FINANCIAL BUDGET MANAGEMENT SUITE

Designing seven financial budget management products from 0 to 1, contributing to 6x revenue growth.

ClearGov builds financial budget management software for local governments, helping cities, towns, and counties plan, budget, and report with tools built specifically for the public sector.

When I joined, the product was early-stage and the design function was nonexistent. What followed was five years of building seven products from the ground up, establishing the design system that held them together, and watching a company grow 6x in the process.

My Role: I led all UX and product design across the ClearGov platform. Working directly with the CEO and Founder in the early years and later with product managers across the suite, I owned the work from initial research through UI delivery and user testing; while building the design system and patterns that scaled across every product we shipped.

Interface design of ClearGov's digital budget book publishing platform

How It Started

There was no design system. No component library. No established patterns. No other designers.

In those early years, the collaboration was direct. Working closely with the CEO and Founder, we'd work through product philosophy, feature sets, and MVPs together, moving from sketches to wireframes to high fidelity, running client interviews to pressure-test ideas as we went. The feedback loop was short and the decisions were real.

That context shaped everything that followed. When you're the only designer in the room, you're not just solving the problem in front of you. You're making structural decisions that will either compound well or compound badly as the product grows.

Some of our decisions held up. Some didn't. That's part of the story too.

Hand-drawn sketch from early brainstorming session

The Products

Government finance teams manage a surprisingly complex annual cycle, from strategic planning and budget requests through public reporting and capital project tracking. These products were designed to cover that entire journey.

Transparency

The first product in the suite. Local governments needed a way to share financial data with residents without requiring a finance degree to understand it. Most cities had the data. What they lacked was a way to present it clearly.

We turned complex budget data into accessible, auto-generated infographics for public-facing community profiles. Revenue breakdowns, expenditure trends, and demographic snapshots all presented in a format that residents could actually engage with.

The design challenge was restraint. Too much information and residents disengage. Too little and the platform loses credibility. We worked closely with finance directors to find that balance.

Screenshot of ClearGov's transparency product

Transparency

The design challenge was restraint. Too much information and residents disengage. Too little and the platform loses credibility. We worked closely with finance directors to find that balance.

Digital Budget Book

ClearGov's flagship publishing platform. Local governments were spending weeks and months manually assembling budget books from disconnected spreadsheets, Word documents, and email chains. The process was error-prone, time-consuming, and produced inconsistent results.

We redesigned the platform from the ground up to replace that manual assembly with collaborative, automated workflows. Department heads could contribute directly to their sections. Data updated automatically as budgets changed. GFOA compliance was built into the process, not bolted on afterward.

The result was 12% customer growth and hundreds of hours saved per budget cycle.

The full story is here.

Digital Budget Book

The result was 12% customer growth and hundreds of hours saved per budget cycle.

The full story is here.

Operational Budgeting

The core budgeting tool for finance teams. Before ClearGov, most municipalities were managing their operating budgets through a maze of spreadsheets, shared drives, and email threads. Every last-minute change created a ripple effect of manual reconciliation.

We replaced that process with a collaborative platform where department heads could submit funding requests directly, finance could review and track versions in one place, and everyone worked from the same data in real time.

One client cut more than 70 hours from their annual budget process. That kind of outcome made the work worth doing.

Screenshot of ClearGov's operational budgeting dashboard

Operational Budgeting

One client cut more than 70 hours from their annual budget process. That kind of outcome made the work worth doing.

Personnel Budgeting

Personnel costs typically represent 60-70% of a municipality's total budget, making them the highest-stakes part of the planning process. The complexity is real: salaries, benefits, vacancies, union agreements, and multi-year forecasting all have to work together.

We designed a product that let finance teams model every layer of personnel cost with confidence. Scenario planning tools made it easy to compare the budget impact of hiring decisions, benefit changes, or union negotiations before committing to a direction.

The goal was to give finance directors the clarity they needed to make defensible decisions, not just do the math faster.

