. The goal was to transform Solo from an initial concept into a viable and thriving business.

Project goals

1. Provide real-time tax estimates.
2. Streamline the entire tax journey.
3. Require no previous tax knowledge from users.

Approach

Providing real-time tax software for beginners presented several challenging design problems that required innovative solutions.

Extensive qualitative and quantitative research was undertaken to validate the problem and understand the needs, priorities and pain-points of users. I then carried out a thorough process of prototype testing and design iteration until we had validated our assumptions and achieved a solution-market fit.

Innovations

Innovations I designed included:

• Real-time income tax, GST and ACC calculations.
• Ready-to-file income tax returns and GST returns.
• IRD integration to automatically track PAYE income.
• Automatic rental property tax calculations.
• Automatic provisional tax calculations.

Feature scope

I designed the following features for both web and mobile apps:

• Dashboard
• Invoicing
• Transaction categorisation
• Reports
• Tax schedule
• Onboarding
• Tax returns
• Asset depreciation
• Bank feed integration
• IRD feed integration
• Accountant portal
• Subscriptions