Make money feel steady.
What Tidewell asked for, in priority order.
Tidewell gives freelancers a business account, but its app read like a ledger: every transaction in one long list, tax left as a surprise for April. Support tickets kept asking the same question: how much of this money is actually mine?
The brief was to answer that question on the first screen, without hiding the detail accountants still need.
Safe-to-spend, first
One number on open: what’s yours after tax and upcoming bills.
Automatic tax pots
Set aside a share of every payment, without a spreadsheet.
Invoices that chase themselves
Reminders and payment links on overdue work, sent from the app.
From ledger to forecast.
Drag to compare the old home screen with the new one.
The list didn’t go away; it moved one tap down. The home screen now leads with a 30-day forecast, and the transactions sit underneath it.
Test the number, not the screen.
Five rounds of testing on one figure before any visual polish.
We prototyped the safe-to-spend figure in five versions and put each in front of twelve freelancers. The winning version showed one number with a short line underneath explaining how it was worked out. It beat a richer chart on both trust and speed.
The visual system came after that: a single teal for money that’s yours, muted tones for money set aside, and one type family across all three platforms.
Safe-to-spend up top, upcoming bills and tax pots underneath.
Tax pots and invoices share one card pattern, so the app feels like one product.
What it adds up to.
Product analytics, 90 days after the final release.
After launch, support tickets about balances dropped by more than half, and most active users now keep at least one tax pot. The forecast home is now the template for Tidewell’s new business-account tier.
“For the first time, our members open the app to plan, not to panic.”
Head of Product · Tidewell
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