Simplify
Freelancers in India face unpredictable income, complicated tax obligations, and no reliable way to track payments from multiple clients. Without guidance on tax deductions or compliance support, tax season becomes stressful and unplanned. Managing expenses, saving, and investing gets pushed aside because there's no tool built for freelancers around how actually earn.
Existing tools are designed for salaried employees or full-scale businesses, leaving freelancers stuck between budgeting apps that are too basic or business accounting software that is too much.
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An application specifically tailored for freelancers, aiming to streamline and simplify their finances in India. Simplify will assist freelancers in effectively managing income streams, ensuring tax compliance and deduction, tracking expenses, investing and planning for long-term financial stability.
To summarize the project
I started with secondary research and competitive analysis of 5 existing apps (Zoho, Razorpay, ET Money, Mint, QuickBooks), rated each on UX and freelancer-fit, documented pros/cons for each
Did a Survey with freelancers (mostly 19–29 age range) on how they currently manage finances, taxes, and payments
3 in-dept interviews of freelancers (Antonio, Adithya, Pranay) covering financial habits, tools used, pain points, and goals
Brought all of this together to find the recurring pain points: unstable income, poor payment tracking, tax confusion, and no support for freelancers working internationally.
Which made me understand the gap: every competitor solved one slice of the problem, Zoho did accounting, Razorpay did payments, ET Money did investing. None combined them, and none built for freelancer-specific tax or income volatility.
Then i mapped "common missing features" which were completely absent across every competitor which users wanted like income smoothing, freelancer tax deductions, client payment tracking, multi-region compliance, investing for freelancers.
User persona was made from the pain points collected from the interviews and surveys to represent the target user's needs like Automated tax calculations and filing, Invoice management and payment tracking, Alerts for deadlines and updates, Compliance with both local and international tax regulations and frustrations.
Mapped Current User journey to understand the scattered, manual process freelancers go through today with no single system tying it together.
So I designed Simplifi: platform that brings all user needs and absent features together.
The information architecture organizes the app around how freelancers actually think about their money than a usual accounting software typically structures itself. Onboarding is kept minimal, permissions, login, OTP, account creation, before dropping the user into the Homepage, the central hub everything branches from.
From there, five core sections cover the full financial picture: Income management (invoices, expenses, balance, payment deadlines), Expense Management (categorized spending, budgeting, auto-import from bank/UPI), Multi-Region Compliance (multi-currency tracking, region-specific tax rules), Reporting & Analytics (custom reports, exports), and Settings & Preferences.
Two sections branch deeper because they carry the most complexity for freelancers: Tax Management and Payment Tracking/Invoices. Investment Planning sits alongside these, offering freelancer-specific options rather than generic ones.
The structure is flat where it can be, most features are one or two taps from the homepage, and only goes deeper where the task itself is inherently complex, like tax filing. This keeps day-to-day actions like checking balance, creating an invoice fast.
High fidelity UI
A fix for the "separate apps" problem, here, income, expenses, pending invoices, tax summary, and investments all sit on one screen. No app-switching.
It also solves income instability directly. The weekly payment limit bar and income/outcome chart give freelancers a real-time read on cash flow, something none of the interviewees had, they were manually guessing based on memory or a Notion doc.
Freelancers get a status check without cognitive overload, more information only if needed. This directly answers a pain point from research that freelancers are "work-focused" and don't have time to dig through menus.
A proposed solution for the tax confusion problem, the single biggest pain point across all interviews. Antonio didn't trust CAs after his sister's bad experience. Pranay didn't understand deductions. Srivatsan just accepted automatic deductions without knowing why.
The application suggests deductions (with descriptions and section numbers) that freelancer might be eligible for based on logged expenses, and auto-tags expenses as "Eligible" or "Not Eligible. This is the freelancer-specific tax deduction guidance that the competitive analysis found missing across Zoho, Razorpay, ET Money, Mint, and QuickBooks.
Deductions aren't auto-applied, there's a "+" to add and a "Confirm" step that gives freelancers control, which is important given the research found strong trust issues with automated financial decisions (Antonio specifically wanted to double-check everything rather than blindly trust a CA or a system). The idea is to surface what freelancers could claim.
Deductions are shown with a English description first, the legal section number second. Freelancers don't trust their own tax knowledge as we understood form the research, so the application teaches as it goes and does not assume expertise.
