If Vyapar wanted accountants
to take it seriously,
it needed workflows
they could trust

If Vyapar wanted accountants
to take it seriously,
it needed workflows
they could trust

Product Recording

Chart of Accounts and Journal Entry were the first real step toward making
Vyapar usable for Chartered Accountants. The design challenge had a hard constraint:
make complex accounting workflows cleaner without making CAs relearn them.
CA-led
Work moved Vyapar's credibility
in accountant-led product conversations and demos
10K+
Directional path led to TaxOne by Vyapar
Suvit acquisition serving 10,000+ CA firms

Role Product Designer

Role
Product Designer

research Tally, Zoho Books, CA workflow research, User testing

research
Tally, Zoho Books,User testing

Validation Tested with multiple CA's pre-launch

Validation
Tested with multiple
CA's pre-launch

Collaborators PM with accounting domain expertise, DEVS, QA

Collaborators
PM with accounting
domain expertise, DEVS, QA

Why this existed

COA and JE weren't features. They were the entry point
into a much larger accounting journey.

Vyapar already helped businesses with billing. But for Chartered Accountants to trust the product,
the first two steps of the accounting chain had to work correctly and feel professional.
Without that, nothing downstream - Trial Balance, Financial Statements, Tax Filing - was credible.

Chart of Accounts
Journal Entries
Ledgers
Trial Balance
Financial Statements
Tax & Compliance
  • Chart of Accounts
    Journal Entries
    Ledgers
  • Trial Balance
    Financial Statements
    Tax & Compliance

Correct first, then usable, that was the non-negotiable order. A clean JE that let users enter incorrect accounting logic
would be worse than Tally. Getting the domain right with the PM before any screen design was essential.

RESEARCH

Accounting was new to me.
I had to learn the domain before I could design for it.

Before touching a frame, I worked closely with the PM to understand what COA and JE actually do,
why CAs create them, how logic changes per account type,
and what keyboard-driven behavior looks like in a JE workflow.
Not something I could infer from outside, it had to be understood from inside.

Tally — dominant but painful

Used because it's the standard, not because it's easy. Text-heavy, too many steps for simple actions, hard for new users. The goal: understand what CAs expected, then strip friction without breaking familiarity.

  • Tally — dominant but painful

    Used because it's the standard, not because it's easy. Text-heavy, too many steps for simple actions, hard for new users. The goal: understand what CAs expected, then strip friction without breaking familiarity.

Zoho Books — cleaner, still dense

Better visually, but COA and JE showed too many decisions at once. JE felt field-heavy during routine use. Direction confirmed: simpler to scan, without requiring relearning.

  • Zoho Books — cleaner, still dense

    Better visually, but COA and JE showed too many decisions at once. JE felt field-heavy during routine use. Direction confirmed: simpler to scan, without requiring relearning.

The goal was not to reinvent accounting.
It was to remove friction from it.

The insight that changed the JE design direction

CAs create journal entries mostly using the keyboard. That single behavioral fact changed everything. I wasn't designing a form, I was designing a workflow for expert users who need to move fast with zero interruption. Every interaction decision flowed from that.

COA — the hardest structural problem

How do you show a complex account hierarchy
without making it feel heavy?

The COA listing had to show system-defined accounts, parent accounts, sub-accounts,
long hierarchies, and deep structures all at once. A flat list collapsed immediately.
Three structural decisions resolved it.

# 1

Side navigation

Introduced side nav to move between account groups, parent accounts, and sections. Solved hierarchy navigation and reduced cognitive load in one structural decision — less scrolling, clearer access.

# 2

Deliberate information hiding

Didn't repeat account type or parent name when already visible from the hierarchy. Removed document-related fields confirmed by CAs as rarely used. Lighter form, same real utility.

# 3

Visual weight calibration

System, parent, and sub-accounts needed distinct visual treatment. Too subtle: unreadable structure. Too bold: noisy screen. Multiple rounds of type scale, spacing, and indentation to find the right balance.

Journal Entry — speed and flow for expert users

Four decisions that made JE feel built for
how accountants actually work.

# 1

Show the working area at once

Most platforms spread JE fields across a scrolling page. Redesigned so the full working area was visible without movement — eliminating the spatial overhead of every transaction.

# 2

Cursor follows accounting logic

Debit-oriented account → cursor jumps to debit field. Credit-oriented → credit field. The interface followed accounting logic, not generic form sequencing. Fewer keystrokes per entry.

  • # 1

    Show the working area at once

    Most platforms spread JE fields across a scrolling page. Redesigned so the full working area was visible without movement — eliminating the spatial overhead of every transaction.

  • # 2

    Cursor follows accounting logic

    Debit-oriented account → cursor jumps to debit field. Credit-oriented → credit field. The interface followed accounting logic, not generic form sequencing. Fewer keystrokes per entry.

