As a part of a larger effort to further expand and grow our product upstream, we began exploring what features higher-value Invoicers valued; and what might attract them to make the switch to our platform. Amongst other insights, we found that these larger, more established businesses very much valued customization options and the ability to make the experience for their customers more bespoke to their individual brands.
Building on this insight, we set out with the goals of helping our Sellers appear more professional and providing better controls for how their brand is represented within the product.
In addition to the payment page where Buyers pay and interact with the 'invoice', we also provide a traditional invoice with each in the form of a downloadable PDF, often used for record keeping and more official uses. The original Square Invoice design was years old at this point, and due to it being siloed off from the rest of the experience, it was an obvious place to start exploring these expanded customization offerings.
After defining the direction for the PDF's and the style variants we wanted (Modern, Classic, and Original), the work began to design them. Not only was it a challenge to build a pleasant looking invoice that clearly displays information, but the legality in some of the locales we operated in had very strict definitions of what does and doesn't constitute an "invoice". This added another layer of complexity to the project, and required heavy collaboration from our counsel and localization teams.
Once the PDF's had been completed, efforts then shifted to building the customization page where these changes would be made. This part of the project began with a broad scope, as it required a higher level exploration of the navigational architecture of the Invoices product itself, and determining where these upcoming customization settings would live.
The first version of these settings initially would serve the singular purpose of allowing switching between the 3 PDF 'styles', with the deeper customization options coming later as we strategized how to sequence all the required changes to the Buyer surfaces outside of the silo'd PDFs.
This customization umbrella of work also doubled as a billboard for our Invoices Plus premium product, so we wanted to ensure both subscribed and unsubscribed Sellers would be able to preview the experience.
Following the full rollout, we saw bumps across the board in both new trials and new subscriptions to the Plus product, an immediate adoption of the new customization options, as well as a barrage of positive Seller feedback and excitement regarding this work.
