Cards for spend management
Company
Factorial HR
Date
Apr 22 - Sep 22
Role
I worked on this project as a product designer. Main areas of responsibility:
Research and Discovery (custdev interviews, diagrams, user journeys)
Management (sprint planning and weekly reviews)
Design (end to end experience and branding)
Prototyping (user testing and validation, communication with stakeholders)
QA (ensuring 1:1 quality with designs through user story acceptance criteria)
Summary
Factorial aimed to revolutionize expense management by introducing a card-first experience to automate spending. Users had previously engaged with an early MVP as of January 22, consisting on a document-based approach to expense management. The early solution felt rudimentary and lacked key aspects such as spending automation through cards.
After custdev interviews, seeing that users loved the card-first idea, we put our energy and resources into finding a stable cards provider. This was a big turn in the product, showing we were taking action to fix the issues from the first MVP and bring users a complete solution they'd love.
Challenge
The challenge lay in convincing Factorial's existing customer base, which didn't trust card-based systems for employee expenses. The objective was to release an MVP that exclusively allowed physical cards and virtual cards for online payments. We had to leave out of scope having cards in digital wallets, knowing that a big amount of our users would miss this.
Simultaneously, the need to speed up feature delivery added complexity, requiring us to rely on our external card provider for the KYB (Know Your Business) process, knowing that we'd lose control on the process and the friction during the onboarding could be higher.
Solution
To create the cards solution for Factorial expenses, I started by learning about the users and understanding what they needed. I looked at what other companies were doing and got ideas from everyone involved. I then made a plan for how the features would work and started to work on the Product Requirements.
I prepared a simple design to show how the system would look and work, and I tested a basic version with a small group of users to see if it would function well. User feedback was crucial to making sure it met their needs. I had regular check-ins with the team and made changes based on their suggestions.
After many rounds of testing and feedback, we ended up with a solution that worked smoothly and exceeded what users were expecting.
Click on the image to see the Figma file
Research
Business context: Customer and market inputs - Closed lost deals, churn reasons, MRR impacted
Card providers research: Search for card providers other competitors relied on
User pain points: Need for automating spending, increased time-on-task in managing expenses
Competitive audit: PLEO, Payhawk, OKTicket, Spendesk, Revolut Business, Captio
Ideation
Product Requirements: Gather customer and market input to justify what and why we were doing; formulate hypothesis and success metrics; define design and functional requirements, and others
Diagrams and user journeys: Understand how the end to end solution should work
Wireframes: First representations of the solution for fast validation
Proof of concept and prototype: A usable prototype to validate with users with final look and feel
Validation
Stakeholder reviews: Sales cycle (Account executives and managers), C-Level
Design critiques: PDs, PMs, Engineers
User testing: Small groups of users (promoters and detractors)
Some features
Cards branding
I was in charge of giving Factorial's cards a consistent and recognizable look. While users couldn't customize the cards, I made sure they carried Factorial's unique style, both in physical and virtual cards. It was about creating a design that stayed true to Factorial's brand identity, providing a familiar experience for users.
Landing page
The blankslate page was crafted to not only facilitate account creation but also to build awareness and engage users. It aimed to introduce users to the new card-first approach, setting the tone for a seamless and user-friendly expense management experience.
Cards list
This feature let managers easily navigate through their employees' cards with a convenient list view. Employees, with fewer cards on average, could view their cards in a grid layout for a quick and tailored overview. This user-friendly design ensured efficient card management within the payroll system.
Card details
This page offered a preview for viewing card details, including the card balance and the ability to set card controls. This streamlined feature provided users with quick access to essential card information and control settings.
Transactions
To enhance transparency and user control, we developed a clear and comprehensive view of financial activities. Managers could now effortlessly monitor the transactions of their employees, empowering them with a real-time understanding of the financial landscape.
Account details
This feature within provided users with a detailed snapshot of their account information, including details for adding funds through a bank transfer. Users could easily access their IBAN, SWIFT code, and bank name.
Create Card
Users could issue physical and virtual cards for their employees. For physical cards, they needed to fill a form and ensure post address was correct so they could receive them. For virtual cards, the details required were lesser. We crafted the value proposition around virtual cards to save shipping costs and speed up feature usage, as users could start spending right away with virtual cards.
