Auto parts retail is historically a high-touch, relationship business. Counter staff know their commercial customers by name, and invoices move on trust as much as on process. That is a strength right up to the point where it becomes the constraint: every payment question, every credit check and every missing statement lands on a human being.
Framing the real problem
The obvious framing was “build a payment page.” The actual problem was that the business had no self-service surface at all for its most valuable customers, so the accounts receivable team had become the product. Every question a customer could not answer themselves arrived as a phone call.
That reframing mattered, because it changed what we measured. Success was not payment volume moving online — it was support contacts deflected and days sales outstanding reduced. Those are the numbers that pay for the build.
What shipped
The portal launched as three connected capabilities rather than one feature:
- Autopay and scheduled ACH removed the mailing and reconciliation loop entirely for customers willing to automate.
- Invoice checkout let customers choose exactly which invoices to settle, which turned out to matter enormously — partial and selective payment is how these businesses manage cash.
- A credit dashboard made available credit, limits and past-due balances visible without a call.
Why it worked
The instinct on a project like this is to digitize the existing process. The credit dashboard was not part of the original scope; it came out of discovery, where the single most common inbound call turned out to be a balance question rather than a payment request. Shipping the answer to that question was cheaper than shipping a better payment flow, and it moved a larger number.