Vendor Payment Preferences
TYPE
New feature in software portal
OUTCOME
Created new 0-1 feature driving a 108% delivery of revenue goal and increased SUM scores by 68%,
TIME
February 2022- August 2023
VIEW PROTOTYPE
At AppFolio, our payments team set out to increase online payments from Property Managers to vendors by streamlining how vendors submitted their payment info.
Results were:
-$254k in revenue in 2023 and 108% delivery on revenue goal in 2024
- 68% increase in SUM scores
Over 18 months, I collaborated with two teams, three developers, two Product Managers, and a QA Engineer to drive adoption and simplify the payment experience.
Property managers were our primary users, but to improve the vendor portal experience, we needed a deeper understanding of how vendors got paid. The challenge? Vendors were hard to reach.
To bridge this gap, I got creative—leveraging Great Question, Pendo, Google Forms, and direct outreach to capture their feedback. Whether through strategic messaging or well-timed nudges, I found ways to get their attention, build trust, and gather insights that shaped a more seamless payment experience.
We knew property managers preferred electronic payments, but collecting vendor banking details was slow—and often insecure, with sensitive info sent over email.
We started the project by conducting interviews with 7 vendors to better understand how they work and get paid.
Here were my overall findings from my research:
- Timing is everything. Vendors rely on predictable payment schedules to pay employees or cover personal expenses. Even minor delays can create serious financial strain.
- Checks feel “safe.” Many vendors preferred paper checks because they made reconciliation easier—a crucial factor for tracking income and balancing their books.
- Trust and simplicity win. Vendors were often wary of digital payments, citing security concerns and a lack of tech confidence. To drive adoption, we needed an intuitive, foolproof experience that built trust from the first click.
These insights helped us design a payment flow that was not just digital—but reliable, transparent, and vendor-friendly.
Based on our conversations with vendors, I created a persona based on the service vendor users we were designing for.
Based on our conversations with vendors, I created a customer journey map based on the service vendor users we were designing for.
Payment Preference Selection:
For our MVP we focused on the vendor experience. We knew we needed to create a flow where vendors could select their payment preference.
Security Requirements:
While one of my teams was working on the development of the payment preferences selection in the portal, my other team was working on making the portal more secure, including adding 2 Factor Authentication.
Adding a New Payment Method:
Based on our research, we decided to move forward with a 3rd party integration to add an “instant payment” option for vendors to get their funds faster.
Adoption & Growth:
After creating a way for vendors to select payment preferences, we were tasked with motivating product managers to request information from their vendors.
The two teams paired together on Instant Pay story mapping to better understand how we were going to break up the work between the milestones. From that exercise, I was able to edit and reorganize my mockups to fit into the different milestones.
Throughout the project, changing backend restrictions and a new Ingo integration forced constant iteration. My designs evolved as the project was redefined—like when I initially designed Instant Pay with invoice-level payment preferences, only to pivot weeks later when that option was removed.
Using Figma, I mapped the entire vendor experience—from 2FA enrollment to payment preferences, top-of-funnel awareness, and email communications—ensuring a seamless, adaptable flow despite shifting constraints.
During the project, I did a lot of prototype validation. I would create rough mockups and then validate them with vendors and then make updates based on what I had learned. I initially created mockups based on a first iteration and found that most vendors did not find the success banner and did not think to add their payment preferences. After that, I revised the mockups based on a card/block layout after pairing with my developers.
Throughout the project we were validating our design decisions and getting feedback from vendors.
During our Q3 2022 beta rollout, I tracked vendors repeatedly hitting “cancel” and reached out to understand why. Conversations revealed a major UX flaw—vendors already paying by eCheck were being unnecessarily prompted to update payment preferences.I worked with developers to assess the impact and resolve the issue, ensuring a smoother experience for existing online payables users.
In September 2022 I launched a Google Survey in email to vendors who had canceled out the payments flow. We found that 40% of vendors needed more hand holding to understand the payment options and we were able to iterate on the payment selection screen.
In December 2022 I sent out a survey to 35 vendors via Great Question asking them specific questions on instant pay mockups so we can better understand what vendors may need to understand/select instant pay. Overall we found that vendors understood the processing time and fees associated with instant pay but there was work to be done on differentiating instant pay versus direct deposit. More icons were added to the mockups to make it easier for vendors to digest.
After the feature launched in the summer of 2023 we interviewed both vendors and property managers to understand their concerns about the feature. From PM feedback we found that updates needed to be made. PMs wanted more control, visibility and education on the feature. Based on many calls and feedback forms, we put together a re-enablement plan with option for PMs to customize their Vendor Pay Settings with PM Opt in Feature.
Other optimizations included:
Added Security & Controls for PMs, Ability for PMs to switch back Vendor Payment Methods with warning and Payment Reconciliation
Sept 2023 Feature Growth Discovery
Once the feature was relaunched in mid September the focus shifted from understanding how to motivate PMs to promote and engage with their vendors about the feature.
In July 2023 I facilitated a design studio to focus on ideation of growth ideas for the feature. Based on our goals I led the team to think about the conversion funnel of a vendor learning about the feature and converting. We also dot voted on near term and long term ideas to optimize the flow.
We launched Vendor Pay and Instant Pay in May 2023, following extensive beta testing and continuous discovery. Using Cupola, we closely monitored adoption and conversion rates for the payment preferences flow, refining our approach in real time.To boost engagement, we implemented targeted awareness campaigns for vendors and strategic promotion efforts for Property Managers. Post-launch, we quickly adapted based on feedback—introducing a PM-controlled setting to toggle both Instant Pay and Bill Pay, aligning the feature with real user needs.
By December of 2023:
~25,000 vendors selected a payment method
~62% of them switched from paper check to online payables!
~22% chose Instant Pay, resulting in $254k Revenue in 2023
In 2024, we introduced regular “Walk the Store” sessions to proactively identify friction points in the vendor experience. One key insight? Skipping the client selection page for vendors with only one client streamlined the flow and removed unnecessary friction.This seemingly small tweak led to a significant usability improvement, boosting our Single Usability Metric (SUM) from -0.41 to -0.13—a clear win in driving smoother conversions and a better overall experience.
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