Payment Tracking for Vendors
Company
Paylocity
Role
Design Lead
Year
2025
Duration
Ongoing
Background
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Paylocity is a modern HR and finance platform that streamlines payroll, compliance, and vendor management.
Vendors use the platform to onboard customers, submit invoices, and track payments but gaps in visibility often lead to confusion and support dependency.
Problem
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A significant portion of vendor support tickets, around 12%, were related to payment status inquiries for past six months.
Vendors lacked visibility into the payment lifecycle, leading to frustration and unnecessary support load.
This case study outlines how we are designing a solution to provide real-time payment tracking, reduce support dependency, and improve vendor experience.
Current Design
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After analyzing the vendor payment journey, we discovered that vendors currently rely on just four email notifications to understand payment status - when an invoice is approved, a payment is initiated, a payment is cancelled, or an invoice is declined.​
Also, the vendor portal experience, only web interface that they have falls short. Vendors can only see whether a payment is marked as “Paid” or “Unpaid,” with no visibility into intermediate stages or expected timelines. This limited feedback loop leaves vendors confused and unsupported.
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This confirmed that the problem was real and urgent, vendors need a better way to track and understand their payments.
Where are we right now?
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We began by mapping out how payments flow within Airbase/Paylocity.
The platform supports six distinct payment methods, each with its own lifecycle and terminology. While customers are familiar with this structure, vendors often struggle to interpret it, especially when it comes to understanding payment progress and status.
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Our initial audit revealed that vendors currently receive only four email notifications: when an invoice is approved, a payment is initiated, a payment is cancelled, or an invoice is declined. The vendor portal offers minimal visibility, showing only “Paid” or “Unpaid” statuses, which leaves vendors in the dark about what’s happening in between.
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To address this, we’re conducting primary research through interviews with eight vendors and their teams with following baseline:
Our goal is to understand:
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When vendors typically reach out to customer support
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What information they expect but don’t receive
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How they interpret the current system
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I’m leading this initiative with two junior designers, and we’re actively exploring and testing design directions.
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The project is currently in progress, and the full case study will be published once NDA clearance is obtained.
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I’m happy to share more details or walk through the work in person. In the meantime, enjoy one of our early prototypes that received the highest satisfaction score in usability testing:
ACH Transfer - Prototype - Customer #157