1. Business dashboard: Connected account balances and tasks that need attention.
Sage
2023–2025
Embedded Services: showing what APIs can do
Clickable demos that help banks and platforms see how Sage’s accounting and payroll APIs could work in their products.
Outcome
A working demo used in real sales conversations
Supported the Monzo deal
My demos supported Sage’s sales team in securing Monzo, a bank with over 700,000 business customers.
Tax filing, powered by Sage
Monzo Business customers can now file taxes with HMRC straight from their bank account, powered by Sage Embedded Services.
The sales team’s go-to demo
One responsive, localised demo (English, French, Spanish) that sales used to show prospects what embedded accounting looks like in their own app.
Introduction
Making APIs tangible for sales
Sage’s Embedded Services APIs let banks, fintechs and software platforms add accounting, payroll and expense management to their products. Sage earns revenue when partners use those APIs.
APIs are hard to explain without something to show. I designed a clickable demo that helped sales show prospects what their customers could use, turning technical capabilities into a product they could explore.
Key decisions
The calls that shaped the demo
1. I built it in code, not Figma.
A Figma prototype couldn’t travel. Sales needed a link they could open on a phone at an event or on a screen in a pitch, and I needed to change it the same day feedback came in. I moved the demo from Figma to a working app using Codex, GitHub and Netlify.
Trade-off: I took on the build myself, without engineering support, in return for speed and control.
2. One codebase for every market and every pitch.
France and Spain needed their own language and tax authority, and big pursuits like a UK bank needed their own branding. Instead of forking a copy each time, I set the language, market and brand from the URL, and worked with pre-sales in each market to get the terms right.
Result: a new localised or rebranded version takes hours not days.
3. I cut what partners can’t actually build.
Early versions showed an exciting “art of the possible” that made promises the roadmap couldn’t keep. I worked with product to split it into a future-facing version and a stripped-back version, and removed anything not on the roadmap.
Trade-off: a less flashy demo, but one sales could stand behind in front of a bank.
4. I made the developer portal the source of truth.
The demo, sage.com and the docs all described the same capabilities in different words. I’m rebuilding the demo from the APIs published on the portal, using the same names, so a CTO can find exactly what their CPO saw.
Result: a new process: a written brief agreed by product, marketing and sales before building, and expert sign-off before prospects see anything.
Skills & tools
Combining product design with rapid prototyping
Skills: product design, prototyping, sales enablement, AI-assisted prototyping, responsive design, localisation, stakeholder alignment
Tools: Figma, Codex, GitHub, VS Code, Netlify, Mobbin
Designs
Accounting features inside a banking experience
2. Connect a bank: An Open Banking flow for the UK, France and Spain.
3. AI bill capture: Scan a bill, review the extracted details and VAT, and choose a category.
4. Sales and customers: Invoices, overdue payments and customer balances.
5. Expenses: Categorised expenses, bills and team spend ready for review.
6. Analytics: Profit and loss, VAT tracking and plain-language business insights.
7. My accountant: Find, invite and work with an accountant in the app.
8. Responsive views: The experience on mobile, tablet and desktop.
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