Multi-Account
North One | May 2025 | Product Design
OVerview
Designed an end-to-end multi account experience to bring the product up to competitive parity and address critical gaps for North One’s most active small business owners.
Role
Product Design
Team
Jacob Lang (Design)
Jordan Anderson (Design)
Sarah Luke (Product)
Tanisha Aberdeen (Dev lead)
Jordan Anderson (Design)
Sarah Luke (Product)
Tanisha Aberdeen (Dev lead)
Timeline
1 month
Overhaul of transfer rule management
Access to accounts at a glance
Reconfiguration of how account information is displayed
Problem
The current account structure limited the product's viability for small businesses managing higher transaction volumes.
North One's envelope feature essentially functioned as folders within a single bank account. When a card transaction exceeded the main account balance, all envelopes dumped back into the main account — forcing small business owners to manually reconfigure their allocation. This repeatedly affected some of North One’s top user base.
The limitation ran deeper for more active small businesses:
1.
Envelopes lacked unique routing and account numbers, making it impossible to separate funds by intent — a dedicated taxes account, an operating account, a payroll account.
2.
The current percentage-based transfer rules were rigid and didn't accommodate the complexity these businesses required.
Our objective:
Replace the envelope feature with a multi account experience that resolved the allocation problem and brought the product up to competitive parity.
Existing experience
Envelopes functioned as folders, not accounts, for customer’s money
Envelopes did not have routing or account numbers
The reallocation flow was a common pain point for Envelopes users
Discovery & Validation
Business owners were working around a sub-optimal system and were eager for a solution the moment we asked.
Research confirmed the allocation problem was more widespread than complaint volume suggested. Outreach to larger customers confirmed strong demand — multiple small business owners expressed they would begin using the feature immediately upon launch. That level of enthusiasm made the case for the scope of the build.
Testing
Business owners were ready to adopt the feature immediately — with a few caveats.
Testing was conducted with a sourced group of top small business customers on high fidelity designs. Reaction to the feature was exceptional.
The most substantive feedback centered on the account transfer flow:
1.
Multiple transfer rule types created a complex mental model that needed product education to support
2.
The existing flow didn't accommodate rules affecting multiple accounts simultaneously
Before
Only two type of transfer rules — one for money internal transfers and one for deposits
After
Reintroduced the existing envelope transfer rule type + added tooltip for education
Before
Users were confused by the copy and noted that transfer frequency wasn’t valuable
After
Introduced additional education + removed transfer frequency to reduce scope and cognitive load at this step
Solution
Accounts were locked, routing numbers were unique, and the transfer flow was rebuilt from scratch.
Because the feature touched nearly every part of the product, design ranked every aspect by importance with the PM and engineering lead providing technical feasibility context. The feature replaced the envelope experience entirely:
1.
Accounts were locked independently — a card transaction exceeding a specific account balance would decline rather than disrupt the entire allocation system
2.
Each account carried its own routing and account number, enabling small business owners to truly separate funds by intent
3.
Transaction and transfer flows were overhauled — small business owners could designate the source account, and transfer rules were pulled out of settings and consolidated into the account transfer experience
Independently locked accounts
A card transaction exceeding a specific account balance would decline rather than dump all envelopes back into the main account, preserving the allocation of every other account.
Account list on the dashboard
The dashboard was updated to surface all accounts at a glance, giving small business owners immediate visibility into their balances and account activity.
Overhauled transaction and transfer flows
Small business owners could designate the source account per transaction, and transfer rules were pulled out of settings and consolidated directly into the account transfer experience.
Impact
A design-led process produced exceptional user demand — and introduced a new way of working that carried into future projects.
The business chose to prioritize acquisition and activation initiatives over retention-focused work. Design's position was that a fully featured multi account solution would have meaningfully improved stickiness for North One's highest-value small business customers. That tradeoff ultimately went the other way.
Some other takeaways from this project were:
Design owned prioritization
For a feature touching nearly every part of the product, design had final say on scope — aligning every key stakeholder.
Exceptional user demand
Multiple small business owners proactively requested direct communication the moment the feature went live.
A new way of working
The prioritization framework introduced on this project was adopted as a standard process and carried into future projects.
More work
© Jacob Lang 2026. Made with 🧀 & ❤️ in Pittsburgh PA.
