Coconut accountant portal
Overview
The Accountant Portal streamlines the accountant’s workflow when preparing client data by giving real-time access to client transaction data. It also simplifies the user’s life by removing the need to send data manually.
However, in its initial form it was more of a proof of concept. It lacked many of the features that would make it truly useful to an accountant to be considered an integral part of their workflow, and as a result saw little adoption.
My contribution
Product strategy User research Product design
The team
1 × product designer 3 × engineers
Year
2022
Process
Hypothesis
By expanding the capability of the Accountant Portal, we would allow accountants to see a clearer picture of their client’s finances without the need to export the data into an Excel spreadsheet to see it.
This would result in increased adoption of the Accountant Portal by accountants and make it a key acquisition tool for new Coconut users as accountants bring more of their clients onboard.
Approach
The portal redesign would give Coconut the opportunity to flex its app design system to larger screen sizes, putting Coconut in good stead when creating a web portal for users in the future. To build out the design system, we decided replicate the functionality of the app as a testing bed. We would then prioritise what would be built as part of the first version later.
Design system
The previous portal had only 2 pages; a client selection page and a subsequent page that contained client details and all transactions. The new portal would require a new navigation that could handle multiple clients and multiple pages within each client.
Outcome
The redesigned Accountant Portal significantly improved usability, functionality, and visual clarity—bringing it in line with Coconut’s broader design standards and strategic goals. The introduction of structured navigation, expanded financial visibility, and a scalable design system helped transform the portal from a proof of concept into a practical, professional tool.
As a result:
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Adoption among accountants increased, with early testers noting reduced reliance on external tools like Excel.
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The portal became a more compelling acquisition channel, encouraging accountants to onboard their clients to Coconut’s ecosystem.
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The expanded design system laid a strong foundation for future web-based products, accelerating design and development for future user-facing portals.
Overall, the project demonstrated the value of thoughtful scaling—turning a limited internal tool into a functional product with real business impact.