Case Studies

Nivelo

Unified Payroll Operations Platform

Role

Founding Product Designer

Responsibilities

0→1 UX + UI, design systems, user research, prototyping

Timeline

Q4 2022 – Q2 2023

I was the founding (and sole) product designer at Nivelo, creating a unified SaaS platform for payroll providers to manage payment risk from end-to-end. The platform gave operations teams real-time visibility into funding readiness, flagged potential payment failures before payroll runs, and turned those alerts into actionable tasks — enabling faster, more confident resolutions.

Outcomes

Consistent, Actionable Insights

Single source of truth for high-risk transactions, funding readiness, and client verification.

Faster Issue Resolution

Flags instantly converted into prioritized tasks, cutting investigation time from hours to minutes.

Risk Reduction at Scale

Early detection and resolution reduced failed or delayed payrolls, strengthening trust with employers and employees.

Before Nivelo

Payroll providers had no unified way to detect funding shortfalls, verify new clients, or resolve payment risks before payroll ran, issues were usually caught too late, after errors had already impacted employees.

Problem

Payroll providers process millions of ACH transactions each pay cycle, but had no way to confirm funding readiness or catch errors before payroll ran. This led to delayed wages, eroded trust, and costly last-minute fixes. Issues like invalid bank details were caught too late, and no standardized triage workflow existed to resolve them efficiently.

Goals

Enable real-time detection of payment risks before payroll execution
Provide operators with clear, actionable workflows to resolve issues quickly
Ensure every new payroll client is verified and compliant before processing

Key Features

Risk Command Center

Centralized, real-time view of high-risk transactions and funding readiness, prioritized by severity and confidence score.

Actionable Triage System

Flagged issues are automatically converted into prioritized, trackable tasks — with all context in one place for faster resolution.

Integrated Client Verification (KYB)

Built-in Know Your Business verification ensures new clients meet compliance standards and reduces fraud risk.

Takeaways

What Worked

Direct operator feedback loops accelerated iteration.
Tight integration with existing payroll systems minimized disruption.
Visual risk indicators improved confidence in decision-making

What Didn't

Early MVP leaned too heavily on power-user complexity, creating a steep learning curve.
Predictive features lacked clarity on confidence levels, slowing adoption.
Missing reconciliation functionality for resolving discrepancies post-payment.

How we responded

Simplified early UI to surface key signals and reduce initial overwhelm.
Introduced clear predictive language and visual indicators to align with user mental models.
Began building reconciliation tools to resolve post-payment discrepancies within the same system.