SpendWise
TIMELINE
August - 2026
DURATION
2 weeks
TOOLS
Figma, FigJam & Claude
PROTOTYPE
SpendWise
01
Visibility
Spending is spread across different sources, so users don’t have a clear overall picture.
02
Understanding
Raw transactions do not automatically explain patterns or highlight what matters.
03
Action
Even after noticing overspending, users may not know what to do next.
03
Behavior
Impulse purchases happen in the moment, while spending analysis often happens much later.
Aarohi opens SpendWise for the first time.
The onboarding quickly explains that SpendWise can help her understand her spending, set budgets, and stay on track. She moves through the onboarding and verifies her email and mobile number.
The next step asks her to connect a bank account. She pauses, slightly hesitant.
“Wait… I'm giving a new app access to my bank transactions?”
She reads through the information carefully. SpendWise explains that it only accesses transaction information needed for spending insights, cannot make payments or move her money, and that she can disconnect her account later. Reassured, she selects her bank and gives consent.
She selects the accounts she wants to connect and taps Connect. A simple animation shows her transaction data is being imported from her bank into SpendWise
“Ah, okay. It’s importing my transactions. That’s why this is taking a moment.”
Once connected, Shreya lands on Home. She sees “₹18,400 spent, from your connected accounts” and button to set monthly budget.
She scrolls down and sees her spending broken down into categories such as Food, Travel, and Shopping. She notices that the amounts are already populated, even though she hasn't set any category budgets yet.
“Oh, It’s already sorting my spending into categories.”
She then sets her monthly budget at ₹30,000. Immediately, Spendwise shows her how much she has left and how much time remains in the month.
The progress indicator & numbers helps me understand my current position without having to calculate anything myself.
The budget now becomes something she can actively track rather than a number she has to remember.
She opens the Transactions tab. She notices transactions such as Swiggy → Food, Myntra → Shopping, and Blinkit → Groceries.
“Nice. It recognized what these payments were for.”
“Why did some transactions automatically become part of my spending while others didn't?”
While she’s figuring this out, she taps Add as expense on an unclear transaction, the bottom sheet explains that she needs to choose a category before the transaction can be included in her spending and then she adds a few unclear transactions as expenses.
Now she understands that recognizable transactions can be categorized automatically, while unclear ones need her input.
She started reviewing the transactions that need her input.
While categorizing them, she comes across a Gym membership transaction. She can’t find a gym category, so she creates one herself and adds the transaction.
“Okay, I can create a category when I need one.”
Then she notices a ₹5,000 UPI transaction. She remembers that she had paid ₹5,000 on behalf of her friend, but only ₹1,000 was actually her own spending.
Wait, this wasn’t all my spending.
As she looks for a way to account for only her share, she taps Add as Expense and notices the Adjust Amount option. The label catches her attention, maybe this is exactly what she needs.
She opens Adjust amount and selects Count a specific amount, enters ₹1,000, and chooses Shopping as the category. She saves the changes. Now the transaction clearly shows Adjusted, with the breakdown showing ₹1,000 counted as shopping and ₹4,000 excluded. She feels reassured because her spending total now reflects what she actually spent.
Aarohi goes back to the Home screen and opens View all under category spending. She can see her ₹30,000 monthly budget and starts assigning budget limits to individual categories.
She sets ₹6,000 for Food. As she enters the amount, SpendWise immediately shows that ₹24,000 is still left to assign.
“Okay, I have ₹24,000 left for everything else.”
She continues setting budgets for a few more categories. At the top, she can see how much is left to assign, giving her a clear overview of how her monthly budget is being distributed.
Shreya opens the Food category to get a closer look at her spending. At the top, she can see her ₹6,000 budget, current spending, and remaining amount. Below, she sees all the transactions included in the Food category. She notices several small transactions that didn't feel significant when she made them.
“I barely noticed these small amount, but they really add up over time.”
Seeing all the transactions together helps her understand where her Food budget is going and how small everyday spends are adding up.
Now she has a clear picture of where her money is going, how much she wants to spend in each area, and how much budget she has left for the month. Her goal is finally becoming clear: she doesn't just see her transactions anymore, she can understand her spending and make decisions about how she wants to manage it throughout the month.
One evening after work, she opens Spendwise to check how she is spending over time, instead of only checking what she has spent today.
“How have I actually been spending over the past few months?”
She opens Spending overview and selects an earlier month. She reviews her budget, spending, and category breakdown, and uses the graph to spot days when her spending was unusually high.
