QuickBooks Cash Flow

Intuit

Intuit has a long history of reinvention, consistently expanding its personal finance products across various financial touchpoints. One of its flagship offerings, QuickBooks, has evolved from a desktop application into QuickBooks Online, a full-cloud SaaS solution. However, despite its growth, QuickBooks is still primarily seen as accounting software. Given today’s competitive landscape, it was time for a bold transformation—one that redefines its role entirely.

Overview

Introducing QuickBooks Cash Flow—the biggest innovation to the QuickBooks franchise since its launch. Built in just seven months from ideation to release, this cross-platform application redefined financial management. The rollout began with iOS, followed by Web and Android in mid-2020.

Stakeholders

Head of Design, Small Business
VP and Business Leader, QuickBooks Payments and Capital
VP and Segment Leader, Small Business
VP of Product Development, Intuit
Design Director, QuickBooks Payments and Capital
Group Manager, QuickBooks Payments and Capital

Key contributions

Given the scale of the cross-functional team, key areas of ownership as a Senior Product Designer (UI) across all platforms include:

Partner with Senior Product Designer (UX) to design Cash Flow home
Account states for all Cash Flow home widgets, oversee design translation of mobile to web experience
First Time Use (FTU) experience from all potential access points and corresponding messaging strategies
Catalyst for Payments On-boarding pressure test across the QuickBooks ecosystem, mentor new college grad in production of final flow
Oversee envelope work integration into Cash Flow home

O N E

Researching money relationships

Foundational user research

To deeply understand the customer problem of cash flow, we conducted two weeks of user interviews, testing how customers perceived cash flow with their current accounts and businesses. Our goal was to assess how easily they could transition to our proposed model using a proprietary QuickBooks bank account. For the research prototypes, I drove the concepting of the onboarding experience. We tested various sequences and interactions to understand what type of friction was expected and/or tolerable when it came to managing financial information.

Research findings
We discovered that users didn’t mind some friction when adding multiple accounts—as long as they could effectively manage their finances. Many users shared that they maintain multiple accounts, often across different financial institutions, each serving a distinct business purpose, such as revenue tracking or operating expenses.

T W O

Holistic onboarding experiences

Auditing E2E QuickBooks onboarding

Leveraging my experience in designing for QuickBooks product marketing, I drove the design discovery and assessment of Cash Flow’s impact on the core product experience. My detailed ecosystem journey mapping highlighted significant risks, leading QuickBooks Small Business leadership to reconsider their approach.

Outcome
While my proposed flows weren’t directly implemented, they played a crucial role in shaping an optimized onboarding strategy to influence downstream product roadmaps for the QuickBooks Core team. Our approach addressed timing gaps and communication triggers to reduce drop-off while ensuring no negative impact on other business segments.

From onboarding to ongoing use

As the owner of the onboarding experience, I also managed the various states of home page tiles, which served as key entry and exit points across different product areas. This deep integration with multiple workstreams allowed me to design a seamless, scalable experience that adapted to all user use cases.

A design system partnership

All of the modules that I designed were brand styles for the QuickBooks mobile experience. This environment lended itself to building a close partnership with our brand and design system team. As I iterated on the designs across various use cases, I collaborated with the illustration team to explore visual concepts that would ultimately be contributed to the broader design system.