Update Card Status
Managers and employees could update their card status and setting them as inactive, in case they wanted to freeze temporarily their use; active, in case they wanted to resume their use; and cancel them, in case they wanted to terminate their use.
Set card limit
Managers and employees could update their card status and setting them as inactive, in case they wanted to freeze temporarily their use; active, in case they wanted to resume their use; and cancel them, in case they wanted to terminate their use.
Business impact
The card-first expense solution at Factorial made a big impact, growing monthly EUR transacted from 163 EUR to an impressive 294k EUR in just around 18 months. Initially, people used physical cards for payments in physical retailers and POS (points of sale). When we introduced later virtual cards, the payments trend shifted to online payments and subscriptions.
Our card-first expense solution at Factorial was a hit, so we decided to try something new in Spain. From April 22 until December 22, our app had been free to use. We tested charging customers between 0.5 - 1 EUR per company seat. This experiment was successful, leading to the formal implementation of 2 new subscription plans: Business and Enterprise, which helped us grow from 1k EUR to 79k EUR committed MRR in around 18 months.
This release not only automated the expense management process and had a positive impact on business revenue, but also paved the way to find a new product market fit: IT Management - A product to grant employees access to software and manage online subscriptions.
Unique companies using cards per month
Monthly cards used by type
EUR transacted monthly evolution
Committed MRR monthly evolution
Cards for spend management
Company
Factorial HR
Date
Apr 22 - Sep 22
Role
I worked on this project as a product designer. Main areas of responsibility:
Research and Discovery (custdev interviews, diagrams, user journeys)
Management (sprint planning and weekly reviews)
Design (end to end experience and branding)
Prototyping (user testing and validation, communication with stakeholders)
QA (ensuring 1:1 quality with designs through user story acceptance criteria)
Summary
Factorial aimed to revolutionize expense management by introducing a card-first experience to automate spending. Users had previously engaged with an early MVP as of January 22, consisting on a document-based approach to expense management. The early solution felt rudimentary and lacked key aspects such as spending automation through cards.
After custdev interviews, seeing that users loved the card-first idea, we put our energy and resources into finding a stable cards provider. This was a big turn in the product, showing we were taking action to fix the issues from the first MVP and bring users a complete solution they'd love.
Challenge
The challenge lay in convincing Factorial's existing customer base, which didn't trust card-based systems for employee expenses. The objective was to release an MVP that exclusively allowed physical cards and virtual cards for online payments. We had to leave out of scope having cards in digital wallets, knowing that a big amount of our users would miss this.
Simultaneously, the need to speed up feature delivery added complexity, requiring us to rely on our external card provider for the KYB (Know Your Business) process, knowing that we'd lose control on the process and the friction during the onboarding could be higher.
Solution
To create the cards solution for Factorial expenses, I started by learning about the users and understanding what they needed. I looked at what other companies were doing and got ideas from everyone involved. I then made a plan for how the features would work and started to work on the Product Requirements.
I prepared a simple design to show how the system would look and work, and I tested a basic version with a small group of users to see if it would function well. User feedback was crucial to making sure it met their needs. I had regular check-ins with the team and made changes based on their suggestions.
After many rounds of testing and feedback, we ended up with a solution that worked smoothly and exceeded what users were expecting.
Click on the image to see the Figma file
Research
Business context: Customer and market inputs - Closed lost deals, churn reasons, MRR impacted
Card providers research: Search for card providers other competitors relied on
User pain points: Need for automating spending, increased time-on-task in managing expenses
Competitive audit: PLEO, Payhawk, OKTicket, Spendesk, Revolut Business, Captio
Ideation
Product Requirements: Gather customer and market input to justify what and why we were doing; formulate hypothesis and success metrics; define design and functional requirements, and others
Diagrams and user journeys: Understand how the end to end solution should work
Wireframes: First representations of the solution for fast validation
Proof of concept and prototype: A usable prototype to validate with users with final look and feel
Validation
Stakeholder reviews: Sales cycle (Account executives and managers), C-Level
Design critiques: PDs, PMs, Engineers
User testing: Small groups of users (promoters and detractors)
Some features
Cards branding
I was in charge of giving Factorial's cards a consistent and recognizable look. While users couldn't customize the cards, I made sure they carried Factorial's unique style, both in physical and virtual cards. It was about creating a design that stayed true to Factorial's brand identity, providing a familiar experience for users.