Now, wanting to understand the patterns better, she turns to Ask AI and asks for an overview of her spending over the last 3 months. Spendwise brings the key changes, budget performance, and spending patterns together in one view.
DECISION MAKING
Let's see what are the decisions i took to shape the experience of the product
1 - Why introduce the product through visuals first?
Before asking users to do anything, I wanted them to understand what Spendwise can actually do for them. So I introduced the product through simple visual onboarding screens, paired with short supporting copy that communicates its core value upfront.
The idea was simple: show the value first, then ask for commitment. This gives users enough context to understand why the steps that follow are worth taking.
2 - Why ask about users’ money goals?
I wanted to know what users are actually trying to achieve with their money, rather than making assumptions.
For the MVP, this gives the AI assistant an early understanding of what matters to each user, helping it make future conversations and recommendations more relevant. For future, this context can also support more personalized saving and financial guidance.
3 - Why transparency matters when connecting a bank account?
Connecting a bank account means giving Spendwise access to sensitive financial information, so I added a consent and transparency layer explaining the information being accessed. It also has the potential to become a major drop-off point if users aren't clear about what they're sharing, why it's needed, and what happens to their information.
The thinking here was informed by India's Account Aggregator framework, where financial information sharing is consent-driven. RBI's directions specify that financial information cannot be retrieved or shared through an Account Aggregator without the customer's explicit consent.
4 - Making the wait feel intentional & using the waiting state as reassurance
After connecting an account, the data doesn't appear instantly. Rather than leaving users staring at a static loader, I used a reassuring animation to show that their financial data is being retrieved and processed, while also setting the expectation that this may take a moment. This makes the wait feel more intentional and helps users understand what is happening while they wait, especially important when handling something as sensitive as financial information.
5 - Putting the focus on what’s left, not what’s spent
I wanted the first thing users see to answer a simple question: “How much can I spend from here?” So I prioritized the remaining amount over the amount already spent, and connected it with the days left in the month. This makes the remaining amount more actionable and easier to plan around.
6 - Making the Budget Relationship Clear
Users had to set a monthly budget and then assign budgets to individual categories, but the two felt disconnected. There was no clear indication, making it difficult to know what they could assign to each category. I introduced a dynamic budget calculation on the category screen that keeps the total monthly budget visible and shows how much has been assigned and how much remains. While setting each category budget, the bottom sheet updates this amount in real time, helping users understand their available budget as they distribute it. This makes the relationship between the monthly and category budgets explicit and prevents users from accidentally exceeding their total budget.
7 - Bringing all transaction decisions into one flow
While refining and testing the flow, I found that the first approach was creating unnecessary choices and hiding some important actions.
BEFORE - ITERATION 01
A user might only have 5-6 categories active for the current month, but the sheet showed all system categories, adding decision friction when the interaction needed to be quick.
The bottom sheet should answer what the user wants to do with the transaction. It can be fully counted through a category, partially counted through Adjust Amount, or excluded. But this flow only answered “Which category?” forcing users to leave the flow and navigate to transaction details to adjust the amount, creating a broken decision flow.
The custom category flow wasn't scalable. The first iteration tried to handle category creation within the same bottom sheet, making the sheet complex as more actions were added.
AFTER - ITERATION 02
I prioritized the user's active categories first, while keeping the complete system list under "More Categories". This keeps the most relevant choices within two taps which requires minimal effort.
I brought Adjust Amount into the same decision flow instead of hiding it inside transaction details.
I separated category creation into its own flow, keeping the decision surface focused while creating a more scalable pattern for future actions.
For two action buttons, I used different visual treatments to clearly separate two different paths because they lead users into different flows, so this makes the choice easier to understand at a glance.
8 - Adjust Amount: From a Wrong Mental Model to a Clearer Flow
BEFORE - ITERATION 01
My first version used “Adjust Transaction” with Split 1, Split 2, Add Split, and a running total. The intention was to let users divide a transaction and decide what should count towards spending. But when I tested it with 5 users, the same mental model kept appearing, users assumed they were splitting the transaction between people. The interface was teaching them a different problem than the one Spendwise was actually solving.
AFTER - ITERATION 02
I went back to the core product goal and asked: What does the user actually need to accomplish here? It only needs to answer one question: How much of this transaction should count toward my spending? That led me to simplify the problem into two clear outcomes: Exclude the entire amount
and Count a specific amount toward spending.
I renamed Adjust Transaction → Adjust Amount to reflect what the user is actually changing. When the user selects Exclude entire amount, they can simply save and remove the entire transaction amount from their spending calculation. When they select Count a specific amount, the section expands to reveal the relevant inputs. This creates a much cleaner mental model.