SmartBank Business: making a complex financial tool usable beyond accountants
Smart Bank • 2023
Kartoteka is a feature within SmartBank Business designed for managing debts and financial obligations.
It is one of the most critical tools for financial control, but also one of the most complex to understand.
In practice, it was used almost exclusively by accountants, while business owners rarely interacted with it — despite its potential to provide full visibility into financial obligations.
Context
Kartoteka was difficult to use and hard to understand.
As a result:
- users struggled with scenarios;
- made frequent errors;
- did not fully understand the product;
- engagement remained low even among accountants.
At the same time, early research showed that business owners needed clear visibility into financial obligations — a need Kartoteka could solve, but failed to deliver due to complexity.
Problem
The issue went beyond UI.
Kartoteka:
- was overly complex and overloaded;
- did not communicate its value;
- required expert-level understanding;
- lacked clear entry points;
- did not account for different user roles.
As a result:
- accountants used it with effort;
- business owners delegated it entirely;
- the product lost a significant portion of its potential value.
Opportunity
There was a clear opportunity:
If the product could be simplified:
- business owners could start using it directly;
- engagement and usage frequency would increase;
- perception of the product as a financial control tool would improve;
- it would contribute more to overall product metrics.
My Role
I led the full redesign of Kartoteka as a product.
Responsibilities included:
- analyzing metrics and identifying root causes;
- deep domain immersion;
- running discovery and user research;
- redesigning user flows and structure;
- improving activation within the feature;
- driving improvements in product metrics.
What I Did
Deeply immersed in the domain
At the start, I had no prior experience in this area.
To build a meaningful product, I:
- worked directly with accountants;
- studied real workflows;
- analyzed how financial decisions were made.
This allowed me to understand not just the interface, but the logic behind the product.
Ran full discovery
Conducted research including:
- in-depth interviews with accountants and business owners;
- session analysis;
- behavioral pattern identification;
- mapping drop-off points.
Key insight:
- accountants prioritize functionality and speed;
- business owners need clarity and transparency.
Rebuilt the product for different roles
Kartoteka stopped being “a tool for accountants”.
Redesigned:
- interaction logic;
- product structure;
- usage scenarios;
- entry points.
The result:
- simpler workflows for accountants;
- clearer understanding for business owners;
- broader usability across roles.
Simplified core flows
Focused on reducing complexity:
- removed unnecessary steps;
- reduced cognitive load;
- clarified scenarios;
- introduced clear entry points.
Users could now understand what to do and why.
Improved activation within the feature
Focused on faster value delivery:
- reduced time-to-first-value;
- simplified entry into the feature;
- removed early friction.
Users began reaching value much faster.
Worked through iterations and feedback
The product evolved through:
- hypothesis-driven changes;
- testing and validation;
- repeated user interviews;
- iterative improvements.
Even conservative users — accountants — responded positively to the changes.
Challenges
The challenge was twofold:
- 1. a complex and unfamiliar domain;
- 2. a conservative user group resistant to change.
The task was to:
- deeply understand the domain;
- simplify without losing meaning;
- expand usability beyond expert users;
- shift established behavior patterns.
Results
The redesign had a strong impact:
- feature retention increased by ~30–50%
- engagement among business owners grew by ~30–40%
- usage frequency increased;
- users understood the product faster;
- error rates decreased;
- time to complete key tasks was reduced.
Additionally:
- the product became usable beyond accountants;
- perception improved as a financial control tool;
- the feature contributed more to core product metrics.
Why This Project Matters
This project is about turning complexity into clarity.
It highlights:
- the importance of domain understanding;
- designing for multiple user roles;
- working with product meaning, not just interface;
- simplifying without losing depth.
This is the kind of work where product impact comes not from adding features, but from rethinking them.