About
Category management is the organization of expenses into categories so funds can be allocated properly and managed effectively. It facilitates better tracking, analysis, and management of expenses.
The problem
Users were unable to properly track expenses tied to categories on the platform. The default categories set on the platform could also not be tracked.
The goal
The goal was to enable finer granularity and more precise organization of expenses, providing users with greater flexibility and control over their expense tracking and management processes.
Functional requirements
- A user-friendly interface for creating, editing, and managing expense categories, with options to specify category attributes and hierarchy levels.
- Support for creating hierarchical structures of categories, with options for nesting categories within parent categories to represent relationships and dependencies.
- Integration with expense submission forms and reporting tools to enable users to select appropriate categories from a predefined list when submitting expenses or generating reports.
Approach
I had a session with our users and stakeholders to better understand their needs and the problem. I then carried out research into various platforms utilising categories, and expanded my findings to solve for our context.
Creating categories and sub categories
Now users have various creation options depending on their use case, enhancing the usability of the system.
Creating a single category and sub category
Creating multiple categories and sub categories
Upload a CSV file
Category review
View key insights related to your category and improve resource allocation.
Review a category and view
Single and multiple category edit
Improve transactions
Get a detailed view of transactions tied to a category, and tie past and future transactions to a category.
Responsibilities
- Translated PRDs into design solutions that mapped complex taxonomy requirements to intuitive user interfaces
- Planned and executed feature testing with users and engineers to validate category workflows before launch
- Partnered with customer success and marketing to develop a coordinated launch and adoption strategy
- Drove roadmap prioritisation by aligning design recommendations with business impact and user needs
Key takeaways
Designing category management revealed how much complexity hides behind seemingly simple taxonomy. The real challenge wasn't building CRUD interfaces — it was understanding how finance teams mentally organise spending and translating that into a flexible hierarchy that scales. Investing in CSV import and bulk editing early proved critical for enterprise adoption, and tying categories directly to transaction views closed the loop between policy and practice.