# 3

Next row anticipates the balance

After entering a debit or credit value, the next row guided toward the balancing entry. Matched how accountants actually think about double-entry — reduced mental overhead in repetitive flows.

# 4

In-flow creation, never break context

Missing party, customer, or bank account? Create it from the same screen, pre-filled with existing context. No navigation away, no lost state, no workflow interruption.

  • # 3

    Next row anticipates the balance

    After entering a debit or credit value, the next row guided toward the balancing entry. Matched how accountants actually think about double-entry — reduced mental overhead in repetitive flows.

  • # 4

    In-flow creation, never break context

    Missing party, customer, or bank account? Create it from the same screen, pre-filled with existing context. No navigation away, no lost state, no workflow interruption.

Progressive disclosure applied to both COA and JE

Sub-account fields in COA only appeared when the user was creating a sub-account. Secondary JE fields stayed hidden until needed. Focused the default path on what CAs needed most of the time, lighter without reducing capability.

The balance held throughout

Familiar enough to trust. Simpler enough to prefer.

When professionals have built habits around a workflow for years, those habits aren't friction to remove,
they're mental models to respect. Improving usability without disrupting
the mental model was the real design constraint throughout.

Kept familiar

Workflow structure

Overall step order, accounting mental model, basic COA and JE structure CAs already expected. No surprises in the fundamental sequence.

Simplified

Field density and navigation

Fewer visible fields by default, less scrolling, faster account access, cleaner hierarchy, smoother keyboard flow, in-flow creation.

Fewer visible fields by default, less scrolling, faster account access, cleaner hierarchy, smoother keyboard flow, in-flow creation.

Tradeoff accepted

Launch before full polish

1 year development: new accounting logic, existing code constraints, high QA complexity for financial workflows. Not every refinement shipped at launch.

CA testing shaped the workflow — not just the surface

CAs consistently flagged: too many fields visible when rarely needed, too much scrolling, account creation takes too many steps. Those three inputs directly produced the final design. Testing changed the workflow logic, not just the visual layer.

Impact

The most significant outcome was directional, not metric-based.

Vyapar onboarded a meaningful number of CAs, and COA/JE made the product more credible in accountant-led demos,
appreciated by the sales team and founder.

The larger outcome: this work helped the company build confidence in the CA product path,
which eventually led to acquiring Suvit (now TaxOne by Vyapar), which serves 10,000+ firms and 30,000+ accountants.
COA and JE didn't cause that alone — but they were the first credible step.

I later designed the TaxOne logo and led the website revamp.

Reflection

In high-trust financial workflows,
familiarity matters as much as simplicity.

# 1

On domain-heavy design

You cannot design from outside a domain you don't understand. The investment in learning accounting before touching a frame paid back on every decision about what to show, hide, or simplify — because I understood why each piece mattered professionally.

# 2

Correct first, usable second

For financial workflows, accuracy isn't negotiable. A beautiful JE that let users enter incorrect logic would be worse than Tally. Getting the logic right first meant I could focus on reducing friction rather than defending trustworthiness.

  • # 1

    On domain-heavy design

    You cannot design from outside a domain you don't understand. The investment in learning accounting before touching a frame paid back on every decision about what to show, hide, or simplify — because I understood why each piece mattered professionally.

  • # 2

    Correct first, usable second

    For financial workflows, accuracy isn't negotiable. A beautiful JE that let users enter incorrect logic would be worse than Tally. Getting the logic right first meant I could focus on reducing friction rather than defending trustworthiness.

# 3

On familiarity as constraint

When professionals have built habits around workflows for years, those habits aren't friction to remove — they're mental models to respect. Better without being different. That's the hardest target in enterprise UX.

# 4

What made this different

Less visual invention, more designing trust and speed inside a complex domain. Designing for expert users required deep understanding of their professional context — not generic UX intuition applied from outside.

  • # 3

    On familiarity as constraint

    When professionals have built habits around workflows for years, those habits aren't friction to remove — they're mental models to respect. Better without being different. That's the hardest target in enterprise UX.

  • # 4

    What made this different

    Less visual invention, more designing trust and speed inside a complex domain. Designing for expert users required deep understanding of their professional context — not generic UX intuition applied from outside.

Summarised by sahil.ai

CoA & JE (Accounting Features)

Vyapar needed accountants to take it seriously. That meant building workflows CAs could actually trust. Sahil started by learning accounting from scratch, sitting with the PM to understand the logic before touching a single frame. The goal wasn't to reinvent accounting, it was to remove friction from it. They studied Tally, the dominant benchmark, and found something interesting, accountants used it because it was the standard, not because it was easy. That gap became the opportunity. The result was a cleaner, faster Chart of Accounts and Journal Entry. Familiar enough to trust, simpler enough to prefer, and the first credible step toward a CA product direction.