Finance ERP System
Finance ERP System
Reducing human error and streamlining bulk payments
Reducing human error and streamlining bulk payments
The problem
The problem
The problem
The current payment run process in the finance industry is prone to one of the biggest pain points dating back thousands of years - human error.
Imagine you need to process 100s of invoices daily and you mistake £10,000 for £100,000 - mistakes are inevitable we are only human - but what if we could create a user experience that support our users to mitigate the amount of mistakes made.
The current payment run process in the finance industry is prone to one of the biggest pain points dating back thousands of years - human error.
Imagine you need to process 100s of invoices daily and you mistake £10,000 for £100,000 - mistakes are inevitable we are only human - but what if we could create a user experience that support our users to mitigate the amount of mistakes made.
“Manual data entry has been around for so long, we’re bound to make a mistake but changing the industry isn’t an employee task”
“Manual data entry has been around for so long, we’re bound to make a mistake but changing the industry isn’t an employee task”
“Manual data entry has been around for so long, we’re bound to make a mistake but changing the industry isn’t an employee task”
At MHR, one small segment of our Finance ERP System is to handle bulk payments minimising human error by allowing our users to scan invoice documents via OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to reduce manual entry time by 95% and maintain accuracy of 98-99%
At MHR, one small segment of our Finance ERP System is to handle bulk payments minimising human error by allowing our users to scan invoice documents via OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to reduce manual entry time by 95% and maintain accuracy of 98-99%
Some elements have been hidden due to confidentiality
Some elements have been hidden due to confidentiality
What is a payment run?
What is a payment run?
What is a payment run?
Every business has outgoing expenditure and instead of paying invoices individually, you are able to bulk pay invoices saving time and effort.
Payment runs can be scheduled periodically (e.g. weekly or monthly) to align with payment terms and cash flow management.
Before approving payment runs finance teams can typically review and approve the batch to confirm accuracy and ensure compliance.
Every business has outgoing expenditure and instead of paying invoices individually, you are able to bulk pay invoices saving time and effort.
Payment runs can be scheduled periodically (e.g. weekly or monthly) to align with payment terms and cash flow management.
Before approving payment runs finance teams can typically review and approve the batch to confirm accuracy and ensure compliance.
Typical payment run stages
Typical payment run stages
Unorthodox but effective research
Unorthodox but effective research
Unorthodox but effective research
This project had no previous UI or research available and needed to be built from scratch (scary I know!)
Coincidentally, the AccountingWEB Live Expo was approaching, and I attended it alongside my 4 Product Managers. Immersing myself in an abstract environment surrounded by industry specialists provided a valuable opportunity to network and gain firsthand insights into our users in person!
This gave me the opportunity to observe vendors and competitors in action as they demoed their software, while also gaining insights into product opportunities and upcoming industry trends and changes.
I used the platform 'User Interviews' to connect with individuals specialised in the payment run process, gathering valuable insights into their thoughts and experiences to guide the creation of a product that surpasses their expectations.
This project had no previous UI or research available and needed to be built from scratch (scary I know!)
Coincidentally, the AccountingWEB Live Expo was approaching, and I attended it alongside my 4 Product Managers. Immersing myself in an abstract environment surrounded by industry specialists provided a valuable opportunity to network and gain firsthand insights into our users in person!
This gave me the opportunity to observe vendors and competitors in action as they demoed their software, while also gaining insights into product opportunities and upcoming industry trends and changes.
I used the platform 'User Interviews' to connect with individuals specialised in the payment run process, gathering valuable insights into their thoughts and experiences to guide the creation of a product that surpasses their expectations.
Attending the AccountingWeb Expo observing competitor demo’s and conducting user interviews to build empathy and understand user goals
Attending the AccountingWeb Expo observing competitor demo’s and conducting user interviews to build empathy and understand user goals
Collation of user interviews
Collation of user interviews
Collation of user interviews
From the user interviews conducted it allowed us to define 3 key personas for our product and build an empathy map.
This was a great foundation for the team to help us align on who our users are, what their responsibilities are, expectations, and what type of software they use.
Guiding us towards fostering a user-centric approach to designing and developing our product.
From the user interviews conducted it allowed us to define 3 key personas for our product and build an empathy map.
This was a great foundation for the team to help us align on who our users are, what their responsibilities are, expectations, and what type of software they use.
Guiding us towards fostering a user-centric approach to designing and developing our product.
Our 3 key personas
Our 3 key personas
Understanding the market
Understanding the market
Understanding the market
From the user interviews conducted it provided us realistic competitors who were after our target market, a UX Review would be conducted:
to highlight how they would support users in trying to achieve their goal
to showcase functionality options
to understand how intuitive the software was
From the user interviews conducted it provided us realistic competitors who were after our target market, a UX Review would be conducted:
to highlight how they would support users in trying to achieve their goal
to showcase functionality options
to understand how intuitive the software was
Screenshot of Intuit QuickBooks
Screenshot of Intuit QuickBooks
Iterate and iterate again until your PM shouts at you
Iterate and iterate again until your PM shouts at you
Iterate and iterate again until your PM shouts at you
As this was our first time shipping this to market, as a business and a team we wanted to try and be ‘perfect’ but being pragmatic nothing really gets shipped out as ‘perfect’ and thats the beauty of working in the UX industry.
After a few iterations of wire-framing, workshopping, and high-fidelity designs we landed on our MVP - once happy we recruited users and created a task to test how intuitive our solution was and if it would help solve the pain points raised in our user interviews.
This would give us a baseline to know if we were going in the right direction!
As this was our first time shipping this to market, as a business and a team we wanted to try and be ‘perfect’ but being pragmatic nothing really gets shipped out as ‘perfect’ and thats the beauty of working in the UX industry.
After a few iterations of wire-framing, workshopping, and high-fidelity designs we landed on our MVP - once happy we recruited users and created a task to test how intuitive our solution was and if it would help solve the pain points raised in our user interviews.
This would give us a baseline to know if we were going in the right direction!
Some of our users partaking in our Maze task
Some of our users partaking in our Maze task
User feedback
User feedback
User feedback
Snapshot of user feedback received after completing the task
Snapshot of user feedback received after completing the task
20
20
Participants
20
Participants
14
14
User interviews conducted
100%
100%
Success rate for completion of task
Success rate for completion of task
9.2/10
9.2/10
Average user rating
9.2/10
Average user rating
Cookie , Luna , and Gumdrop say thank you for visiting our portfolio!
Cookie , Luna , and Gumdrop say thank you for visiting our portfolio!
Cookie , Luna , and Gumdrop say thank you for visiting our portfolio!
Cookie , Luna , and Gumdrop say thank you for visiting our portfolio!