Gliese1
Finance SaaS solution for all kinds of businesses
Sector:B2B, Fintech
Team:5 designers
My Role:Product Designer
Project Time:1,5 month
The mission of Gliese1 is to fully automate accounting, analysis, and business insights, providing seamless, intelligent solutions for businesses of all types and sizes, across industries worldwide.
Project Overview
In this case study, we worked on designing a financial reconciliation platform for professionals in the accounting and finance sectors. The project followed the Double Diamond methodology, which helped us navigate through the phases of Discovery, Define, Develop, and Deliver.
Project Goals
- Automated reconciliation
- Account management for banking account
- Transaction change and addition
- Manual journal
- PSP and other integrations
- Comment and investigation for transaction
- Project management tool
Project Planning
The Double Diamond approach, with its clear division into exploration and refinement phases, allowed us to balance user discovery with targeted solution development.
Lean Canvas
We visualized the core business idea through a Lean Canvas, which allowed us to focus on the key aspects of the business model. This method helped us align the product's value proposition with user needs, and it served as a practical tool for organizing business information in one place.
By organizing information into this single-page format, the Lean Canvas provided our team and stakeholders with a shared, comprehensive overview of the business model. This clarity enabled faster decision-making and kept us focused on validated assumptions.
Identifying the Problem:
We identified a significant gap for small to mid-size businesses in managing complex financial transactions efficiently. Current tools require excessive manual input, lack integration, and do not fully meet the needs for streamlined accounting, analytics, and insights.
Defining the Solution:
Our solution offers a fully automated, customizable financial management tool tailored for businesses with high transaction volumes. This tool centralizes budgeting, reporting, reconciliation, and team management in one platform, reducing the need for multiple separate applications and manual work.
Unique Value Proposition:
Our product is the first all-in-one, fully customizable accounting and financial insights platform that integrates seamlessly with a business’s specific needs, delivering simplicity, automation, and transparency in financial processes.
Customer Segments & Channels:
Our primary customers are small to mid-sized businesses, e-commerce platforms, and large companies with high transaction volumes. We plan to reach these segments through a web application and networking at industry events like financial tech exhibitions.
Key Metrics:
To measure success, we track the acquisition of our first 100 clients, system reliability (GDPR-compliant security), and the tool’s ability to handle large data volumes without performance issues.
Competitor Analysis & Functionality Research
We conducted an in-depth competitor analysis using Jakob Nielsen's heuristics to understand how other products in the market address similar problems.
This analysis led to the following findings:
- Many products fail to provide users with full autonomy.
- Some competitors have significant issues preventing errors.
- Several systems lack flexibility, which hinders efficiency.
These insights were crucial in differentiating our product by focusing on user autonomy, flexibility, and error prevention.
User Interviews
We conducted interviews with 7 industry specialists (accountants and financial directors from Ukraine and Europe).
Key insights from the interviews included:
Tools Used:
Users worked with Wise, BAS ERP, WHMCS, and 1C (unfortunately).
Pain Points:
- Issues with automating workflows when dealing with external clients.
- The need for manual input in systems despite automation.
- Difficulty in switching to a new system due to the complexity and cost of migration.
This feedback was invaluable for shaping the product's user experience to address these concerns.
Personas
We developed two personas based on our interviews:
This analysis led to the following findings:
Lesya, Accountant
- Fears: Making manual errors, fixing system glitches manually, missing deadlines.
- Wants: Simplify routine tasks, improve workflow efficiency.
Valentyn, Financial Director
- Fears: Inefficient software affecting team performance and company reputation.
- Wants: Use efficient software to improve reconciliation and payment processing.
These personas helped us empathize with our users and prioritize features.
Customer Journey Mapping (CJM)
We created customer journey maps to visualize the user experience and identify key frustration points.
Lesya:
Key frustrations during reconciliation were identifying payment discrepancies and fixing errors.
Valentyn:
Key concerns were ensuring team efficiency and identifying discrepancies that could impact company metrics.
This helped us identify areas where we could streamline the process.
Value Proposition & Validation
We used a Value Canvas to ensure the product's value proposition aligned with user expectations.
Our findings showed that:
- The product's core features (payment reconciliation, report generation) aligned with user needs.
- It addressed pain points such as manual reporting and lack of transaction status visibility.
We conducted a survey to triangulate our qualitative findings, confirming the presence of similar issues among the target audience.
Ideation & Prototyping
In the Ideation Phase , we revisited our competitor research to see how others solved similar problems. After analyzing different solutions, we ideated and refined our approach:
Wireframes:
We sketched out early designs to test different ideas for UI components.
Prototyping:
Interactive prototypes were created to demonstrate the flow of tasks in the reconciliation process and show how users would interact with the tool.
Architecture Design
The design architecture was developed with a focus on intuitive usability and scalability.
Key aspects of the design included:
Intuitive Interface:
We designed a clean, modern UI for users to perform reconciliations quickly.
Advanced Analytics Tools:
Interactive charts and graphs for financial analysis.
Microservice Architecture:
Ensured scalability and easy integration with other systems.
Security:
Implemented strong data protection standards.
Phase 4: Testing & Iteration
Testing was a key part of refining the design, with 3 rounds of iteration based on user feedback.
Challenges:
Users were often focused on their own workflows, which made testing difficult. However, these insights revealed a major barrier: the difficulty of transitioning to a new tool.
Pain Points:
Onboarding:
We enhanced the onboarding process using tooltips and tutorials to guide users through the platform.
Call-to-Action (CTA):
We optimized CTAs based on user preferences.
Workflow Refinements:
We adjusted the reconciliation flow and how users interact with "unreconciled" and "investigation" items.
Dashboard
The final design focused on user-centered features, including a customizable dashboard
Onboarding
The onboarding experience has been redesigned to help new users quickly understand how to use the platform and its core features.
Transactions
A streamlined interface for managing transactions, making it easier for users to add, edit, and categorize financial entries.
Manual Journal
The Manual Journal interface allows users to make manual entries and adjustments to their financial records.
Banking
The Banking section provides an overview of linked bank accounts, transaction history, and reconciliation tools.
Reconciliation
The Reconciliation section enables users to match their financial records with external bank statements.
Projects
This section allows users to manage financial data for specific projects or initiatives.
Team
The Team section is designed for multi-user management, allowing team leads and managers to assign roles and monitor team members' access to financial data.
Conclusion
Through careful user research, competitor analysis, iterative testing, and design thinking, we created a product that not only meets user needs but also offers a unique solution in the market for financial reconciliation.
Impact:
The new design improved overall user satisfaction, reduced task completion times, and minimized user errors during data entry and reconciliation.
Next Steps:
Ongoing user feedback and iterative improvements based on real-world usage.