Landing page
The blankslate page was crafted to not only facilitate account creation but also to build awareness and engage users. It aimed to introduce users to the new card-first approach, setting the tone for a seamless and user-friendly expense management experience.
Cards list
This feature let managers easily navigate through their employees' cards with a convenient list view. Employees, with fewer cards on average, could view their cards in a grid layout for a quick and tailored overview. This user-friendly design ensured efficient card management within the payroll system.
Card details
This page offered a preview for viewing card details, including the card balance and the ability to set card controls. This streamlined feature provided users with quick access to essential card information and control settings.
Transactions
To enhance transparency and user control, we developed a clear and comprehensive view of financial activities. Managers could now effortlessly monitor the transactions of their employees, empowering them with a real-time understanding of the financial landscape.
Account details
This feature within provided users with a detailed snapshot of their account information, including details for adding funds through a bank transfer. Users could easily access their IBAN, SWIFT code, and bank name.
Create Card
Users could issue physical and virtual cards for their employees. For physical cards, they needed to fill a form and ensure post address was correct so they could receive them. For virtual cards, the details required were lesser. We crafted the value proposition around virtual cards to save shipping costs and speed up feature usage, as users could start spending right away with virtual cards.
Update Card Status
Managers and employees could update their card status and setting them as inactive, in case they wanted to freeze temporarily their use; active, in case they wanted to resume their use; and cancel them, in case they wanted to terminate their use.
Set card limit
Managers and employees could update their card status and setting them as inactive, in case they wanted to freeze temporarily their use; active, in case they wanted to resume their use; and cancel them, in case they wanted to terminate their use.
Business impact
The card-first expense solution at Factorial made a big impact, growing monthly EUR transacted from 163 EUR to an impressive 294k EUR in just around 18 months. Initially, people used physical cards for payments in physical retailers and POS (points of sale). When we introduced later virtual cards, the payments trend shifted to online payments and subscriptions.
Our card-first expense solution at Factorial was a hit, so we decided to try something new in Spain. From April 22 until December 22, our app had been free to use. We tested charging customers between 0.5 - 1 EUR per company seat. This experiment was successful, leading to the formal implementation of 2 new subscription plans: Business and Enterprise, which helped us grow from 1k EUR to 79k EUR committed MRR in around 18 months.
This release not only automated the expense management process and had a positive impact on business revenue, but also paved the way to find a new product market fit: IT Management - A product to grant employees access to software and manage online subscriptions.
Unique companies using cards per month
Monthly cards used by type
EUR transacted monthly evolution
Committed MRR monthly evolution
Cards for spend management
Company
Factorial HR
Date
Apr 22 - Sep 22
Role
I worked on this project as a product designer. Main areas of responsibility:
Research and Discovery (custdev interviews, diagrams, user journeys)
Management (sprint planning and weekly reviews)
Design (end to end experience and branding)
Prototyping (user testing and validation, communication with stakeholders)
QA (ensuring 1:1 quality with designs through user story acceptance criteria)
Summary
Factorial aimed to revolutionize expense management by introducing a card-first experience to automate spending. Users had previously engaged with an early MVP as of January 22, consisting on a document-based approach to expense management. The early solution felt rudimentary and lacked key aspects such as spending automation through cards.
After custdev interviews, seeing that users loved the card-first idea, we put our energy and resources into finding a stable cards provider. This was a big turn in the product, showing we were taking action to fix the issues from the first MVP and bring users a complete solution they'd love.
Challenge
The challenge lay in convincing Factorial's existing customer base, which didn't trust card-based systems for employee expenses. The objective was to release an MVP that exclusively allowed physical cards and virtual cards for online payments. We had to leave out of scope having cards in digital wallets, knowing that a big amount of our users would miss this.
Simultaneously, the need to speed up feature delivery added complexity, requiring us to rely on our external card provider for the KYB (Know Your Business) process, knowing that we'd lose control on the process and the friction during the onboarding could be higher.
