How I delivered End-to-End Designs 10× Faster
Static designs are passé — rapid simulation is the new trend in the design process.
The Need
Fincent 1.0 gave business owners a solid foundation for basic operations but relied heavily on QuickBooks Online for core accounting.
To scale, we needed a Version 2.0 that would:
Eliminate external (QBO) dependency
Enable full accounting capabilities — invoices, payments, ledger, and reports
Compete with established players like QuickBooks & Xero
Be designed and validated with real data inside the browser
The Constraints
Solo Designer — handled IA, UX, UI, and prototyping
Timeline — 4 months for end-to-end delivery
Scope — 10+ modules (rivaling QuickBooks’ depth)
Expectation — stakeholders should experience the product as a working MVP, not static mockups
The Breakthrough
Delivered an end-to-end accounting platform as a solo designer in 4 months through Vibe Coding — a code-first design and rapid prototyping approach that:
Accelerated design delivery by 10×
Saved ~90% of UI development effort
Enabled real-time testing and iteration using live data in the browser
Taking It Mobile: Simplified Business Owner Actions
We also explored how this experience would work on mobile—where business owners are most likely to quickly check and respond to financial queries.
The mobile version distilled the concept to its essence: one transaction, one decision, immediate action. Each screen focused on a single task, whether approving a match, responding to a bookkeeper question, or categorizing with smart suggestions.
Key mobile optimizations:
Notification-driven workflow - 'We've matched an account' and 'You have a message' prompts
Contextual actions - Approve/Edit/Defer options tailored to the transaction type
Smart categorization - AI-powered suggestions with simple tap-to-select
Minimal cognitive load - One decision per screen, clear visual hierarchy
The mobile prototype revealed how different platforms might require fundamentally different interaction models—a lesson that influenced our later Timeline design.
The Pivot to Bookkeepers: From Self-Service to Professional Workflow
When we realized business owners wanted it done FOR them, not BY them.
The Inbox concept taught us something crucial: most business owners didn't want to be hands-on with transaction management. They wanted professional bookkeepers to handle it efficiently.
This insight led to the 'Bookkeeping' tab—a complete pivot toward bookkeeper-focused workflows. Instead of empowering business owners to categorize their own transactions, we designed for the people who actually do this work day-in, day-out.
Key shifts in approach:
Professional workflow - 'FOR REVIEW' and 'DONE' sections for clear status tracking
Bulk operations - Tools for processing multiple transactions efficiently
Rich collaboration - Comment threads, file attachments, and review processes
Context switching - Detailed transaction panels for thorough review
The interface became more data-dense and workflow-oriented. We added collaboration features like comment histories, file attachments, and approval workflows—everything professional bookkeepers needed to work efficiently while keeping clients in the loop.
This version was closer to the mark, but we still hadn't solved the fundamental problem: unification.
Searching for Unity: The Quest to Merge Scattered Workflows
Three attempts, one goal: bringing all transactions into a single, unified experience.
After learning that both business owners and bookkeepers needed better tools, we faced a new challenge: where should everything live?
We experimented with multiple approaches to unify the fragmented experience:
Experiment 1: Statements:
A chronological feed with inline collaboration and smart matching
Experiment 2: Transactions
Category-focused workflows with sophisticated editing capabilities
Experiment 3: Banks & Cards
Account-centric organization with approval workflows
Each iteration brought us closer to the core insight: users didn't want to think about where to find their transactions—they wanted one place where everything just worked. The interface needed to be powerful enough for professional bookkeepers yet intuitive enough for business owners to understand.
But we were still organizing around our mental models instead of their workflow reality. The breakthrough was coming, but not quite yet.
The Breakthrough: From Banks & Cards to Timeline
The moment we stopped thinking about accounts and started thinking about workflow.
After experimenting with Statements, Transactions, and Banks & Cards, we had a realization: we were still organizing around our systems, not their work.
The 'aha moment': when we asked a different question: What if we stopped thinking about where transactions came from and focused on when they happened and what needed to be done with them?
Timeline was born from this insight—a unified feed where every financial event lives chronologically, regardless of whether it came from a bank account, credit card, or payment platform. Instead of navigating between different account views, users could see their entire financial story in one place.
Key innovations in Timeline:
Universal search - Find any transaction across all accounts instantly
Smart filtering - Filter by account, time period, or transaction type
Intelligent automation - Automatic categorization and matching with clear status indicators
Unified workflow - One interface for all transaction management needs
Timeline wasn't just a new interface—it was a fundamentally different mental model. We finally stopped building around our organizational structure and started building around their actual workflow."
Perfecting the Interface: Search and Filter Evolution
From complex dropdowns to intelligent search—making Timeline truly powerful and intuitive.
Having unified everything into Timeline, we faced a new challenge: how do you navigate thousands of transactions efficiently?
Our first attempt used comprehensive filter panels with dozens of options—powerful but overwhelming. Users needed a PhD in our interface just to find last month's software expenses.
The evolution of our search and filtering shows how we learned to balance power with simplicity:
Phase 1: Complex Filtering - Detailed dropdown panels with every possible filter option
Phase 2: Smart Filter Chips - Simplified, visual filter tags that were easier to understand and combine
Phase 3: Intelligent Search - Natural language search that automatically categorizes results and suggests related transactions
The breakthrough was realizing that users don't want to construct complex queries—they want to think and have the interface understand. Searching for 'software' should automatically group results by categories, show related transactions, and surface patterns.
This evolution transformed Timeline from a powerful tool into an intuitive one—where finding any transaction feels as natural as searching Google."
Read the complete Timeline Case Study To see how this unified approach transformed bookkeeping workflows and delivered 30% faster monthly closing processes
Lessons from the Roller Coaster
What this journey taught me about design, persistence, and breakthrough moments
The Breakthrough Wasn't the Design—It Was the Question
Timeline's success didn't come from better visual design or smoother interactions. It came from asking a fundamentally different question. Instead of "How do we organize financial data?" we asked "How do people actually work with financial data?"
That shift from system-thinking to workflow-thinking changed everything.
Three Hard-Won Insights:
1. Your first (and second, and third) idea will be Wrong
We spent months perfecting Inbox Zero, polishing the Bookkeeping interface, and refining Banks & Cards. Each felt like progress, but we were optimizing the wrong thing. The real progress was learning what didn't work and why.
2. Users don't want what they say they want
Business owners told us they wanted control over their finances. What they actually wanted was confidence that their finances were handled correctly. The difference between those two things is the difference between self-service and full-service.
3. Unification beats organization
We kept trying to organize complexity instead of eliminating it. Timeline succeeded because it removed the need to think about where things belonged—everything just lived in one chronological flow.
For Fellow Builders:
If you're in the messy middle of a hard problem, you're probably closer to breakthrough than you think. The frustration, the false starts, the moments where you question everything—that's not failure, that's the work.
Sometimes the solution isn't a better version of what you're building. Sometimes it's the opposite of where you started.
Timeline taught us that the best solutions often feel obvious in hindsight, but getting there requires the courage to be wrong, repeatedly, until you're finally right.
Ready to see how Timeline transformed bookkeeping workflows?
Read the complete Timeline case study →