Accounts Receivable ecosystem

Replacing a Legacy AR (Accounts Receivable) Ecosystem in 10 months

Company

GFL Environmental Services

Year

2026

Role

Senior Product Designer

The Challenge

GFL faced a fixed 10-month timeline to architect, design, and deploy a completely custom, independent Accounts Receivable (AR) module from scratch before its core accounting software, Microsoft Dynamics GP, was discontinued.

The complexity of this project was deeply systemic, requiring a balance of operational security and high-volume data integration:

Legacy Technical Debt: The existing workflow relied on fragmented databases, manual journal entries, and non-secure credit card handling processes.
Complex Data Integration: The new platform had to connect directly to GFL’s internal Operations Management System (OMS) to seamlessly ingest high-volume financial data streams.
Risk to Cash Flow: The entire transition had to occur with zero disruption to daily cross-border cash flow operations across the United States and Canada.

The Impact

By driving rigorous workflow discovery and leveraging our existing design system, the new module successfully launched on schedule, securing core financial operations.

On-Time System Delivery: Re-architected and deployed the multi-entity financial ecosystem within the rigid 10-month window, ensuring uninterrupted business continuity before the legacy platform sunsetted.
Workflow Reverse-Engineering: Overcame a complete lack of legacy documentation by conducting on-site contextual inquiries and workflow mapping sessions with the AR team. This allowed us to uncover and translate hidden accounting edge cases into standardized UI patterns.
Accelerated Design Velocity: Scaled our internal design system (built on Shadcn UI) to ensure component consistency and streamline engineering handoff, cutting early discovery and layout timelines by 50%.
Consolidated Financial Dashboards: Translated the complex mental models of AR agents into a high-density interface that unified disparate data streams into a single, reliable source of truth.

The Process

1. Workflow Discovery & System Mapping

2 Months

Process Mapping: Partnered with a Business Analyst to map the end to end Order to Cash lifecycle, documenting over 10 core financial flows including batch maintenance and cash receipts.
User Persona Modeling: Defined distinct access permissions and functional goals for four core user groups, balancing the needs of audit focused AR managers with high speed transaction operators.
Technical System Alignment: Collaborated with engineering teams to map how financial data would route from the internal Operations Management System through the new AR module directly into Workday.

2. High Density UI & Prototyping Velocity

2 Months

Accelerated Layout Validation: Utilized AI tools to instantly generate initial structural layouts for the customer section, enabling early alignment and functional feedback from stakeholders on day one.
Design System Scaling: Expanded the internal Shadcn based design system to create high density component variants that dynamically adapt to multiple financial document types like invoices, payments, and credit notes.
Ledger Interaction Design: Engineered custom UI patterns for inline overpayments and underpayments, allowing operators to reconcile accounts directly within line items without creating unmapped ledger balances.

3. Managing Structural Ambiguity & Scope

2 Months

Strategic Risk Mitigation: Shifted design execution to modular administrative settings during a period of backend vendor uncertainty, ensuring productivity remained high while backend architecture was finalized.
Frontend Layout Resilience: Preserved the entire user facing interface during a major backend architecture pivot because the UI components were built with data field independence.
Scope Enforcement: Enforced a strict MVP registry to separate mandatory compliance requirements from secondary feature requests, keeping the product trajectory clear for the fixed year end launch deadline.

Isidora Escobar

Accounts Receivable ecosystem

The Challenge

The Impact

The Process

1.

Workflow Discovery & System Mapping

2 Months

Process Mapping: Partnered with a Business Analyst to map the end to end Order to Cash lifecycle, documenting over 10 core financial flows including batch maintenance and cash receipts.

User Persona Modeling: Defined distinct access permissions and functional goals for four core user groups, balancing the needs of audit focused AR managers with high speed transaction operators.

Technical System Alignment: Collaborated with engineering teams to map how financial data would route from the internal Operations Management System through the new AR module directly into Workday.

2.

High Density UI & Prototyping Velocity

2 Months

Accelerated Layout Validation: Utilized AI tools to instantly generate initial structural layouts for the customer section, enabling early alignment and functional feedback from stakeholders on day one.

Design System Scaling: Expanded the internal Shadcn based design system to create high density component variants that dynamically adapt to multiple financial document types like invoices, payments, and credit notes.

Ledger Interaction Design: Engineered custom UI patterns for inline overpayments and underpayments, allowing operators to reconcile accounts directly within line items without creating unmapped ledger balances.

3.

Managing Structural Ambiguity & Scope

2 Months

Strategic Risk Mitigation: Shifted design execution to modular administrative settings during a period of backend vendor uncertainty, ensuring productivity remained high while backend architecture was finalized.

Frontend Layout Resilience: Preserved the entire user facing interface during a major backend architecture pivot because the UI components were built with data field independence.

Scope Enforcement: Enforced a strict MVP registry to separate mandatory compliance requirements from secondary feature requests, keeping the product trajectory clear for the fixed year end launch deadline.

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