Screenshot of ClearGov's personnel budgeting scenarios

Screenshot of ClearGov's personal budgeting compensation interface

Personnel Budgeting

The goal was to give finance directors the clarity they needed to make defensible decisions, not just do the math faster.

Capital Budgeting

Capital requests come from every department every year, each competing for limited funds and making a case for urgency. Without a structured process, prioritization becomes political rather than data-driven.

We designed a scoring and scenario planning features that gave finance directors a transparent, defensible framework for evaluating requests. Department heads could submit detailed requests with supporting documentation. Finance could score, rank, and model funding scenarios side by side.

The audit trail mattered as much as the decision-making tools. Being able to explain why a project was funded or deferred is just as important as making the right call.

Screenshot of ClearGov Capital Budgeting Dashboard

Capital Budgeting

The audit trail mattered as much as the decision-making tools. Being able to explain why a project was funded or deferred is just as important as making the right call.

Digital Financial Reporting

Local governments are required to publish annual financial reports that meet GFOA standards, a process that had traditionally meant weeks of formatting work in Excel and Word. The margin for error was high and the process was exhausting.

We built a purpose-built publishing product that replaced that workflow with structured templates, intelligent data mapping, and automatic updates as source data changed. Teams could collaborate across departments, track approvals, and publish in multiple formats from a single source.

For many clients, it was the first time the ACFR process felt manageable rather than overwhelming.

Digital Financial Reporting

For many clients, it was the first time the ACFR process felt manageable rather than overwhelming.

Strategic Planning

Connecting a city's long-term strategic goals to its annual budget is harder than it sounds. Most government teams were managing their strategic plans in PowerPoint or spreadsheets, completely disconnected from the financial decisions being made elsewhere.

We designed a planning tool that brought those two worlds together. Government teams could build strategic plans, assign action items, track progress in real time, and see directly how budget allocations mapped to their stated goals.

The public-facing output mattered too. Residents and council members needed to see the plan, not just hear about it.

Screenshot of ClearGov's strategic planning dashboard

Screenshot of ClearGov strategic planning project status

Screenshot, ClearGov strategic planning focus areas

The System Beneath

Eight products sharing a common design language doesn't happen by accident. Here's how our design system came to be over time (mistakes and all).

`The Trigger`

Inconsistency crept in around product number three (the early days). Onboarding flows worked differently from product to product. Components that looked the same in Figma were being built differently in code. Users were relearning interactions they'd already learned. That's when we made the decision to pump the brakes and build something more foundational.

`Building It Together`

The real shift came when we brought on a lead front-end engineer and started working from atomic design principles together. We weren't just standardizing visuals. We were building shared components that design and engineering both owned. That collaboration changed the quality of what we shipped.

What It Became

Over time the system grew to roughly 50 components and 15 core interaction patterns covering everything from data entry workflows to multi-step approval flows. When new designers joined the team, the system gave them a foundation to build from rather than starting from scratch.

More design system details

Collection of elements from ClearGov Design System

The Growth It Enabled

Five years of building, iterating, and scaling a design system across seven products. Here's what it added up to.

6x

Revenue Growth

Over five years, with design as a consistent part of every product decision along the way.

1,700+

Local Government Entities Served

Cities, towns, and counties across all 50 states managing their budgets and finances on the platform we designed.

29,000+

Public Sector Professionals

Finance directors, budget managers, department heads, and city administrators using the suite throughout their budget cycle.

1 to 5

Design Team Growth

The design system and patterns built in those early years gave new designers a foundation to build from, not a blank slate.

Next: 12% Customer Growth Redesign

Andy Mathers

Lancaster, PA USA

Colophon

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Accessibility: Designed and tested to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards, including color contrast ratios, semantic HTML, and keyboard navigation support.

Andy Mathers

Lancaster, PA USA

Colophon

Andy Mathers

Lancaster, PA USA

Colophon