When small businesses deserve better than WhatsApp and Excel
Invoicing for SMEs was broken across five different tools. I designed a full invoice lifecycle - creation to payment collection, so that small business owners could run their finances from a single screen.
35%
Faster invoice creation
25%
More consistent follow-ups
1 Place
Entire invoice lifecycle
TEAM
2 Engineers, 1 Operations, 1 PM
ROLE
Senior and Sole Product Designer
Owned research, product design, and created quality heuristics that guided our prompt engineering.
CONTEXT
The invoice was everywhere, and nowhere
Tools didn't talk to each other
Small business owners in India managed invoices across Excel or Word for creating them, WhatsApp or phone calls for chasing payment, Tally for accounting, and the government portal for GST compliance - four disconnected systems for one continuous workflow.
Follow-ups depended on memory
Follow-ups happened, or didn't, based on what someone remembered to do that day. Tracking lived in a spreadsheet that may or may not have been updated.
The mental load added up
For business owners already stretched thin, holding the entire payment cycle in their head - across four disconnected tools - was the real cost.
How might we design an invoicing experience that covers the full payment cycle, not just the invoice creation step?
RESEARCH
Light research, sharp findings
I spoke with SME owners and finance operators to map real workflows rather than assumed ones. Three patterns emerged quickly:
Speed over customisation
Most users cared more about getting an invoice out fast than having pixel-perfect control
Follow-ups were the biggest pain
People knew they needed to chase payments but had no system for it
Mobile was already happening
Owners were tracking invoices on their phones even when the tools weren't designed for it
The core insight wasn't that people needed a better form. It was that they needed a system. Invoice creation was step one of a five-step problem. I needed to design all five.
INTERFACE DESIGN
01.
SMART INVOICE CREATION
Creating even a simple invoice meant switching between tools, re-entering client and product details, and calculating taxes manually every single time.
I created a step-by-step creation flow (client → items → tax → summary) that felt like a guided process, not a blank form. Auto-fill pulled saved clients and products. Repeat invoices could be cloned in one click.
02.
SEND + FOLLOW-UP IN ONE FLOW
Sending an invoice and following up on it were two completely separate mental tasks. Owners sent via WhatsApp, then had to remember to follow up three days later. Most didn't.
I merged sending and reminder scheduling into a single step. After composing the invoice, users pick their delivery channel (WhatsApp or email) and set automatic follow-up timing in the same screen, before they hit send.
03.
BUILT-IN UPI PAYMENT COLLECTION
Even when an invoice arrived, payment required separate steps — finding the business's UPI ID, opening a payment app, making the transfer. Friction at the last mile meant delayed payments.
As a solution I embedded a UPI QR code directly inside the invoice - both the digital version and the PDF export. The recipient could scan and pay without leaving the invoice view.
04.
GST COMPLIANCE - HIDDEN INSIDE THE WORKFLOW
GST and e-invoice compliance required owners to export from their invoicing tool, log into the government portal, and manually convert. It was a separate workflow that most people either dreaded or skipped.
I designed guided GST conversion flow inside the platform. Users connect their government e-invoice account once during setup. From that point, compliant conversion happens within UpScale — no external portal required.
MOBILE EXPERIENCE
Owners work on their phones.
So does UpScale.
Research showed owners were already trying to track invoices on mobile, even when the tools weren't designed for it. I designed a full mobile experience across creation, tracking, and reminders.
Simplified creation steps on small screens
At-a-glance payment status on the invoice list
One-tap reminder management
Design focus: speed and clarity. Dense data tables don't work on a 6-inch screen while someone's waiting for a client call. Everything was sized and sequenced for fast scanning.
IMPACT
Whats changed for users
Reflections
INVOICES AREN’T JUST FORMS
We realised the real problem wasn’t only invoice creation. It was everything around it — sending, follow-ups, payments, and compliance. So we designed it like a workflow, not just a form.
COMPLIANCE SHOULD FEEL INVISIBLE
Users avoided GST tasks when it felt like extra work. Once compliance became part of the normal flow, it felt easier and adoption improved.
AUTOMATION BEATS REMINDERS
Users didn’t want more reminders. They wanted the system to handle follow-ups for them. Automating reminders made the process more consistent.
SPEED MATTERS MOST
For SME owners, time is limited. The best design choice was not adding more features, but helping them finish important tasks faster.