COACHART
Automated reimbursement with Bill.com integration
Timeline
January-June 2024 (10 weeks)
Client
CoachArt
Role
Product Designer
Team
2 PMs, 2 designers, 7 developers
Overview
CONTEXT
Who is CoachArt?
CoachArt is a nonprofit that connects children with chronic illnesses to volunteers who provide in-classroom experience with supplies funded by the organization.
PROBLEM
Hidden costs in managing lesson costs
Volunteers either emailed supply links or purchased items and submitted reimbursement forms.
This involved uploading receipts through a clunky Google Form, emails, and manual entry into Bill.com—creating inefficiencies and administrative strain.
Solution
Streamline financial workflows
To address the inefficiencies in CoachArt’s current reimbursement process, my team and I developed a streamlined platform that collects volunteer information, generates PDFs, and integrates with Bill.com’s PDF-to-bill API to automatically generate invoices.
Research
Interviews
Understanding the current experience
After identifying the issue, we interviewed various CoachArt staff members and conducted heuristic evaluations to understand not only the process steps but also how users interacted with and felt during each stage.
“I want to have a simpler and clear way to request supplies and submit reimbursements.”
--Volunteer
“I want to create bills within Bill.com with minimal manual effort.”
--Operations Specialist
“I want to better organize Amazon purchases to easily reconcile with business statements.”
--Volunteer Manager
MAPPING
Tracing the user journey
I found it helpful to use user journey maps to visualize the multi-step workflow and align the volunteer and admin experiences. Through mapping, I was able to identify friction points, usability pain areas, and moments of satisfaction.
GOALS
Key deliverables
Provide simple, easy-to-use forms where volunteers can upload, review, and edit their submissions
Facilitate communication between volunteers and admins to fix issues quickly
Automate invoices from submitted forms to reduce manual effort and user error
Solution
external
Reimbursement Request
To get reimbursed for supplies they purchased on their own, volunteers fill the reimbursement request and submit copies of their receipts. Upon confirmation, the request is submitted to the admin portal for processing.
When volunteers want a paper check, they will be prompted for their address
Volunteers can navigate easily between multiple purchases using tabs
Total cost is automatically calculated
external
Supply Request
To request supplies from Coach Art, volunteers fill the supply request form, They must input their address and links for each supply for ICV to ship to the provided address.
Link previews allow volunteers to reconciliate each link to the supply
Total cost is automatically calculated
Internal
Admin portal
Designed like an email inbox, the admin portal supports efficiently processes reimbursement and supply requests. Volunteers are notified of status changes in real time.
Admins can use filters, labels, flags, and status indicators to track each request's progress
Automated response flows allow, admins to approve items or flag issues efficiently
A built-in PDF export integrates with Bill.com’s API for seamless invoicing.
Styling
Design system
Since CoachArt already has a website with a strong visual identity, my team and I designed the components to integrate with CoachArt’s existing style.
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