Guiding businesss owners creating their first Invoice with FreshBooks

Led the design of a new way to create an invoice while also reducing the time to value.

Timeline

Aug 2021 - Nov 2021

Collaborators

Product Managers

Engineers

Marketing (Lifecycle Team)

Overall Impact

70% increase of new users of creating a second invoice

53% increase of sending an invoice to their client

My Impact

Led the end-to-end design process, from initial ideation through to experimentation and validation.

Introduced a new interaction model for invoice creation, enabling users to access value earlier in their journey.

Delivered a streamlined experience that allowed business owners to send invoices more quickly, with reduced friction and greater confidence.

Problem & Context

Many new users aren’t sending their first invoice during initial visits, leading to missed “Aha!” moments and higher drop-off rates.

This project is a continuation of the onboarding questionnaire redesign. While the initial redesign focused on improving the Sign-Up experience, this phase of the project aimed to help users reach the “Aha!” moment more quickly within FreshBooks.

Current invoice creation experience

Our discovery revealed that invoice creation was a key point of friction for new users, often causing hesitation and delaying engagement. This is what we learned:

  • Users lack confidence during invoice creation, often requesting clearer guidance or step-by-step support to navigate the process.

  • The absence of clear completion feedback leaves users uncertain if their invoice is ready to be sent.

  • The volume of customization options and settings overwhelms new users, creating friction and decision fatigue during their first interaction.

  • Uncertainty around the client experience makes users hesitant to send invoices, as they don’t know what their customers will see or how professional it will appear.

Discovery & Findings

We believe that by guiding users step-by-step through the invoice creation and sending process, we can reduce anxiety and build confidence in new users. We’ll know we’re successful if users who go through the guided experience are more likely to create and send a second invoice.

Hypothesis

Early Explorations

First pass to gather interest and validate quickly with stakeholders

Final Experience

We launched the experience to 10% of users, but only a small percentage engaged with it, and most dropped off before completing the flow. The experiment continued for 3 more months and we observerd:

  • Users who completed the experiment were 70% more likely to create another invoice and 53% more likely to send it, showing increased confidence.

  • No major difference in overall conversion, but the test provided valuable behavioral insights.

  • Test invoice highlighted technical constraints, informing future implementation planning.

Impact & Outcome