Enterprise Case Study
Invoice Reporting Solution
Designing a Scalable Solution for Complex Invoice Scenarios
10+
SME Interviews
4
Personas Developed
22+
Business Rules Mapped
4.7/5
User Design Satisfaction
Project Details
Client
Broadband Infrastructure Team
Duration
5 months
Skillset
UX Research Prototyping UI Design Business Analysis
Tools & Stakeholders
Tools
Balsamiq Adobe Illustrator Adobe Photoshop PowerPoint Excel JIRA
Key Stakeholders
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End-Users
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Product Owners and Product Managers
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Software Engineers (Front-end and Back-end)
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SMEs
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IT Architects
Case study details
Broadband infrastructure uses a huge amount of electricity to keep devices, exchanges, and network nodes running. That usage gets tracked through DEM meters — but the data isn’t always straightforward. Sometimes it’s a clean breakdown, sometimes it’s a lump sum, and occasionally it includes the maximum possible power draw, even if that wasn’t actually used. (There was a separate project looking into fair pricing so telcos weren’t charged full price for unused capacity — but that’s a story for another time.)
Each month, power companies across Australia send through a flood of invoices to the wholesale telco. Every supplier has their own format, pricing model, and way of interpreting usage, which made automation tricky. Hundreds of invoices had to be manually reviewed, validated, and approved — each one slightly different and often complex.
I remember how tricky the main stakeholder — who would eventually become the system owner — thought this was. He was busy, to say the least, and the idea of automating such a messy, high-volume process felt ambitious.
But the goal was clear: build a solution that could handle the diversity, reduce manual effort, and still maintain accuracy.
The real challenge was figuring out how to make sense of it all — knowing when an invoice could be safely auto-processed, spotting edge cases, and presenting everything in a clean, consistent way. It wasn’t just about automation; it was about restoring clarity and control to a chaotic, high-stakes process.
Here’s how the journey unfolded:
1. Research and Business Rules Mapping
At the heart of this challenge was a deceptively complex question: when can an invoice be trusted enough to pay automatically? To answer it, I led a series of deep-dive sessions with Subject Matter Experts, End-Users, Software Engineers and the IT Architect, dissecting invoice formats, device types, and DEM reporting discrepancies across the broadband network.
Together, we uncovered over 20 distinct business rules - each one a decision point in the automation logic. These rules defined acceptable variance thresholds based on device type and usage, flagged missing or misaligned fields, and accounted for shifting formats across power suppliers. Every rule had to reconcile the supplier’s invoice with the wholesale telco’s own reporting data, ensuring accuracy without manual review.
To manage this complexity, I created a comprehensive business rules matrix that became a central reference for the Product Owner, SME:s and Development Team. It covered metered and unmetered scenarios, mapped field interpretations, and supported scalable validation across diverse invoice structures. This foundation was critical in transforming a chaotic, manual process into a streamlined, intelligent system.
I also created decision tables to support testing and avoid having to mock-up excessive amounts of invoices. Each business rule was broken down into possible combinations of conditions to indicate what combinations to test and what would not be necessary, ensuring comprehensive rule validation.
2. Workflows and Personas
Conducted workshops with SMEs and End Users to define workflows for different business rules to be applied in the Invoice Management Solutions. The workflows identified actions users needed to take to verify invoice correctness, as well as system actions to either process an invoice for payment or alert users to issues. Created both overview and detailed workflow views for each business rule.
Workflow of Personas in the Invoice Management Solution
1. Auditor – First Line of Defense
Role: Reviews exceptions flagged by the system.
Workflow:
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System auto-processes invoices that meet business rules.
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Exceptions (e.g., mismatched fields, unexpected variances, missing data) are routed to the Auditor.
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Auditor investigates discrepancies, validates against DEM reporting, and documents findings.
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Impact: Ensures that only clean, rule-compliant invoices move forward, reducing risk of incorrect payments.
