End-of-Month Summary

Challenge

At the end of the month, let users review how they did with their budget.

Solution

The end-of-month summary shows users how they did with their budget that month, and recaps their spending, income, bills and transfers. It shows if users were over/under estimates, and by how much. If you have extra cash left over in your budget, you can move it to your savings.

I aligned this page with onboarding and dashboard content, taking into account the design system components’ limitations and discrepancies between web and native.

In the future, users should be able to make changes to next month’s budget, and see categorical spending.

Insights study

Method: Survey, card sort

Research goals

What are the financial insights people find helpful in managing their monthly spending?
How long are these insights relevant for?
- When would users expect to stop seeing information about the previous month?
- Would they like to see a historical archive of these insights?
What information about their spending habits do users find helpful to see at the end of a month? What insights do they need about their previous month to:
- Comprehend how they arrived at their spending total
- Influence spending decisions they will make the next month
What will most encourage users to come back next month?

Summary

People prioritize insights that capture the current status or monthly total of the financial breakdowns they are already monitoring:
- Current checking account balance
- Total earned this month
- Total saved this month
- Total spent this month
- List of this month’s bills
- Amount left over in budget
People want to see insights that connect the month’s saving, spending, and payment behaviors to their financial goals:
- Tracking debt payments
- Tracking specific savings goals
- Projecting future wealth based on current habits
Salaried employees and gig workers prioritized the same insights in all instances, except for their total amount earned within a month and their current checking account balance. Tracking this information for longer than one month was rated higher among gig workers (81%, 70%) than salaried employees (56%, 44%).