No competitors had investment planning built for irregular income which was again a user need. The Recommendations section are grouped by relevance to unstable income.
Toggle between Asset/Sector views on the portfolio chart lets users pick whichever framing makes sense to them rather than forcing one.
Solves problems in tracking payments pain point. Antonio missed small payments because he tracked everything manually. Here, every invoice is tagged by status (Paid, Awaiting, Overdue, On hold) with totals broken out at the top. Nothing gets lost because as system tracks it.
I kept Status as the primary sort and not a filter/dropdown as it matches how freelancers actually think about invoices, "who owes me money right now", rather than how accounting software organizes data (by date or client).
limited features for tracking client payments was a major gap found in the competitive analysis, and invoice was something new freelancers were struggling with. Razorpay and ET Money don't have proper invoicing tools, and Zoho's invoicing is bundled into a complex accounting suite. So, made a simple, standalone custom, editable invoice builder with logo, client details, line items and more. No unnecessary business features.
As the user fills in fields, they can see the invoice taking shape via the template panel on the right, instead of guessing what the final PDF would look like. This reduces the error rate, user testing recorded 0 errors for two participants and low completion times (24–36 seconds) here.
Ran Performance-Based usability testing with 11 participants aged 19–26, testing the core flow of creating and saving an invoice. Each participant was given a brief introduction to the app, then asked to complete the task while being observed, tracking time taken, number of errors, and number of clicks. Afterward, they rated the ease of the process and shared what they'd improve.
Most participants completed the task in under a minute, with several finishing in under 30 seconds and zero errors. Ease-of-use ratings were consistently high, mostly 7–9 out of 10.
User testing link
The feedback converged on two clear issues: scrolling in the invoice section felt off, with users specifically wanting the header to stay fixed while scrolling through the list, and buttons, especially "Create Invoice", needed stronger visual emphasis to stand out. A couple of users also suggested the navigation bar could be better centered.
See the complete case study that covers the core process, research, problem definition, design decisions, and testing.
For the full breakdown, including detailed interview transcripts, survey data, and the complete UX report, feel free to check the UX report.
Simplify
Freelancers in India face unpredictable income, complicated tax obligations, and no reliable way to track payments from multiple clients. Without guidance on tax deductions or compliance support, tax season becomes stressful and unplanned. Managing expenses, saving, and investing gets pushed aside because there's no tool built for freelancers around how actually earn.
Existing tools are designed for salaried employees or full-scale businesses, leaving freelancers stuck between budgeting apps that are too basic or business accounting software that is too much.
Video Preview
An application specifically tailored for freelancers, aiming to streamline and simplify their finances in India. Simplify will assist freelancers in effectively managing income streams, ensuring tax compliance and deduction, tracking expenses, investing and planning for long-term financial stability.
To summarize the project
I started with secondary research and competitive analysis of 5 existing apps (Zoho, Razorpay, ET Money, Mint, QuickBooks), rated each on UX and freelancer-fit, documented pros/cons for each
Did a Survey with freelancers (mostly 19–29 age range) on how they currently manage finances, taxes, and payments
3 in-dept interviews of freelancers (Antonio, Adithya, Pranay) covering financial habits, tools used, pain points, and goals
Brought all of this together to find the recurring pain points: unstable income, poor payment tracking, tax confusion, and no support for freelancers working internationally.
Which made me understand the gap: every competitor solved one slice of the problem, Zoho did accounting, Razorpay did payments, ET Money did investing. None combined them, and none built for freelancer-specific tax or income volatility.
Then i mapped "common missing features" which were completely absent across every competitor which users wanted like income smoothing, freelancer tax deductions, client payment tracking, multi-region compliance, investing for freelancers.
User persona was made from the pain points collected from the interviews and surveys to represent the target user's needs like Automated tax calculations and filing, Invoice management and payment tracking, Alerts for deadlines and updates, Compliance with both local and international tax regulations and frustrations.
Mapped Current User journey to understand the scattered, manual process freelancers go through today with no single system tying it together.
So I designed Simplifi: platform that brings all user needs and absent features together.
The information architecture organizes the app around how freelancers actually think about their money than a usual accounting software typically structures itself. Onboarding is kept minimal, permissions, login, OTP, account creation, before dropping the user into the Homepage, the central hub everything branches from.
