IMPROVING HOW WE COLLECT FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS FROM MERCHANTS
BACKGROUND
Merchants applying for Shopify Capital loans over a certain size must submit financial documents for underwriting. Previously, underwriters manually emailed a link for document upload, but only 36% of merchants submitted complete statements without additional follow-up and prompting, and many felt uneasy uploading sensitive info through an email link.
Automatic requesting of financial documents
As soon as the merchant applies for a loan, they’ll get an automated request to submit documents. No more need for manual reach outs.
Upon application, merchants are directed to a secure upload link from within their Shopify admin.
Tasks grouped by reporting period
To reduce cognitive load, we grouped each upload task by reporting period. Merchants can now upload multiple files for one reporting period at a time, with clear requirements listed for each. They can also indicate if any statements are missing and provide a reason.
Underwriter file management dashboard
Underwriters can review and tag each uploaded file, track what’s been provided, and see context provided by the merchant on any missing statements. Tagged statements are automatically marked as completed in the checklist so they can more easily keep track.
Follow-up requests
Underwriters can now create follow-up requests within the dashboard, allowing merchants to provide information securely through Shopify's web admin, instead of via email.
The merchant’s view of the follow-up request. They may be asked to provide additional documents or answer clarifying questions.
Delegating the document request
Research showed many merchants have a dedicated finance manager. To reduce friction, we added a feature for sharing a secure link with a third party to upload documents on behalf of the merchant, without granting access to their Shopify account.
Merchants can generate a unique URL which links to an external document upload page
SUMMARY
My role
As the lead designer, I collaborated with a product manager and 2 engineers to create an improved document collection experience in two phases: a merchant upload journey and a new process for internal underwriters to manage financial statements.
I started off by chatting with the underwriting team to get a better sense of their processes and what the existing document collection experience looked like.
The old document upload page sent via email. The list of required documents was manually entered by the underwriter, often resulting in formatting errors. Only 1 file per drop zone was supported, even though three statements were required per reporting period, meaning merchants had to manually combine documents.
Underwriters could access uploaded files, however, these uploads are financing specific so if the merchant applies for more funding in the future, finding them again would be difficult.
Any files uploaded by the merchant would show up in a list for the underwriter to download.
Merchant pain points
Underwriter pain points
Product objectives
Outcome
The new document collection experience was rolled out in August 2024. As of November 2024, the number of merchants who submitted documents within 3 days of receiving the request was 86%, up from 50% previously (increase of 70%). Only 16% of submissions required a follow-up request for additional information or missing documents, compared to 64% previously.