Solution
To create the cards solution for Factorial expenses, I started by learning about the users and understanding what they needed. I looked at what other companies were doing and got ideas from everyone involved. I then made a plan for how the features would work and started to work on the Product Requirements.
I prepared a simple design to show how the system would look and work, and I tested a basic version with a small group of users to see if it would function well. User feedback was crucial to making sure it met their needs. I had regular check-ins with the team and made changes based on their suggestions.
After many rounds of testing and feedback, we ended up with a solution that worked smoothly and exceeded what users were expecting.
Click on the image to see the Figma file
Research
Business context: Customer and market inputs - Closed lost deals, churn reasons, MRR impacted
Card providers research: Search for card providers other competitors relied on
User pain points: Need for automating spending, increased time-on-task in managing expenses
Competitive audit: PLEO, Payhawk, OKTicket, Spendesk, Revolut Business, Captio
Ideation
Product Requirements: Gather customer and market input to justify what and why we were doing; formulate hypothesis and success metrics; define design and functional requirements, and others
Diagrams and user journeys: Understand how the end to end solution should work
Wireframes: First representations of the solution for fast validation
Proof of concept and prototype: A usable prototype to validate with users with final look and feel
Validation
Stakeholder reviews: Sales cycle (Account executives and managers), C-Level
Design critiques: PDs, PMs, Engineers
User testing: Small groups of users (promoters and detractors)
Some features
Cards branding
I was in charge of giving Factorial's cards a consistent and recognizable look. While users couldn't customize the cards, I made sure they carried Factorial's unique style, both in physical and virtual cards. It was about creating a design that stayed true to Factorial's brand identity, providing a familiar experience for users.
Landing page
The blankslate page was crafted to not only facilitate account creation but also to build awareness and engage users. It aimed to introduce users to the new card-first approach, setting the tone for a seamless and user-friendly expense management experience.
Cards list
This feature let managers easily navigate through their employees' cards with a convenient list view. Employees, with fewer cards on average, could view their cards in a grid layout for a quick and tailored overview. This user-friendly design ensured efficient card management within the payroll system.
Card details
This page offered a preview for viewing card details, including the card balance and the ability to set card controls. This streamlined feature provided users with quick access to essential card information and control settings.
Transactions
To enhance transparency and user control, we developed a clear and comprehensive view of financial activities. Managers could now effortlessly monitor the transactions of their employees, empowering them with a real-time understanding of the financial landscape.
Account details
This feature within provided users with a detailed snapshot of their account information, including details for adding funds through a bank transfer. Users could easily access their IBAN, SWIFT code, and bank name.
Create Card
Users could issue physical and virtual cards for their employees. For physical cards, they needed to fill a form and ensure post address was correct so they could receive them. For virtual cards, the details required were lesser. We crafted the value proposition around virtual cards to save shipping costs and speed up feature usage, as users could start spending right away with virtual cards.
Update Card Status
Managers and employees could update their card status and setting them as inactive, in case they wanted to freeze temporarily their use; active, in case they wanted to resume their use; and cancel them, in case they wanted to terminate their use.
Set card limit
Managers and employees could update their card status and setting them as inactive, in case they wanted to freeze temporarily their use; active, in case they wanted to resume their use; and cancel them, in case they wanted to terminate their use.
Business impact
The card-first expense solution at Factorial made a big impact, growing monthly EUR transacted from 163 EUR to an impressive 294k EUR in just around 18 months. Initially, people used physical cards for payments in physical retailers and POS (points of sale). When we introduced later virtual cards, the payments trend shifted to online payments and subscriptions.
Our card-first expense solution at Factorial was a hit, so we decided to try something new in Spain. From April 22 until December 22, our app had been free to use. We tested charging customers between 0.5 - 1 EUR per company seat. This experiment was successful, leading to the formal implementation of 2 new subscription plans: Business and Enterprise, which helped us grow from 1k EUR to 79k EUR committed MRR in around 18 months.
This release not only automated the expense management process and had a positive impact on business revenue, but also paved the way to find a new product market fit: IT Management - A product to grant employees access to software and manage online subscriptions.
Unique companies using cards per month
Monthly cards used by type
EUR transacted monthly evolution
Committed MRR monthly evolution