Unconstrained invoicing

~64% of researched invoices never get sent, with $13B+ stuck in drafts. I led the from-scratch rethink of QuickBooks invoicing to fix create-to-send.

Three jobs, one crowded screen

The editor wasn't just hard to use. It quietly broke create-to-send.

QuickBooks tried to do three jobs on one surface: Edit buried line items under customer chrome, Settings mashed payments and customization together, and Design hid templates and color pickers inside an accordion.

• “Worst screen orientation ever. You have to scroll down just to see any details of the invoice. The entire top section is wasted space.”

  Edit · layout

• “I create it in QuickBooks but I always add some colors to it in Canva before I send it from my own email.”

  Design · off-platform

What we optimized for

The calls we made when every option had a real downside.

• 

  Create-to-send vs. showing every field

  Prioritized line items and totals on the edit canvas; moved advanced and cohort-specific controls into Settings.

• 

  One editor vs. cohort-specific flows

  Kept AE, MAIP, and merchant in a single invoice experience, with conditional payment sections instead of forking the product.

• 

  North-star vision vs. incremental rollout

  Defined the full Edit · Settings · Design split upfront; shipped payments settings first while the Design tab targets a later release.

One AI toolchain, from insight to shipped code

The call: split Edit, Settings, and Design into distinct modes, then use AI to run that call end to end, solo, in days instead of quarters.

I clustered Edit-tab VOC into layout principles with Claude, audited every field in Figma (essential / conditional / hidden), and built a clickable Edit · Settings · Design prototype in Cursor, so leadership reacted to real flows, not static frames. That same toolchain carried into production: when polish sat in the eng backlog, I opened PRs in the codebase and traced defects with Claude. Three examples:

• Insight → prototype

  Claude to cluster, Cursor to prototype

  Clustered Edit-tab VOC into layout principles with Claude, then built the clickable Edit · Settings · Design prototype in Cursor, so leadership reacted to real flows, not static frames.

• Pull requests

  UI polish merged to production

  Navigated the QBO codebase in Cursor, opened PRs for spacing, copy, and component fixes, and shipped them through normal review.

• Bug fixes

  LLM-assisted debugging

  Traced invoicing defects with Claude, patched regressions, and merged the fixes the same week.

From north-star to shipping product

The team now shares one direction: Edit, Settings, and Design as separate modes. Payments settings shipped cleaner; Edit and Design roll out next (Design targeting August 2026). Throughout, I shipped production PRs and fixes rather than waiting for a handoff.