The problem
Hypothesis
Xero payroll users, small businesses (SBs) and accountants/bookkeepers (ABs), currently have to manually process all payroll tasks for each pay run. This leads to significant time spent on repetitive tasks, preventing them from focusing on growing their business.
Introducing automation for many payroll jobs to be done, can allow both AB’s and SB’s to be a lot more efficient, reducing their workload, minimising errors and allowing them to focus on delivering greater value.
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The discovery
Design and engineering sprint
A five-day design sprint was held with engineers and product teams to ideate and define the ideal vision for payroll automation, aiming to create the best possible user experience. Internal experts from across the business, including Sales, AI, Marketing and Research along with customers, were invited to share their insights, challenges, and expectations of automation at Xero.
These were captured as “How Might We” (HMW) statements, with the primary focus on: How might we automate recurring tasks?
Mapping the Journey & Gathering Inspiration
We continued the sprint by mapping the ideal end-to-end automation journey, envisioning a seamless experience where users could manage and automate multiple payroll tasks in one place. From there, we explored inspiration across the tech industry and competitors to understand how others approached automation and identify opportunities for innovation within Xero.
The vision
With the ideal journey defined, we moved into concept development by sketching ideas for the ideal automation vision and mapping user workflows.
Through quick iterations, we explored how automation could simplify repetitive payroll tasks while maintaining transparency and control for users. Following on from there, the engineers spent two days on defining the ideal tech solution for the designed vision.
User testing
The final simplified prototype for payslip automation was tested with users to validate ease of use and ensure the clarity of options for enabling automated payslips.
The solution discovery
Design sprint
I ran a 4 day design sprint with the core team to visualise the problems that were discovered and ideate on solutions.
The objective was to reimagine the post-sale issue notification and info gathering process as currently, this manual process involves multiple teams and the customer is sent back and forth.
The mapping exercise helped identify 7 key stages of the VQI handling process, from which 'Issue notification' and 'Information gathering' were the first customer touch points with several flaws and a key opportunity.
The solution designs
Early multiple user testing sessions with small businesses and accountants for simple payslip automation concepts validated our early hypotheses and gave us valuable insights on payslip automation preferences and requirements. Participants responded positively to features that automated routine steps but still offered flexibility to review and adjust when needed.
From these insights, we refined the vision into a modular, scalable automation hub, a flexible framework that we can build on after delivering payslip automation and could grow beyond payroll, enabling users to automate multiple business workflows in one place.
Along with exploring and defining how Ai could be leveraged to help with the automation process.
Success metrics
Reported cases
since Sept 2023 launch
654
reduction in case handling time
-28%
Avg no of interactions per case reduced to
11
reduction in post sales cost per order
-£20
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Kirti Devi Ram
© 2023 by kirtiram.co.uk. | Kirti's Portfolio
Allows users to automate recurring payroll tasks to reduce payroll processing time
Designing the Future of Payroll Automation
at Xero
My role: Iterative UX design • Vision • User research • UX flow • Prototyping • Scalable modular UI pattern
Overview
Solution
An automation hub built on a modular, scalable framework, accessible across multiple touch points. It enables users to combine tasks into automated workflows that extend beyond payroll.