Improving efficiency with self-serve accounting platform connections
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Eliminated effort for Wayflyer staff to connect accounting platforms
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Introduced revenue step to tailor onboarding experience to user needs
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More secure, trustworthy process that no longer seems like phishing
Wayflyer provide short-term, flexible funding to eCommerce businesses, with funding decisions based on connected business data sources such as eCommerce platforms, analytics and banking. As part of a range of improvements to Wayflyer's onboarding, I designed a new flow for users to connect their accounting platform via Codat API integration, turning an operationally burdensome process into a slick, self-serve experience. This project required getting key stakeholders on board with improving on a previously suggested MVP while balancing scope, design quality and speed of delivery.
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The optimised flow, prioritising an API driven solution for the top 3 connected platforms to cover 85% of all accounting platform connections. The remaining 15% are directed to the Codat Link UI via the accounting landing page. Users are redirected back to Wayflyer after connecting
Customers onboarding to Wayflyer with revenue over $6M per year were required to connect their accounting platforms in order to get funding for their eCommerce business.
Wayflyer staff were identifying customers who needed to connect based on revenue and emailing them a link to Codat, a 3rd party connector for accounting platforms. This created friction in the sales process with the emailed link sometimes perceived as untrustworthy and a phishing attempt. It also created a lot of back and forth operationally to handle the connection outside of the Wayflyer app.
A solution was presented by the integrations team to put a link in the onboarding flow directing users to Codat. I appealed for this to be reconsidered on the basis that:
- Only 7% of users met the revenue threshold for needing to connect accounting platforms (although set to grow, would not be the majority of cases)
- The UI experience did not match the rest of onboarding's design patterns and standards. Codat's UI had some similar design elements to Wayflyer but they were used in different ways, introducing the potential for confusion
To ensure we collaborated to find the best solution, I ran a workshop with key stakeholders to lay out the various options and put forward my recommendation so we could consider tradeoffs as a group.
There were two main challenges to solve:
How might we make the connection experience in line with other onboarding connections (like eCommerce store) without increasing scope too much?
How might we collect revenue information during onboarding in a way that doesn't introduce too much friction in the process?
Comparing the flows for Codat API integration vs Codat Link which uses Codat's UI. Clearly presenting the different options to key stakeholders was critical in ensuring we could make decisions and tradeoffs effectively and collaboratively. This aligned the team on which direction to take
How might we align accounting platform connection with other onboarding connections (like eCommerce store) without increasing scope too much?
Use Codat's API to integrate the connector functionality with Wayflyer?
Given the estimate of 1 sprint per platform to use Codat's API, integrating all 12 platforms would have been way out of scope for the first release which needed to happen quickly because we were scaling fast.
Prioritise connectors with a data-informed approach
Instead, after gathering data on most commonly connected platforms, we decided to implement only the top 3 (Xero, Quickbooks and Netsuite) which would cover 85% of onboarding users that needed to connect accounting platforms. This gave us the benefits of a much shorter flow for the majority of users without piling on too much scope, which meant we could still deliver added value in a reasonable timeframe.
How might we collect revenue information during onboarding in a way that doesn't introduce too much friction in the process?
Reward user input with an early value exchange
From previous customer interviews and onboarding analysis, we knew that customers were generally keenly aware of their monthly revenue and would not have too much trouble recalling it when asked. To make it simple, I designed ranges to present rather than requiring an exact figure, and to reciprocate the user's effort, an indicative funding amount to be displayed on the next screen. This related back to earlier research where I discovered users would rather know how much funding they could get rather than provide a figure that they were looking to achieve.
Welcoming onboarding users with a fairer value exchange. Asking for a customer's monthly revenue allowed us to give an idea of how much funding they could get. Predefined ranges with large target sizes make revenue input faster
Prior to introducing the revenue step, we were instead asking how much funding customers wanted. Research showed this introduced hesitation because customers would rather know how much funding they could get and the slider was awkward to interact with on mobile
This project allowed Wayflyer to eliminate staff effort relating to 85% of accounting platform connections while also improving the onboarding experience for customers by offering a more secure and trustworthy method of providing data.
In terms of personal development, being able to clearly demonstrate tradeoffs to staff outside of my immediate team and improve the UX economically strengthened my relationships with others across the business, helping to build trust and confidence in design.