A unified accounting system is tough to implement when you have several business outlets in different states and countries. Businesses also struggle with documenting their transactions, keeping accurate financial records and properly balancing their accounts. All of these stand in the way of businesses and organizations reaching their full potential.
We want to make it easier for businesses with multiple locations to manage their finances and swiftly account for all of their transactions in one location rather than always having to visit the bank and go through the tedious signatory to account routine. You may quickly monitor and balance your account with its assistance, growing and elevating your company as a result.
Last but not least, what is a business without customers? We want to assist you in managing and building relationships with them.
The goal of the research was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the issue as it directly impacts the users, discovering their requirements and frustrations and improving their experience. As a result, I was better able to relate to and comprehend the problems that our users were experiencing. Interviews were conducted as part of the research to obtain some qualitative data.
Examining the Pain Points
Here are some of the paint points I highlighted during research:
- Having trouble confirming customer payments when banks take too long to provide the notice, especially with international transfers.
- Accepting payments from customers to businesses that do e-commerce activity can be difficult.
- Having trouble keeping business books in order and maintaining accessible records.
- Having trouble managing business clients and preserving a relationship.
- Having trouble maintaining a single company account across many branches of the same firm.Having trouble collecting funds from abroad.
Brainstorming
We got together at this point to come up with the best strategy. In order to distill the sown ideas and input obtained from the team, I continued after the brainstorming by drawing up some of the most intriguing concepts. This phase was finalized and it included how-might-we inquiries. Mockups were created during this phase.
Competitive Analysis
I was able to determine what innovative solutions may be built and enhanced for our product by understanding how our competitors address similar customer needs.
Paystack
Overview: Paystack is a technology company solving payments problems for ambitious businesses. Our mission is to help businesses in Africa become profitable, envied and loved. By providing global and local payments for businesses.
Key Objectives:
- Providing worldwide payment services
- Enabling the integration of payment methods with all commerce services
Market Advantage:
Skillfully positioned themselves as a solution where you can receive payments from customers anywhere in the world.
Stripe
Overview:
Everything needed to create websites and apps that accept payments and send payouts internationally is included in Stripe. The tools from Stripe enable payments for every type of business, including online and in-person retailers, marketplaces, software platforms and subscription services.
Key Objectives:
- Providing payment gateway for eCommerce platforms
- Providing billing and payments for SaaS businesses
- Help marketplaces receive payments using their custom-built API
- Provide financial reporting
Market Advantage:
- Structured themselves as a solution where you can get paid by customers from anywhere in the world.
- Strengthening brand recognition and customer loyalty with their blog and posts.
Who am I designing for?
Based on the research I conducted, I was able to come up with two personas for the project as seen below.
%20(1).webp)
.webp)
Value Proposition- Customers
In the customer profile, you explain the work your client is attempting to do by emphasizing their pains and gains; it is used to track users' demands and position the organization to learn more about the customers' wants in order to correctly generate value.
Value Proposition- Business
Here, you list the items and services on which your value proposition is based, describing how the product features and services relieve pain and outline how they create gain.
User Stories
Two of the major pain points that some users faced are stated below
- As a user I want to be able to accept payments from clients so that I can be compensated for the services I provide.
- As a user I want to be able to allow my customers to set recurring payments.
- As a user I want to be able to generate paylinks that my clients may use to make payments.
- As a user I want to be able to add money to my wallet so that I can complete transactions.
- As a user I want to be able to manage and add customers to my business so that we can keep a nice working relationship.
- As a user I need to be able to accept payments in other currencies so that I can conduct business abroad.
- As a user I want to be able to add my employees to my business so that the team can handle activities effectively.
- As a user I need the ability to send payments from my dashboard so that I may pay for any services that we might require.
- As a user I need to be able to reconcile my accounts so that I can keep accurate records.
- As a user I want to be able to send invoices to my customers for payment.
- As a user I want to be able to accept payments via numerous payment methods so that users always have a way to pay.
- As a user I want to be able to issue refunds whenever a customer complains about a service and demands one
UserFlow
User flows assisted me in patterning the flow of the user's activities in the product from the entry point to the user's decisions and the resulting actions in order to account for each phase of the user's journey.
Site Map
After reviewing my personas and user journeys and keeping key features in mind, I began to consider the app's structure. I had a basic notion of keeping the structure simple with coexisting tiers because there is a lot of overlapping content and I wanted my visitors to be able to go easily from one page to the next.
Solutions
The solution had to include a mobile app and a dashboard; they both give comparable solutions but with minor differences based on the target audience and what they have available to work with in order to better meet their demands.
1. Onboarding Screens
The onboarding process is designed to be quick and easy in order to improve the user experience by accounting for various business categories, including small, large, and freelancers.
All extraneous steps were deleted to lower the rate of drop-off by clients who did not have the requisite documentation to complete the procedure. So, after signing up, you have restrictions on certain transaction actions until you have submitted the proper paperwork, so we always give you value.
2. Simplified Dashboard
As a user, your first daily interaction is with the dashboard where you receive a summary of reports and latest activities that have happened in your company as regards financial activities, hence the design of the dashboard had to be optimized to be easy to read, prioritize the data visualization to display info from the highest priority to the least and still give room to take major actions in the product.
3. My Business
During design iteration, one of the solutions we came up with was this section that would house features that businesses would require. It would also be a place for upcoming features for businesses as the navigation was already full.
This section is where businesses access revenue, customers, invoice, paylinks and POS.
4. Collect Call - To -Action
The Collect CTA button is a quick action button that opens a modal with actions that any business would most likely want to perform quickly on the go.
There is no need to dig deeper into the app to find the necessary actions. We discovered what users would most likely want to do during research and curated them here.
5. Customer Management
A good customer and business relationship strengthens the bonds that customers have with businesses, causing them to stay longer with a business that relates to them better, and the business would know how best to serve the customers because you can directly message the customers and they receive the messages in the mails and SMS, and every reply you receive in the customer's thread on your dashboard.
You may add new clients, delete customers, place them on services, and even send them messages on special occasions such as popular holidays and birthdays to strengthen your bond even further.
6. Bank Transfer (Receiving & Sending)
Every business, even freelancers, must make payments as well as receive them. To accomplish this, we provide you with the ability to receive and transfer funds from your dashboard to any bank account in Africa and beyond for any of your business branches.
For example, a branch in Abuja and another in New York can both initiate a business transaction from the same business account for a service required by the company, and if an approval chain is established, necessary parties would approve before payment is sent to anywhere in the world, and you would be able to both monitor the status of the transaction.
7. Payment Link
A pay link is a one-time link produced by an organization that customers can use to make payments repeatedly or that can be shared with several customers to make payments using several payment methods that the customer(s) feels comfortable with, saving the business time and hassle. The amount to be paid can be specified by the company, or it can be left up to the client.
This is also widely utilized and integrated with e-commerce systems, where it is used as a payment portal for purchased goods that is integrated into the eCommerce platforms.
8. Rewards & Referrals
We wanted to find a way to reward users for performing several actions within the app. It was also a way to keep users constantly engaged with our app. The result was this rewards and referrals feature. Users can see their points and badges on the dashboard, clicking on it will take them to the rewards & referrals page.
