Designed to help your business stay organized
What is PesaFlow?
PesaFlow is a mobile application designed to be integrated with M-PESA, the largest mobile network in Kenya. Its purpose is to address a complex problem employers encounter when tracking company expenses.
The Problem
Currently in Kenya, a significant issue revolves around what's known as employee "leakage." Leakage is when employees receive petty cash from their employers to make business-related purchases. However, due to the lack of adequate tracking methods, monitoring how employees spent company money was challenging. As a result, businesses experienced notable financial losses due to their inability to address and manage this problem.
Proposed Solution
Employees
Employees download PesaFlow via link sent to them through WhatsApp or mobile phone to sign up with a code.
When employees spend money on goods or services they capture a receipt to share with their employer for reimbursement.
By linking PesaFlow to M-PESA (digital wallet in Kenya) employees can receive reimbursements directly into their accounts.
Employers
Employers add contacts to PesaFlow by syncing them through WhatsApp or sharing a link for employees to join.
Employers receive a reimbursement request from employees and after approval of request, send money back to employees through PesaFlow, which is linked to their M-PESA account.
Employers have the opportunities to deny, approve, or ask for more information when receiving reimbursement requests.
RESULT: Design was a success leading to pre-seed funding round!
WHAT WAS MY PROCESS?
This project was under a tight deadline and I wanted to respect the pacing for various stakeholders to deliver the MVP as swiftly as possible. As a UX Designer, I would have liked to work more within the Double Diamond approach from the beginning, however, the founders had already been through the discover and define stage of their process and I was hired as a visual designer to expedite product development using the information provided during our meetings together. I broke the design development stage into four key methods:
MVP Design Workshop
Coordinating meetings with the founder posed challenges due to our distinct time zones—mine being in Denver, Colorado, and his in Nairobi, Kenya. However, leveraging modern design tools like Miro, Invision, and Figma, we effectively collaborated by sharing screens and files via WhatsApp and Google Meets. The first step was to establish the MVP and outline the main features and tasks we wanted to focus on building out. We used Miro to document our work. Some examples can be seen in the images below.
#1 Download PesaFlow on phone
From the administration side, it was really important to make sure employers could add employees easily and through WhatsApp, which was commonly used in Kenya.
It was also important for admin to receive notifications through the app about reimbursement requests and to approve receipts easily, with clear instructions, that didn’t take up a lot of their time during the day.
From the employee side, users needed to download a code shared from their employer to download app and create account. This would also be shared through Whatsapp, which was the most common way for businesses and employees to interact.
Employees also needed a way to capture receipts and be able to upload them easily to request reimbursements on purchases. This would be achieved by adding in a camera feature to the app.
#2 -Sending Money to employees
#3 -Employee files an expense
With this overarching framework in mind, I embarked on creating the wireframes. I started by outlining the employer task flow, iterating through multiple versions. I then transitioned to the employee task flow, which shared a fairly similar design approach.
Wireframes
We started off by focusing on the employer-facing aspect of the app. This initial step allowed us to visualize the layout of the app's general features that we intended to incorporate. Some challenges that came up during these meetings revolved around designing the modals for various states, while also considering user navigation within the app without the use of a bottom navigation bar.
However, the founder and I worked together to understand each other's viewpoints and find a clear path for the project. Ultimately, our ongoing collaboration and communication helped us tackle any difficulties and we ended up with a polished and unified design idea.
DESIGN DECISIONS
We went for a minimal landing page where users could briefly learn about the app by scrolling and then sign up.
In order to create an account we eventually just went with entering the til number used in Nairobi from the mobile phones of users, but originally wanted to make a more detailed profile.
In the home screen we knew we wanted the user to have an account balance and see recent activity.
We also wanted the CTA button to be center stage preforming the most repeated task in the app, which was to send money.
A method for tracking receipts was created and sorted by months. Since we decided not to use a bottom nav bar this feature was housed in the profile.
Modals were added for each type of state.
Expense request/complete
Expense request/missing receipt
Expense request/approve employee receipt.
Employer to employee send money
A bottom nav bar was omitted because we felt users could access everything they needed from the home screen.
Establishing brand Identity
Prior to establishing a color palette, the founder and I had a chance to discuss the design he was looking for which was in dark mode, modern and using blues for primary actions. I also drew inspiration from M-PESA for typography, which would hopefully pick up PesaFlow in the future. Below you will find one of the moodboards I presented that we ultimately went with for the final design. Since we were generating an MVP, there was not a major need to make the design perfect, just good enough for investors to understand the features within the app in a way that was professional and presentable. The target audience also needed to be able to navigate through the app with ease.
High-Fidelity Prototypes
Following numerous iterations and discussions, primarily centered around designing the transactional states, a high-fidelity prototype emerged and was ready for presentation to various investors across Kenya. Below you will find the final MVP design, which ultimately led us to a pre-seed funding round.
Admin App
Landing & Onboarding
Company profile
Home
Add Employees
Money Sent states
Expense Request States
Employee App
Landing & Onboarding
Home
EMployee purchasing states (sent Money)
Profile
File Expense (Request Reimbursement)
See the latest version of pesaflow
lessons & Outcomes
I learned a lot on this project. Specifically, despite having my own opinions as a designer, which I can only suggest, the founder ultimately had the last say in what worked and what did not.
It was my job to work within those limitations and do it with grace.
Further, in the context of Africa, the adherence to accessibility standards doesn't always match that of the United States.
As a result, certain discussions regarding enhancing accessibility like altering buttons and color palettes in modals for greater inclusivity faced resistance in conversation, which I needed to be okay with.
I recognized that one beneficial improvement could have been implementing a larger text size to facilitate user navigation.
The core focus of the project was to get the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) out as quickly as possible, which ultimately was successful because the designs led to receiving funding from investors!