The Journey to Building the Best Accounting Experience for Small Businesses

Challenging Assumptions and Rethinking Accounting for the Modern User

At Fiskl, our mission has always been to transform small business accounting into an intuitive and user-friendly experience. We set out to design a solution that simplifies financial management for non-accountants through thoughtful user experience and automation.

Long before launching our pioneering accounting platform, Fiskl had already earned thousands of passionate users across over 160 countries. Our suite of features like multi-currency invoicing, global tax management, client collaboration portals, and mobile apps solved real pain points for small businesses.

However, we knew there was an opportunity to disrupt the accounting industry. Legacy solutions were expensive, complex, and primarily built for accountants. Small business owners needed something different.

Drawing on insights from our diverse global user base, we defined a vision – to create accounting software combining breakthrough innovation with human-centric design. We wanted to build more than technology, but rather joyful experiences that inspire and delight users.

Guided by criteria like customer-driven development, intuitive workflows, representative design, and frictionless functionality, we set out on a journey to establish a new paradigm. One where any small business, anywhere in the world, could master its finances with ease.

The path we paved wasn’t easy, but the destination proved worth it. Today, Fiskl is consistently rated the #1 accounting solution for usability, interface design, and user experience. Even more rewarding, we fulfilled our dream – to bring delight where there was once only drudgery.

This is the story of how we went from idea to reality. How we challenged assumptions, listened to users, and unlocked innovation. If you lead product development driven by human insight and ambitious vision, we hope our learnings resonate. Now let’s dive in…

The Roadblock Facing Small Businesses

Small and medium enterprises are the backbone of the global economy. They account for over 90% of businesses worldwide and employ millions.

However, SMEs face immense challenges in managing their finances day-to-day. Accounting is filled with complex processes like invoicing, expense tracking, reconciliation, and reporting. Making sense of it all takes substantial time, effort, and expertise.

Unfortunately, most small business owners are not accountants by trade. Terms like accounts receivable, accrual basis, general ledger, and double-entry accounting are foreign concepts.

Legacy accounting software catered to professional accountants and CPAs, not regular entrepreneurs. The user interfaces were cluttered with accounting jargon and workflows that made little logical sense.

For a non-accountant, even basic tasks became frustrating. Creating an invoice involved navigating through dozens of screens and menu options. Reconciling bank feeds required manually matching hundreds of transactions. Producing financial reports meant exporting data to Excel and building formulas from scratch.

The result was a painful choice for SMEs. Either invest significant money hiring an accountant or bookkeeper. Or waste hours each week struggling through accounting busywork.

It became clear that small business owners desperately needed accounting software designed for their actual needs – not the needs of accountants. The demand was there for a solution that simplified finances through intuitive design and thoughtful automation.

Listening to day to day users in the SME community, we discovered the biggest pain points:

• Intimidating accounting terminology and concepts
• Fragmented financial data across various systems
• Time-consuming manual workflows for invoicing, reconciliation etc.
• Difficulty accessing financial insights on the go
• Lack of customization for different business needs

This honest user feedback shaped our product vision and innovation roadmap for Fiskl. We were determined to tackle these real problems – and forever change how small businesses managed their money.

Understanding the SME Perspective

With the challenges facing small and medium enterprises clear, our next step was digging into their precise needs and pain points.

We invested significant time engaging with SME owners through interviews, surveys, and feedback groups. Our goal was to truly walk in our users’ shoes.

First, we identified our primary personas:

1. The Self-Employed Solo Preneur: An entrepreneur running their own small business as a one-person show. They need to handle all financial tasks themselves.
2. The Non-Accounting SMB Owner: Operates a small company with a few employees. Doesn’t have an in-house accountant, so relies on consumer-grade tools.
3. The Office Manager: Handles day-to-day finances and reporting for an SME without deep accounting expertise.

Next, we spoke directly with global SME owners matching these personas. A few key insights consistently emerged:

• Terminology is intimidating. Words like “double-entry accounting” are foreign concepts.
• Everything feels fragmented. No unified view of cash flow across accounts and expenses.
• Manual processes cause friction. Reconciliation, reporting, VAT taxes – it’s time consuming.
• Mobile access is a must-have. Finance on the go is critical for today’s businesses.
• One size doesn’t fit all. Customization for different industries and metrics is needed.

Armed with this qualitative and quantitative data directly from users, we established core guiders for Fiskl’s product development:

• Eliminate accounting complexity
• Unify financial data in one place
• Automate manual processes
• Optimize for the mobile experience
• Allow customization and flexibility

With the SME perspective anchoring our efforts, we set off to translate these needs into reality.

Building the Fiskl Foundation

With clear user insights in hand, our product team began designing the initial Fiskl platform. We wanted to provide comprehensive accounting capabilities right out of the gate while rapidly iterating based on user feedback.

Our first version included:

• Full double-entry accounting engine covering invoicing, expense/income tracking, reconciliation, reporting, and more.
• Multi-currency support for 170+ currencies to accommodate international SMEs.
• Country-level tax configuration and VAT reporting compliant with tax regimes globally.
• Clean, minimalistic user interface avoiding accounting jargon and complexity.
• Mobile apps for iOS and Android to enable finance on the go.

We adopted an agile approach, shipping updates every 2-3 weeks. This allowed us to test new features, quickly incorporate user feedback, and refine the product-market fit.