From there, five core sections cover the full financial picture: Income management (invoices, expenses, balance, payment deadlines), Expense Management (categorized spending, budgeting, auto-import from bank/UPI), Multi-Region Compliance (multi-currency tracking, region-specific tax rules), Reporting & Analytics (custom reports, exports), and Settings & Preferences.
Two sections branch deeper because they carry the most complexity for freelancers: Tax Management and Payment Tracking/Invoices. Investment Planning sits alongside these, offering freelancer-specific options rather than generic ones.
The structure is flat where it can be, most features are one or two taps from the homepage, and only goes deeper where the task itself is inherently complex, like tax filing. This keeps day-to-day actions like checking balance, creating an invoice fast.
High fidelity UI
A fix for the "separate apps" problem, here, income, expenses, pending invoices, tax summary, and investments all sit on one screen. No app-switching.
It also solves income instability directly. The weekly payment limit bar and income/outcome chart give freelancers a real-time read on cash flow, something none of the interviewees had, they were manually guessing based on memory or a Notion doc.
Freelancers get a status check without cognitive overload, more information only if needed. This directly answers a pain point from research that freelancers are "work-focused" and don't have time to dig through menus.
A proposed solution for the tax confusion problem, the single biggest pain point across all interviews. Antonio didn't trust CAs after his sister's bad experience. Pranay didn't understand deductions. Srivatsan just accepted automatic deductions without knowing why.
The application suggests deductions (with descriptions and section numbers) that freelancer might be eligible for based on logged expenses, and auto-tags expenses as "Eligible" or "Not Eligible. This is the freelancer-specific tax deduction guidance that the competitive analysis found missing across Zoho, Razorpay, ET Money, Mint, and QuickBooks.
Deductions aren't auto-applied, there's a "+" to add and a "Confirm" step that gives freelancers control, which is important given the research found strong trust issues with automated financial decisions (Antonio specifically wanted to double-check everything rather than blindly trust a CA or a system). The idea is to surface what freelancers could claim.
Deductions are shown with a English description first, the legal section number second. Freelancers don't trust their own tax knowledge as we understood form the research, so the application teaches as it goes and does not assume expertise.
No competitors had investment planning built for irregular income which was again a user need. The Recommendations section are grouped by relevance to unstable income.
Toggle between Asset/Sector views on the portfolio chart lets users pick whichever framing makes sense to them rather than forcing one.
Solves problems in tracking payments pain point. Antonio missed small payments because he tracked everything manually. Here, every invoice is tagged by status (Paid, Awaiting, Overdue, On hold) with totals broken out at the top. Nothing gets lost because as system tracks it.
I kept Status as the primary sort and not a filter/dropdown as it matches how freelancers actually think about invoices, "who owes me money right now", rather than how accounting software organizes data (by date or client).
limited features for tracking client payments was a major gap found in the competitive analysis, and invoice was something new freelancers were struggling with. Razorpay and ET Money don't have proper invoicing tools, and Zoho's invoicing is bundled into a complex accounting suite. So, made a simple, standalone custom, editable invoice builder with logo, client details, line items and more. No unnecessary business features.
As the user fills in fields, they can see the invoice taking shape via the template panel on the right, instead of guessing what the final PDF would look like. This reduces the error rate, user testing recorded 0 errors for two participants and low completion times (24–36 seconds) here.
Ran Performance-Based usability testing with 11 participants aged 19–26, testing the core flow of creating and saving an invoice. Each participant was given a brief introduction to the app, then asked to complete the task while being observed, tracking time taken, number of errors, and number of clicks. Afterward, they rated the ease of the process and shared what they'd improve.
Most participants completed the task in under a minute, with several finishing in under 30 seconds and zero errors. Ease-of-use ratings were consistently high, mostly 7–9 out of 10.
User testing link
The feedback converged on two clear issues: scrolling in the invoice section felt off, with users specifically wanting the header to stay fixed while scrolling through the list, and buttons, especially "Create Invoice", needed stronger visual emphasis to stand out. A couple of users also suggested the navigation bar could be better centered.
See the complete case study that covers the core process, research, problem definition, design decisions, and testing.
For the full breakdown, including detailed interview transcripts, survey data, and the complete UX report, feel free to check the UX report.