HEMLANE
Helping users sync and manage financial transactions in property management software
Re-designing the experience for users to import transactions, synchronize accounts, and other quality-of-life features to make accounting easier.
IMPACT
My impact was reducing feature churn on Hemlane’s accounting features and improving customer satisfaction and outcomes.
Hemlane users had expressed negative sentiments about the state of financial bookkeeping features through product reviews and exit surveys. My work aimed to remedy these customer pain points and provided new accounting capabilities for users who utilize Helmane to help manage finances, accounting, and other bookkeeping processes for property owners.
Within the first 30 days, my design changes helped contribute to:
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41% decrease in customer churn compared to the previous year
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Realized a 30% adoption rate (% of users who synced their bank accounts)
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Improved customer satisfaction and NPS scores
Overview
Timeline
JAN - APR 2024
Role
LEAD UI/UX DESIGNER
Platform
DESKTOP & MOBILE RESPONSIVE WEB
Tool
FIGMA
Hemlane is a SAAS, property management software startup that strives to enhance its product and develops new helpful features for users to manage and perform tasks for their properties and rentals. In early 2024, the product team decided to redesign the accounting product and implement a new bank transactions import feature to improve the user experience in the financial tab.
I took charge as the lead UX designer for the Bank Sync feature project as the last part of the whole accounting redesign. Through research and collaboration with developers, I gained valuable insights and overcame challenges, ultimately designing a product that made an impact on the business and received a positive reception.
BACKGROUND
Hemlane is a software-as-a-service product to manage properties, tenants, and outstanding tasks to keep managed properties running.
Hemlane makes tasks easier for property owners, property managers, and tenants. There are many useful features offered on the platform, including some key functionality like:
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Rent collection – collect or pay rent on the Hemlane platform.
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Financial transaction tracking – Record and track transactions for your property
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Repair coordination – Access a 24/7 coordination service for repair work orders.
and more.
CONTEXT
A number of customers were leaving the platform due to the lack of bank transaction sync, which made financial accounting manual and time-consuming, especially for users with more than one property.
Customers expressed frustration due to the lack of a bank transaction import feature. They often resorted to manually adding transaction data to the Hemlane platform, or they needed another bookkeeping product to complete accounting for their properties. Several customers decided to leave Hemlane and switch to our competitors.
"We have outgrown Hemlane. The accounting and maintenance services are not sufficient for our operations."
- Owner of 13 properties
The accounting body of Hemlane is not suitable for the amount of doors for my portfolio... [The] product just doesn't fit my needs anymore."
- Owner of 9 property units
THE GOAL
Design a Bank Sync feature that imports transaction data from the bank, and build the relevant tools to modify the data as needed.
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Transaction management and recording tools can speed up the accounting process for property owners and managers.
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Implement new features to edit, exclude (hide from view), connect, and split transactions for bookkeeping.
RESEARCH
I gathered industry best practices through competitor research and spotted weaknesses in Hemlane UI through a product audit.
Conducted product audit:
I looked at the existing flows of common tools in the financial tab today and found several opportunities for improvement, including clarifying information hierarchy and adding visual guidance:
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Conflicting indications of which direction money is flowing from two accounts can create mental blocks for users and slow down their experiences.
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Some UI elements appeared outdated as they had not been updated for 3 years.
Completed competitor analysis:
I found and analyzed 3 major competitors of Hemlane to gather up-to-date tools and best practices.
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Buildium and Doorloop (property management software)
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Stessa (an accounting software for landlords)
Example of Stessa's merge feature
Using the information gathered, I adopted similar features and design elements into Hemlane platform to improve the existing accounting experience.
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Split transaction tool to separate 1 transaction into multiple.
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Merge transaction tool to merge duplicated imported transactions
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Simplified financial dashboard with fewer categories to present data more clearly and allow users to take action fast.
USER PERSONA & USER FLOW
I created a user flow to clarify the different actions related to bank sync, transaction editing, and transaction merging.
First, through discussions with stakeholders and my product manager, I identified the core user persona, which is a property owner with more than one property. Afterwards, I created user flows to map out key actions and potential behavior of the user journey.
Persona
Userflow
DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
Clarified money-flow direction in the transaction popup
Theme: Lack of clarity
Problem:
Product owners had identified that users had a mental roadblock in understanding who was paying whom within the user interface properly. This requires the user to waste unnecessary time identifying and taking action. The old design showed no direction of money flow and relied only on verbiage, which was hard to understand at first glance.
Solution:
1. Arrow to represent payment flow on dashboard
2. Removed arrow on smaller UI and added By/From text on modal
3. Replacing jargon with natural language
Outcome:
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Improved clarity – Users should report that it’s easier to understand the interface
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Improved ease of use – Users should perform tasks faster with quicker response to the interface
DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
Allowing users to easily view transaction details, as well as split and exclude transactions when needed.
Theme: Limited spacing
Problem:
As we added more tooling options related to the bank sync feature, the team found it difficult to present all of the CTAs in the mobile responsive web interface.
Design Process
I tested several layouts to display the CTA (call-to-action) buttons as I designed the modal (pop-up) screens. I needed to create a design that considers the ease of use, usage of screen space, and aesthetics.
Solution:
1. Stack the buttons
2. Outline the button
3. Outline border instead of colored background
Outcome:
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If you prioritize nothing, you prioritize everything: Keep all of the CTAs the same size and style, would ensure each feature are highlighted the same.
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Improved ease of use – Users should perform tasks faster with quicker response to the interface
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Improved efficiency: Enable users to have a higher degree of financial accuracy in reporting.
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Reduces visual friction: Less clutter and visual noise for completing tasks
DESIGN
Wireframes
A shot of wireframes for the merge transaction process
Hi-fidelity mockups
Dashboard with filled content
Mobile - Transaction Details popup
Split Transaction popup
Edit Transaction popup
PROTOTYPE
Focused on detailed interactions
The prototype includes the dashboard and actionable interfaces for editing, splitting, and connecting transactions.
Add new transaction
Positioning the CTA on top allow easy and fast action to add new transactions.
Edit transaction
Editing is more straightforward due to improvement in wording of the fields.
Split transaction
Introducing the new split feature for the transactions. Users can now split 1 transaction into multiple, equal or non-equal smaller transactions.
POST-LAUNCH
Positive feedback from customers
Customer reviews highlighted how the imported transaction data streamlined the bookkeeping process. The product was launched around the tax filing deadline in April, and it was quickly adopted by several users for their accounting needs.
"I'm thrilled about the new connect to bank feature. I'm going in [and] categorizing all of the connected transactions now. It came just in time because I was trying to manually add a few of my YTD transactions in prep for my taxes next year."
- Emily, Property owner in California
Insightful feedback for iteration
The product team also received some suggestions for improvement. The requests with minor design changes were completed quickly, and major iterations were added to the product journey.
Added a date-range for data-syncing that is requested by several users after launch.
TAKEAWAYS
Good communication ensures the product progresses timely and smoothly
Effective collaboration and communication between different partners, sometimes cross-functional partners, are key to be staying on track and delivering the final product on time.
Spot pain points through various customer feedback
Gathering customer feedback from a variety of methods can provide a more comprehensive view of the problem. The product team pulled online product reviews, exit surveys, and in-product surveys to learn about the problems in the financial tab. This was how we narrowed down to