Money tracker

Money tracker – Fynza

Design and development of an iOS app

Download on App Store

Worked on the project with a marketer. Picked a popular niche. Broke down competitors. Built our own. And simplified the user journey a lot.

This was my first time being both designer and developer. So I chose a simpler task. Wanted to ship and not drown along the way.

To make the picture complete, I did everything myself. Branding. App Store assets. And onboarding with paywall.

7 days

from idea to App Store

Idea and wireframes

User flow and architecture

Started with the simplest scenario. Main screen — one clear entry and quick overview. Add — amount, category, and color. Analytics — optional, no overload. Settings — only what’s really needed.

Home

I want to quickly see spending for the period. I want to know the total. To understand how much I spend.

Add

I want to add an expense in a few seconds. Enter amount. Pick a category or create one. So I can easily read the list and charts later.

Summaries and charts

I want to check summaries from time to time. I want to see spending structure. To understand the trend and not rely on gut feeling.

Development

Building the app in Xcode

Built the shell in Xcode and laid out the structure by screens. Wrote in Swift and used Cursor for help. Quickly learned that “AI will do it all” doesn’t work. Had to get into both SwiftUI and UIKit. Then spent a long time cleaning up and fixing.

First prototypes

At first I trusted AI. Wanted to build fast and painlessly. Spoiler: the pain still came.

The struggle

While learning, I kept changing approach. One way, then another. Ended up with something that looked like an app. But the design had to stay flexible. Lacked practice and didn’t want to box myself in.

Back to the base scenario

After experiments, returned to the original idea. Laid it out by hand. By then I understood the syntax. And knew where to look and what to fix.

App Store marketing

Working on the listing

I underestimated this at first. Then realized a simple thing: without packaging, the app won’t be seen. Looked at competitors. How they frame the value. What screens they use. What they put in the first seconds. Discussed a lot with the marketer on how to sell it.

References

First shock was strong. Some references looked like scams. But that’s part of the market too.

Drafts

Tried to mix aggressive patterns with my content. Felt odd. I’m used to whitespace and calm colors.

Finally done

Found a compromise. Made bigger headings and stronger elements, but didn’t turn it into a banner. Toned down the background. Softened the layout with cards. Left enough room for text.

Icon

Simple idea: dollar and scanner. Did it neatly with right proportions. For light and dark theme. Looks good on the home screen.

Onboarding

Justify the purchase

If someone has already downloaded — don’t lose the moment. Made a short three-screen onboarding. Then — paywall. Closed the app and added first expense — paywall again. Yes, it’s a trend. And yes, it works.

Shell

To avoid suffering with themes and translations, made a universal shell. It handles any text length.

Xcode

Built one shell first. Filled content from code with static data. Faster to check logic.

Result

Onboarding came together calmly. By then I had a sense of how to do it faster and with fewer mistakes.

Conclusions

Logic and screens first. Pretty pixels later.
A build plan in Xcode is needed upfront. Otherwise it’s a quest.
Marketing and onboarding eat time. That’s normal.

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