Easy Invoice
An invoicing app for freelancers and sole traders to manage clients and payments simply.
March 2026
- Role
- Product Designer
- Context
- Personal Project
- Focus
- Simplicity & Automation
- Tools
- Figma & Claude Code
01 — The Problem
Freelancers and sole traders are good at their jobs, not at chasing money. A photographer, an electrician or a gardener finishes the work, then has to remember to invoice, check whether the client has opened it, and decide when it's polite to follow up. Most fall back on spreadsheets, a carbon-copy invoice book, or accounting software built for much bigger businesses.
Two problems kept coming up. The first was "chase" fatigue: people felt like nags following up on unpaid invoices, so they put it off, which hurt their cash flow and made a good customer relationship feel awkward. The second was the admin gap: because invoicing tools felt complex and desk-bound, billing waited until the end of the month, and by then billable hours and materials had been forgotten. For people with busy days on the move, or with access needs like ADHD, arthritis or poor eyesight, asking for payment in the moment was simply too much friction.
02 — The Solution
If sending a payment request took less than a minute and the app did the chasing, people would bill at the end of each job instead of the end of the month. Easy Invoice is mobile first, because the people it's for are rarely at a desk. The aim was to cut the steps from opening the app to a request being sent, show every payment's status in real time, and give back two to three hours of admin a week.
Payment Request Flow
Ask for payment before you leave the driveway.
Three inputs, one tap to confirm:
- Payment amount
- Customer name
- Reference number
A confirmation screen shows the amount, customer and reference before anything is sent, with a clear Cancel option. The app logs the time each request was sent.
Automatic Reminders
The app does the chasing, so you don't have to.
If a request stays unpaid, Easy Invoice sends polite reminders on a fixed schedule:
- Day 2: first reminder
- Day 5: second reminder
- Day 7: final reminder
Reminders stop as soon as the customer pays, and the user gets a notification that the money has arrived.
Payment Status at a Glance
Know who has paid without checking the bank.
Every request is in one of two states:
- Paid, in green
- Unpaid, in red
The dashboard splits requests into Payments Outstanding and Payments Paid.
Clear, Accessible Confirmation
Designed for tired hands, bright sunlight and low confidence with tech.
- A welcome screen that promises set-up in under two minutes, with four plain-language benefits
- Large touch targets and high-contrast text for users with RSI, arthritis, reading glasses or, like me, big hands
- Labels on every action, with no icon-only buttons
- A big tick after every confirmed action, so users know it worked
03 — The Journey
I started by mapping who invoices and why it hurts. I used AI to speed up early desk research, then planned interviews with freelancers and self-employed people aged 18 to 65, including people with disabilities, about how they balance the job with the admin.
That shaped three personas:
- Alex, 28, freelance designer with ADHD: "It must be simple or I just won't use it." Forgets invoices and keeps checking whether he's been paid.
- Elena, 48, electrician: "I just want to be paid for the job I do." Forgets to chase, feels impolite doing it, and doesn't want full accounting software.
- Arthur, 65, gardener: "I enjoy meeting and chatting to people in my town. I don't want to lose that." Not tech savvy, trusts cash, and wants to keep the handshake feel as clients move to digital payments.
The pain points they shared were clear:
- The "black hole" of sending an invoice and not knowing if the client opened it
- Feeling like a nag when a payment is three days overdue
- Forgetting which expenses were billable to which client
I then tested the prototype with three people: a freelance photographer, a self-employed electrician and a designer. All three liked the early designs but were adamant the interface had to be clearer, and that payment requests should show in just two states, Paid in green and Unpaid in red. One of the older testers made the point that when something happens it needs to be obvious, which is where the big confirmation ticks came from.
04 — Outcome & Reflection
Easy Invoice went from a set of AI-assisted research notes to a tested mobile prototype. A user can send a payment request in three inputs and a tap, see at a glance who has paid, and let the app send the reminders.
What changed after testing:
- Payment status was cut down to two states, Paid in green and Unpaid in red
- Large ticks were added after every confirmation, so users know an action worked
- The interface was simplified and made higher contrast after testers asked for more clarity
What's next:
- A system to manage clients within the app
- Simplifying the information architecture, particularly the menu
- A "pre-work agreement", so clients can agree costs before work starts
What I'd take into the next project:
- Validate AI-generated research with real interviews early, before it shapes the personas
- Test with older and less confident users from the first round, because they surfaced the clearest improvements