Some key learnings from early Fiskl users:

• Reporting flexibility is crucial – custom dashboards are heavily used.
• Collaboration features like shared invoice portals increase transparency.
• Even more currencies needed support, especially in emerging markets.
• Auto-reconciliation would eliminate a major pain point.

With continuous small releases, we expanded our foundation accounting platform iteratively guided by direct user signals.

This early feedback proved invaluable, validating our solution and also illuminating new opportunities for innovation. The stage was set to take a leap and pioneer the next generation of accounting technology.

The Next Frontier: AI-Driven Accounting

While our core platform solved immediate needs, we saw an opportunity to deliver exponential value through cutting-edge technology.

Our product and engineering teams embarked on an ambitious R&D project to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to accounting workflows.

We built a proprietary auto-categorization engine powered by AI algorithms trained on millions of anonymized transactions. This engine could analyze transaction descriptions and automatically categorize them based on historical data patterns.

For example, when a payment labeled “Go Daddy” comes in, the engine instantly recognizes this should map to the “Domain Registration” expense category rather than vague buckets like “Miscellaneous Expense.”

The AI learns unique category patterns for each business and improves over time. With deep learning techniques, we achieved over 90% auto-categorization accuracy during testing.

But it gets smarter. The engine can also identify internal transfers between accounts. So when money moves from a business checking to credit card account, it automatically reconciles this without human intervention.

By incorporating AI and ML, we eliminated the tedious task of manually matching hundreds of transactions. Now reconciliation happens seamlessly and continuously in the background.

For SME owners, this automation provides tangible benefits:

• Saves hours wasted on manual data entry and reconciliation.
• Minimizes human error by reducing repetitive manual workflows.
• Surfaces financial insights in real time by keeping data updated automatically.
• Frees business users to focus on high-value strategic tasks.
• With this innovation, we achieved a quantum leap in accounting productivity and efficiency. But improving the user experience equally mattered, which led us to our next chapter.

Crafting a User-Centric Accounting Experience

With innovative AI reconciliation in place, we doubled down on elevating the user experience. Our goal was to make Fiskl intuitive and approachable for every business owner.

We established core UX principles to guide development:

• Progressive disclosure to avoid overwhelm
• Clear visual hierarchies and information architecture
• Contextual in-app education and tooltips
• Consistent navigation optimized for ease of use
• Responsively designed for all devices and screen sizes

Additionally, we solicited direct user input to identify areas for improvement:

• Even more customizable reporting options
• Enhanced mobile functionality like photo capture of receipts
• Dashboard layout flexibility
• Client collaboration portals
• Automated notifications and reminders

Armed with this qualitative and quantitative data, we iterated rapidly to incorporate user-inspired enhancements:

• Drag-and-drop financial statements with customizable widgets
• Mobile mileage tracking using GPS mapping
• Personalized business snapshot dashboards
• Secure client portals for account visibility
• Scheduled email reports and accounting deadline alerts

This user-centric approach allowed us to refine workflows and delight customers with features tailored specifically to their needs.

The result? Fiskl achieved best-in-class user satisfaction, loved for its intuitive design and user experience. But most rewarding was realizing our original vision – to simplify accounting so businesses could thrive.

Redefining the Future of Accounting

Since launching Fiskl, we’ve been honored to see the solution transform how small businesses manage their finances. The impact is reflected in tangible metrics:

• 85% of Fiskl users now confidently run their books without an accountant.
• 73% of customers switched from a legacy accounting platform.
• User satisfaction rated 4.8 out of 5 stars for ease of use.

External validation further proves we achieved our mission. Fiskl was awarded Europe’s Fintech Accounting Innovator of the Year in both 2022 and 2023, surpassing industry incumbents.

But the metrics only reveal part of the story. We’ve seen firsthand how Fiskl empowers entrepreneurs globally:

• Sole preneurs who run their entire business from their mobile phone.
• eCommerce sites that easily manage orders across multiple currencies.
• Service agencies that collaborate with clients in real time.
• Manufacturers that optimized inventory tracking using our API.
• Non-profits gaining transparency into donor funds.

The use cases are infinite. While our core platform remains consistent, each business customizes Fiskl’s flexible tools to their industry, region, and objectives.

No matter the need, our commitment is the same – guide product development with user insights, innovate relentlessly on their behalf, and enable their success through design.

This user-centric approach steers our journey as we continue evolving the solution that reimagined small business accounting.

Charting the Road Ahead

While proud of impact achieved, our work is far from over. Fiskl continually evolves based on user needs through our commitment to customer-centric design.

Soon we will introduce FI, a virtual financial advisor which will provide personalized, data-driven insights like:

• Expense reduction recommendations based on spending habits.
• Custom KPI tracking aligned to business goals.
• Cash flow forecasts factoring in seasonal trends.
• This AI advisor will act as a digital accountant, answering questions in real time. By democratizing financial expertise, FI will help businesses at any stage of growth make smart money decisions.

FI represents just one upcoming innovation driven by our user-first product philosophy. We will keep challenging legacy accounting systems with fresh ideas.

Our “why” remains focused on transforming how entrepreneurs worldwide track, understand, and leverage their financial data. By combining human-centric design with leading technology, we can forever change their relationship with accounting.

This relentless commitment pushes us to continuously listen, iterate, and build experiences that delight. It drives our ambitious vision to bring joy where there was once only drudgery.

We welcome you to join us on this journey as we reimagine accounting. Please reach out to share your perspective as a user, partner, or industry peer. Together, we will shape the next generation of financial management to fuel the success of small businesses across the globe.