Next-Gen, First to Market Billing System Built by NGOs for NGOs 

Background  

The goal of the client is to reinvent billing processes across the board with best-in-class features combining cloud computing with human expertise to allow organizations to outsource essential, time-intensive accounting functions that significantly reduce efforts of monthly grant allocation billing for non-profits. 

When they approached us, they had their awesome idea and a patent. Therefore, we had to develop the platform right from product ideation. The client wanted to implement the patent with all automated billing system benefits, user activity login, real-time analytics, and a payroll module.  

Client 

The client is set to be one of the leading automated solution service providers for the US market. The company targets non-profit organizations (NGOs) that want to optimize their budget, as well as funding obligations in various grants and programs.  

The company’s goal is to help NGOs foster greater efficiency and transparency in their financial life cycle with real-time data for both government and privately sourced grants. The client’s custom billing solution also comes with other features, such as expense allocation, automated payroll module, as well as business intelligence & reporting. 

Challenge 

When they approached us, the company had already patented their brilliant idea to solve the billing challenges for non-profits. Due to limited budgets for the internal accounting staff, NGOs are often short-staffed and as a result they often encounter a lot of challenges with financial and regulatory reporting. With today’s complex regulations, they have to spend so much time and often make reporting mistakes which can cause catastrophic consequences for the NGOs. To keep up, usually, they have to pay thousands of dollars to the external consultancies who help with reporting.  

This is where our client’s innovative solution comes into the picture! Now NGOs can save money on external consultants and redirect it to other important objectives without compromising their reputation. We had to work closely with the client’s patent to maintain the integrity of their intricate business needs and bring their ideal product to life. Furthermore, the client was trusting us with a patent, which also meant greater security responsibility on our end.  

While the patent was a helpful guide, the client still didn’t have a really clear vision on how to bring their idea to life. That means we had to also help build the first MVP and demo platform right from scratch. We had to implement several review and iteration stages, which made the process longer than usual. It was crucial for us to confirm each stage with the client to ensure we were on the right path before adding too many layers of complexity.  

Solution 

Once we understood and finalized the client’s needs over a few meetings with their stakeholders, we were ready to get to work. At first, we assembled a small team, headed by a dedicated manager who formed the primary point of contact between developers and the client. It was important to have a primary communication protocol, given that the client had umpteen requests coming in as the project progresses.  

We also assigned a business analyst to the project, whose main role was to create technical tasks and communicate the same requirements to developers. As the project was progressing, the client brought new fresh ideas and by the time we completed the first MVP, we had altered more than 50% of the initial described project. This forced us to extend the timeline. However, in the end it was worth it.  

Today, the client’s MVP and demo version are now up and running and they are preparing to onboard their first client. 

Results  

We provided the client with a fully-functional automated billing system which is a game changer for today’s charity foundations. Now NGOs can save money on external consultants, and significantly lower mistakes with reporting. This is critical for charity organizations as it shows transparency, improves trust, and consequently increases donations.  

The upcoming version will feature various upgrades, including an automated payroll module, user interface improvement, more user roles, user activity login, among many other features