Transforming a fragmented accounts receivable experience into a streamlined automation platform.
Dashboard
Responsive Web
Fintech
PROJECT OVERVIEW
ROLE
Senior Product Designer, end-to-end design ownership
PLATFORM
Web app
INDUSTRY
Fintech / Accounting / SaaS
TOOLS
Figma, Notion, and Pendo
DURATION
3 months
TEAM
1 PM, 4 Devs, 1 QA, 1 Designer
COLLABORATION
Product Management, UX Research, Content Design, and Engineering
01 — OVERVIEW
Accounts receivable automation is one of the most important parts of helping small businesses manage their cash flow. Yet the existing experience for managing automated customer communications was messy, fragmented, and difficult to navigate.
Businesses needed a better way to configure, manage, and monitor the communications that keep their receivables moving.
I led the end-to-end product design of a redesigned AR automation experience for Sage, bringing essential automation workflows into one centralized, organized platform.
The goal was to make powerful automation capabilities easier to understand, configure, and manage, regardless of a business’s size or technical experience.
Simplify.
Invoice Presentment
Payment Due Reminder
Overdue Reminders
Invite
Account Balance
Contact Verification
PROCESS
01
Discovery
02
UX Design
03
UI Design
04
Reflection
DESKTOP MOCKUPS
02 — DISCOVERY
The existing automation experience lacked the structure and organization needed to support a critical part of accounts receivable management. Configuring automations was overly technical and complicated, requiring users to navigate confusing settings without a clear understanding of how their configurations would behave.
This created a frustrating experience that led to low adoption, accidental automation of customer communications, and a lack of trust in the product. Users needed a simpler, more intuitive way to configure and manage automations with confidence.
Fragmented management
Automation workflows lacked a clear, centralized place to manage them.
Complex configuration
Setting up automations involved multiple decisions that could feel overwhelming.
Limited visibility
Businesses needed a clearer understanding of which automations were active and what was being sent.
Different business needs
Customers needed flexibility in choosing recipients, schedules, and communication preferences.
Subscription limitations
The experience needed to accommodate different capabilities across Basic and Premium plans.
This wasn’t a secondary feature. Automation is the bread and butter of the product.
Smaller teams getting started
Need setup to feel simple and safe, with clear limits. Automated messages to up to 20 customers, with an upgrade path to Premium.
Teams automating at scale
Need the same setup flow without the customer cap, plus room to manage more automations across more customers.
Finance & AR staff
The people doing the chasing today. They need to trust what goes out in their name. Who receives it, when, and exactly what it says.
01
Set up in minutes
A first-time user should see all six automations at a glance and know exactly where to start, with no setup done yet and nothing to undo.
02
Know who gets messaged
Before anything sends, the user sees exactly which customers will receive it and can include or exclude specific ones.
03
Control timing & language
Users set how often an automation runs, what time it sends, and whether it uses each contact’s preferred language.
04
Trust the message
Nothing sends blind. The user previews the exact template and can edit it before the automation goes live.
05
Manage after setup
Once automations exist, the user can toggle them on or off, edit them, and check what was actually sent.
03 — UX DESIGN
1
I introduced a centralized dashboard that brought the core automation workflows together. Businesses could now see their available automations, understand what each one did, and quickly identify which were active, inactive, or still needed configuration.
2
Making configuration approachable without sacrificing flexibility. I broke setup into three manageable steps reducing cognitive load and helping users understand what they were configuring before enabling an automation.
1 Configure
Define recipients, frequency, delivery time, and language preferences.
2 Select customers
Choose specific customers, include everyone, or exclude selected ones.
3 Review template
Review and customize messages with dynamic customer details, balances, invoices, and links.
3
Basic customers can configure automations for up to 20 customers; Premium customers get unlimited. Rather than treating the limit as a disconnected restriction, I communicated it within the relevant workflow and introduced the value of upgrading when it made sense.
4
Creating an automation is only part of the experience. I designed management views that turned automation from something users configured and forgot into something they could actively understand and manage.
Active / inactive states with a one-click toggle
Message history & delivery status in the Message Log
Upcoming scheduled communications
Value of using the product
How do users set up their first automation?
Pick automation · Rules · Customers · Template · Live. Confirming the template turns the automation on, and it appears in the Active Automations list.
How do users manage automations after setup?
Each automation has a toggle to switch it on or off, and an edit flow to change its rules, customers, or template. Turning one off stops future sends without deleting the setup.
How do users check what was sent?
Sent messages are tracked in the Message Log and the sent-automations overview, so the team can confirm what went out and when.
04 — UI DESIGN
Each card shows what the automation does and what it is worth to you: customers waiting, money outstanding, time to save. Users see the value before you set up anything.
SETUP MODAL · STEP 1
Rules in plain language, not system speak. Pick who gets messaged, how often, and when, and change any of it anytime.
SETUP MODAL · STEP 2
See exactly who gets messaged before anything sends. Include or exclude anyone right here, not after the fact.
SETUP MODAL · STEP 3
Preview the exact message your customers get, and edit it, before it ever goes out. Nothing sends blind.
Once it is on, each row shows what it sent, what is next, and when it runs again. One click to pause it or change it.
The Overview is the big picture: everything your automations did, in one place. At the top, messages sent in the last 30 days, and how they did: how many were read and delivered, and which ones need attention.
Below that, what is scheduled in the next 30 days, the value of invoices sent, and how fast customers are paying.
And at the bottom, the number that matters most to a busy team: the time the automations saved. The answer to "is this actually working?" is right there, in numbers.
05 — VALIDATION & ITERATION
I worked with UX research and conducted usability sessions with customers to evaluate the new workflows, identify friction points, and understand whether users could successfully configure and manage their automations. We tested the full loop: setting up a first automation, reviewing the customer list and template before turning it on, and managing it once it was live.
The testing showed substantial improvements in usability compared with the previous experience. Customer feedback supported the direction of the redesign and helped build confidence in the new approach. These findings informed continued refinement as the product moved toward phased development.
88%
Task success rate
6 minutes
Time on task
90%
Completion rate
06 — DELIVERY APPROACH
Because automation was central to the product’s value, the work went beyond the interface, it established a consistent foundation for how automation could be configured, managed, and expanded over time.
MVP
New UI & setup
Automations page, guided 3-step setup, active list.
MVP+1
Visibility
Sent-automations overview and Message Log.
MVP+2
Workflows
Set Up All, Customer Workflow, Invoice Workflow.
MVP+3
Scheduling
Scheduled messages.
07 — THE IMPACT
Replaced a fragmented, disorganized experience with a centralized automation platform.
Created a consistent, guided setup process across automation workflows.
Improved usability through customer testing and iterative design.
Introduced clearer visibility into automation activity and delivery.
Established a more scalable experience to support phased development.
Designed a flexible experience that accommodated subscription tiers.
08 — REFLECTION
“Business users need control over complex financial workflows, but they shouldn’t have to understand the complexity behind the software to use it.”
This project was an opportunity to solve a foundational product problem rather than simply introduce another feature. Making automation easier to configure, understand, and manage meant improving the experience at the heart of the platform.
The result was a more organized, approachable, and scalable foundation for AR automation. Next: watching how first users move from their first automation to a second and whether the Basic-to-Premium upgrade moment lands at the right time.