Comfort Survival
Product Designer
From receipt to record in seconds
A single, secure view of your money designed to help you and your business understand, manage, and plan with confidence, reducing average time managing receipts from 5 hours → 30 minutes per month using user-centered design and AI automation.
Role:
End-to-end product design & research
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User research
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UX flows & IA
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Wireframing & prototyping
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Usability testing
This project demonstrates my ability to translate qualitative research into practical, high-impact product decisions.
Understanding the Problem
Imagine scrambling to find a receipt for a critical tax deduction only to realize it’s nowhere to be found. This anxiety is exactly what freelancers and small business owners face each tax season.
Freelancers and small business owners often lose valuable time and money managing receipts. Paper slips get misplaced, digital receipts pile up in inboxes, and tax season becomes stressful and error-prone.
To address this, I designed an AI mobile-first receipt scanner app that uses OCR technology to capture, categorize, and organize receipts in real time. The goal was to reduce the time users spend managing expenses while improving accuracy and peace of mind during tax filing.
This case study walks through my process — from identifying the problem through user research, to iterating on wireframes, testing, and delivering a solution that streamlines expense management.
The Problem for small businesses during tax season:
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Current methods, such as folders, email searches, and spreadsheets, can be time-consuming.
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Missing receipts means lost tax deductions.
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Manual tracking creates stress and is prone to errors.
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Existing tools often feel bloated, overwhelming users with features they don’t need.
Problem Statement: "How might we help freelancers quickly capture, organize, and retrieve receipts so they can reduce tax-time stress and save money?"
User Insight and Feedback
I conducted 5 user interviews with freelancers and independent contractors to understand their workflow.
Key insights from this interview showed that users spend an average of 5+ hours/month organizing receipts. Some pain points include:
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Receipts are scattered across email, paper, and apps and sometimes it can be difficult to stay organized
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With busy business seasons, its easy to forget to track small purchases.
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With receipts and expenses scattered across apps, this can sometimes bring anxiety during tax season due to missing info.
Jamie, 34 - Wedding Photographer
Freelance photographer who struggles to keep receipts organized while traveling for client work.
Core Needs:
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Capture receipts quickly on the go.
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Automatically categorize and organize expenses.
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Reduce stress and errors during tax season.
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Get a clear monthly overview of spending.
Pre-Testing and Pre-Validation
The initial prototype version below was designed with regular users in mind; people who want to track their own everyday expenses, not businesses or freelancers.
Manual receipt capture and simple categorization.
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Focused on mobile-first UX with a central “Upload receipt” button.
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Users could review and edit categories manually.
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Key Insights That Shaped the Product
Testing with freelancers and consultants revealed that:
Manual entry and categorization were time-consuming and error-prone.
Users wanted automatic extraction of receipt details.
Email receipts require consolidation.
Additional needs included monthly summaries and alerts for missing receipts.
Validation & Iteration
Based on feedback, we decided to introduce automated OCR scanning and AI categorization to reduce cognitive . This iteration directly addressed pain points, scaling the app from a simple personal tool to a solution for freelancers and small businesses.
Smart Categorization:
Predicts expense type; users can confirm or adjust.
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OCR Receipt Capture:
Automatically extracts vendor, date, and amount.
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Automated Insights & Summaries:
Generates monthly reports, highlights missing receipts.
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Implementation
The next iteration, informed by user feedback, explored a simple but core flow: onboarding → scan → confirm details → AI recommendations → expense summary
Snap photos or forward email receipts; AI extracts key details.
Quick Capture
Consolidates and organizes digital receipts automatically.
Smart Inbox
Visual overview of expenses, flagged anomalies, and proactive insights.
Monthly Dashboard
Easily send receipts or reports to accounting software.
Export and Share
Impact & Measurable Results
A reduction in the average time spent managing receipts has decreased the monthly administrative burden for freelancers from 5 hours to 30 minutes per month, meaning users can focus on billable work instead of admin — a 90% time savings, allowing satisfied businesspeople to focus on what truly matters.
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Users can now capture receipts on the go without losing data.
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Business owners can manage multi-client expenses digitally with minimal effort.
Key Takeaway for Future Iterations
This project strengthened my approach to designing research-led solutions that reduce administrative burden while respecting user trust and mental load.
While automation reduced manual effort, users needed clear confirmation states to trust that the system was working correctly. This highlighted the importance of transparency in AI-driven experiences. Adding scan confirmations and editable fields helped balance automation with user control. In future designs, I would continue to surface system feedback to reinforce trust without increasing cognitive load
Users consistently prioritized speed over advanced categorization, which reinforced the decision to keep the scanning flow minimal. In future iterations, I’d explore progressive disclosure for advanced features without slowing the core task
Conducting usability testing early in the process helped identify friction points before visual polish or feature expansion. This prevented unnecessary complexity and allowed design decisions to stay focused on real user needs rather than assumptions. Moving forward, I would continue prioritizing early validation to reduce rework and keep solutions lean and effective.