Billbunch- Bill Payment and Accountability Tool

Project Overview

Billbunch is a bill payment and management platform designed to help Africans manage multiple bills, track spending, and schedule payments in advance. The platform also allows users to split payments and help others pay bills, addressing the challenge of tracking numerous bills with varying payment times.

Problem Statement

People often struggle with tracking their bills, knowing when they expire, and understanding where most of their money goes. Existing solutions, such as paying bills through banks or physically, lacked the convenience of an all-in-one platform. Billbunch aimed to solve this by creating a seamless system to track, pay, and split bills, and schedule payments.

Design Phase

Research and Discovery

I referenced Billpoint, a similar platform, and conducted user interviews to draft personas. A key challenge during research was overcoming users' reluctance to adopt an all-in-one payment platform due to their preference for physical or banking payment methods.

• The interview confirmed that automating bill payments could reduce the time spent on payments potentially saving hours per month.

• Most users find it difficult to track the total amount they spend on bills making it difficult to budget and plan.

• Most users were more than willing to pay all their bills on a single platform.

This led to the introduction of unique features such as referrals and agent systems, which allowed users to earn money by helping others manage their bills.

Ideation and Design Phase

Due to the project's redesign, I started with high-fidelity designs. I had to understand and adjust elements from the previous designer’s work. Based on user feedback, I introduced new features, such as the split payment option and recurring payments, which became key selling points.

Wireframes

Onboarding

Home

Services

Wallets

Bill Schedule

Split Payment

Agents

Implementation

I worked closely with mobile and web developers, as well as two other designers. The mobile app's implementation went smoothly, but there were some setbacks on the web version, particularly regarding animations, which required changes after team discussions.

Testing and Feedback

The team conducted in-house testing, identifying gaps in agent features, ticket purchase services, and referral analytics, which were adjusted. Feedback from the demo was positive, with users praising the ease of use and appreciating the scheduling and bill-splitting features.

Results

Although the product is not live yet, demo versions of the application and website are available in their test versions. Feedback has been encouraging:

• After the demo, 80% of participants expressed interest in using the application for their bill management needs.

• 90% of users found the bill-splitting feature useful, while 75% highlighted the scheduling feature as their favorite.

• Users reported an estimated 30% reduction in time spent managing bills compared to their previous methods, allowing them to focus on other activities.

Takeaways

✅ I am proud of championing the split payment feature and recurring payments, both challenging to implement but ultimately necessary. I learned to iterate quickly and anticipate user blockers. Future updates will focus on expanding the range of bills that can be paid and introducing more payment options to cater to a wider African audience.

✅ Future updates will focus on expanding the range of bills that can be paid and introducing more payment options to cater to a wider African audience.