Approach & Process

What is a Copilot and what is a payment copilot in accounts payable process?

Hyperbots Payments Co-Pilot, an AI-native platform designed to automate and optimize the entire financial payment lifecycle. Developed in collaboration with experienced financial executives, the software addresses common inefficiencies such as manual errors, late fees, and poor cash flow visibility. By leveraging specialized machine learning models, the system provides intelligent recommendations for payment timing, supports various transaction methods, and ensures seamless reconciliation with existing ERP systems. Key functional benefits include fraud prevention, automated audit trails, and a dedicated portal for improving vendor relationships.

Aim

The platform aims to deliver significant cost savings and operational precision for finance teams across various industries.

Design and Development

We focused on building an interface that delivered both functionality with a sleek, minimalistic look. Since the target group is finance based, focus was bringing out numbers and statistics which make the necessary argument of moving forward with approving invoice payments. After talking with the CFO partners (partnered with the organization as consultants), following decisions were taken while designing:

• Streamlined Navigation: We structured the navigation to allow users to easily access different procure-to-pay features.

• Data segregation: Clear differentiation between the invoices that are:
  - Ready to pay
  - Need review from the user to move forward
  - Processed invoices which are already paid

• Mini dashboard: A short data illustration on the main payments view that gives the user an insight about the segregation for the total number of invoices processed for payments

• Visual Hierarchy: By introducing a clear typography system, we ensured that complex data was presented in a digestible manner.

User Persona and their pain points

Primary Persona: CFO, Finance controller, AP member

• Vendor relationship challenges

• Poor payments tracking

• Delayed payments

• Late payment penalties 

• Missed early payment discounts

• Over payments and Human errors 

Visual Direction

• While designing the whole of procure-to-pay suite of Hyperbots, the designs were constantly being reviewed by the partners that helped shape the vision of the product.

• Using the Hyperbots Design system as the foundation

• Tabular representation of data which the users are the most used to (almost all of the users involved in invoice processing use excel sheets as their primary tool)

• Proper data representation using infographics and data visualization charts to show in the dashboard

• A clean layout which is easier to use and understandable to the user

Key Features

1. Segregated views of Ready to process payments, Payments pending reviews & Processed payments with the mode of payment specified in the table (here, for MVP purposes, the whole payment run was not designed instead posting the paid invoices to update in ERP along with their GL code was made)

   

2. Clear tags representing the status of the payments:
   a) Ready to process tab
   - Approved for payment
   - Partially approved for payment
   - Rejected for Payment
   
   b) Pending review tab
   - Pending review
   - On hold
   - Rejected
   
   c) Paid invoices tab
   - Paid invoice
   - Partially paid invoice

   

3. A proper detailed click through/ drill down view of the invoices when the user clicks on it which shows the related invoice attached and the payment details of the invoice. These detailed views change according to the status of the invoice payment. (Amongst the key screens down, img 2 )

4. Vendor payments and guest payments tab on the top. Guest payments are basically the invoices raised by individual entities which are not on contract basis like the vendors. (This feature was added after a client request, not a feature that was thought off at first)

   

5. Showing the user about their previous payments regarding the same invoice. For example, if the user has paid some amount for the invoice; denying the user to overpay for an invoice

   

6. Clear text showing the user about early payment discounts so that the organization can reduce the number on cash outflow

7. Proper messaging and error notifications for when the user is processing the invoices (for actions like Approving, Rejecting, Reviewing, etc)

   

8. Audit trail for external auditors and compliance. A trail showing the stages where the invoices has been