Expense Buddy

Product Experience

Problem Space 

Problem Background  

Self-employed individuals and business owners who depend on their vehicles for work face a critical financial challenge when it comes to deducting car-related expenses from their taxable income. Accurate determination of the portion of vehicle usage attributable to business activities is a prerequisite for claiming these deductions. Currently, this requires meticulous record-keeping of business-related mileage and comprehensive documentation of vehicle costs. Failure to maintain proper records could result in the rejection of expense claims during government audits. The urgency of this issue is highlighted by the growing number of individuals transitioning into full-time delivery drivers or ride-hailing service providers post-pandemic. For example, Uber, the largest ride sharing company in the United States, has experienced a 31% increase in drivers, reaching a record five million global drivers.

Research Insights

Our team, composed of Project Manager Ryan and Designer Connie, conducted user interviews to gain insights into individual needs and the barriers faced in tracking car-related expenses. We decided to develop a web application instead of an iOS app due to the time and cost associated with publishing an app on the Apple Store. With a tight deadline of under 8 weeks for the MVP, our goal is to expedite essential feature deployment and gather user feedback through the web application/prototype before proceeding with the Apple Store submission.

Key themes and findings

• Ambiguity about whether a trip is a personal or business expense leads to inaccuracies and potential government audits.
• Users primarily rely on the standard mileage method but are unaware of which method (Standard mileage or actual expense) suits their needs best. Understanding how to maximize tax benefits would be motivating.
• The current methods of compiling a logbook by cross-referencing receipts, bank statements, emails, and calendars are time-consuming and avoided by users while on the job.

Competitor Analysis 

We conducted a competitor analysis to understand how mileage apps are currently addressing this problem space. We explored competitor apps in detail and identified two main pitfalls to avoid in our solution:

1. Tedious manual input: We aim to make information input as fast and simple as possible, considering that users are often on the go.
2. Information overload: Competitor apps like TripLog, Everlance, and Hurdlr have been reported to have a learning curve with non-intuitive UI and an abundance of features that attempt to cater to every type of 1099 worker. Not all 1099 workers have the same tax needs, and the target audience is unclear upon sign-up.

Key takeaway: While automatic trip tracking sounds promising in theory, it can be error-prone in practice. All four competitors have automatic mileage tracking features, but users have reported bugs, such as mileage being out of sync and the Autostart feature not always working.

Solution Explanation

Landing on a Solution through Ideation and Design

After several rounds of ideation and prioritization, we have outlined four main flows for the MVP:

1.  Manual input of trips, allowing users to classify them as business or personal.
2. Odometer readings for personal trips, enabling users to maintain complete mileage records.
3. Manual input of expenses, with a simple interface for entering amount, name, and category, aiding users in identifying tax-deductible expenses.
4. Generating reports for users to receive a high-level overview of mileage and expenses. Detailed reports can be sent to their email and shared with their accountant.

Pivoting and de-scoping

Due to time constraints, we decided to streamline the project scope, focusing on the addition and review of trips. The primary goal for the MVP is to address the most significant user pain points, creating a platform for users to accurately document trip mileage and purposes.

Lofi & Hifi Mockups

Iterative Design Learnings

We conducted usability tests with five target users who navigated all three flows. All users completed the tasks, resulting in a 100% completion rate. All 5 users rated the "Add Trip" and "Add Expense" flows as very easy to use.

Iterations

3/5 users expressed confusion about the preselected date and time on the “All Trips” Page and wanted to make sure that the date and time could be edited, assuming that they would record the trip later. It wasn’t clear that the date and time were changeable. To resolve this, Connie iterated the date and time picker to be interactive in appearance, providing a visual cue that users can modify the date and time, especially because users tend to record mileage later. 

In the later stages of the project, we could continue usability testing after the first round of iterations is completed. 

Implementation Details

Technical implementation

Where is it hosted? 

• Frontend on Netlify
• Backend on Render
• Database on ElephantSQL
• Source Code on colab’s Github 

What is your tech stack?

• React, JavaScript on the Frontend
• Flask, Python on the Backend
• SQLAlchemy, SQL for the Database

Technical challenges

What was the hardest part of development?

• The Google API places suggestions and map routing 

Does your app have any scaling issues?

• Our app also needs to be implemented into a mobile application

Future Steps

We intend to proceed with the project following the conclusion of the bootcamp. There remain 3-4 pivotal features yet to be developed to effectively address the users' concerns and improve their experience. Because the “Add Expense” and “Email Report” flow has already been designed and tested, our next steps will be to build out these features. 

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