2. Business Approvers & SMEs – Verification Layer
Role: Provide domain expertise and formal approval.
Workflow:
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Invoices escalated by the Auditor are passed to Business Approvers or SMEs.
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They verify correctness, interpret complex scenarios (e.g., supplier-specific formats, unusual device usage).
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Approvers confirm whether invoices can be processed or require further action.
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Impact: Adds a human validation step for edge cases, ensuring accuracy across diverse supplier formats.
3. Product Owner / System Owner – Strategic Oversight
- Role: Manages stakeholders, roadmap, and continuous improvement.
- Workflow:
- Oversees the automation framework and ensures business rules remain current.
- Manages onboarding of new power companies and adapts to evolving invoice formats.
- Aligns stakeholders (Auditors, Approvers, SMEs, Developers) and prioritizes enhancements in the backlog.
- Impact: Provides governance and ensures the solution scales sustainably as the ecosystem grows.
End-to-End Flow
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Invoice Received → System applies business rules to auto-process where possible.
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Exception Detected → Auditor reviews discrepancies and validates against DEM data.
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Escalation Needed → Business Approvers/SMEs verify correctness for complex or unusual cases.
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Approval & Payment → Once validated, invoices are processed for payment.
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Continuous Improvement → Product Owner/System Owner updates rules, manages stakeholder input, and ensures adaptability to new suppliers and formats.
4. Customizable Views for Diverse User Needs
To address the varied information needs across different user groups, I designed a flexible interface that balanced consistency with personalization. While the system required a common format to ensure clarity and comparability, users also needed the ability to tailor their views to their specific workflows.
The solution introduced customizable dashboards where users could filter, search, and save favorite configurations. This allowed auditors, approvers, and SMEs to quickly surface the data most relevant to them, while still maintaining a unified structure across the application.
By iterating medium-fidelity wireframes, I validated these design choices with stakeholders and SMEs, ensuring the interface could scale across roles and scenarios. The carousel of medium to high fidelity wireframes illustrates how filtering, search, and saved views evolved into a responsive design that solved the core usability challenges identified in research.
5. Graphical Design & Branding
Building on the medium‑fidelity wireframes, I translated the solution into a graphical design that felt deeply integrated with the telco’s existing ecosystem of internal tools. Staying on brand was critical: I applied the company’s colour palette, typography, and design conventions so the interface looked like a natural extension of the systems users already worked with every day.
To strengthen identity, I also transformed the solution’s abbreviation into a logotype, giving the tool a recognizable mark that could stand alongside other enterprise applications. This subtle branding helped position the solution as a trusted part of the broader toolset.
Accessibility was a non‑negotiable requirement. All colour choices, backgrounds, and fonts were tested against WCAG 2.0 standards, ensuring sufficient contrast and readability for diverse user groups. The final design was validated with end‑users and the Product Owner/System Owner, confirming that it not only met functional needs but also delivered a consistent, inclusive experience across desktop and tablet.
My efforts
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Led the business analysis of rules, requirements and regulations
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Led UX and UI design process
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Created wireframes and decision tables
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Facilitated stakeholder workshops
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Conducted user and usability testing
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Synthesized rules into actionable UX and UI features
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Reviewed design against accessibility guidelines
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Facilitated stakeholder alignment
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Created wireframes and final mockups that were tested by SMEs and reviewed by Stakeholders
The invoice automation solution turned a manual, error‑prone process into a streamlined system capable of handling thousands of invoices each month. By codifying more than twenty business rules and mapping diverse formats into a common structure, the team reduced review time and improved accuracy. Auditors and approvers gained confidence through exception filters, while customizable views gave each user group the flexibility they needed.
The project delivered scalability for new suppliers, transparency through rule matrices, and inclusivity by meeting WCAG accessibility standards. Personally, it reinforced the importance of balancing automation with human oversight and showed how visual tools like wireframes and decision tables can align stakeholders quickly in complex environments.