Controle Plus
Transforming corporate expense management with artificial intelligence and mobile-first experience
Client
Controle Plus
Duration
24 weeks
My Role
Product Designer
Overview
Controle Plus is a complete corporate expense reimbursement management platform that uses artificial intelligence to automate the process from receipt capture to employee payment. Developed to solve the main problems of CFOs, financial managers and employees in medium and large companies.
This case documents the complete design journey, from deep user research to delivering a solution that reduced expense processing time by 78% and eliminated 95% of fraud in pilot clients.
Discovery
56
Professionals interviewed
23
Companies analyzed
32
Usability tests
15
Design iterations
Research Methodology
- In-depth interviews with 56 professionals (CFOs, controllers, field salespeople)
- Reimbursement process shadowing at 23 companies from different sectors
- Analysis of existing workflows in SAP, Excel spreadsheets and legacy systems
- Quantitative survey with 890+ employees about reimbursement process pain points
Key Insights
- 89% of employees lose at least 1 receipt per month
- 72% of companies take more than 30 days to process reimbursements
- 45% of CFOs report suspected undetected fraud
- 94% want automatic integration with accounting systems
Personas
We identified two main user profiles that represent the extremes of the platform usage spectrum.
Marcos Oliveira
42 years old • CFO
"I need to know exactly where every company cent is in real time."
Goals
- • Full visibility of corporate expenses
- • Reduce accounting close time
- • Ensure tax compliance
Frustrations
- • Manual processes and spreadsheets
- • Fraud and unauthorized expenses
- • Inaccurate and late reports
Carolina Mendes
28 years old • Field Sales Rep
"I'm always in meetings, I need to register expenses in 30 seconds."
Goals
- • Register expenses quickly
- • Receive reimbursement without bureaucracy
- • Track request status
Frustrations
- • Losing physical receipts
- • Slow reimbursement process
- • Not knowing if expense was approved
The Challenge
The expense management market is dominated by complex enterprise solutions (SAP Concur) or tools too simple for large corporations. The challenge was to create a solution that combined the robustness needed for compliance with the simplicity that end users demand in their daily lives.
How to make expense registration as fast as taking a photo?
How to ensure compliance without creating friction for users?
How to detect fraud without blocking legitimate expenses?
The Solution
We developed an AI-based approach that eliminates manual steps. The "Smart Capture" system extracts data automatically from photos of receipts, while machine learning algorithms detect anomalies and potential fraud.
Smart Capture
Photo of receipt → automatic extraction of values, date and supplier
Intelligent Flows
Approval based on rules with automatic escalation and delegation
Predictive Fraud
AI that learns company patterns and alerts unusual expenses
Key Features
AI OCR
Smart scan that reads any receipt in seconds
Fraud Detection
Machine learning that identifies suspect patterns
Fast Approval
Customizable workflow with one-tap approval
Auto Reports
Real-time dashboards and scheduled reports
Competitive Benchmark
Expensify
Strengths
- ✓ Modern interface
- ✓ Efficient SmartScan
- ✓ Easy to start
Weaknesses
- ✗ Limited for enterprise
- ✗ Basic integrations
- ✗ English-only support
Ramp
Strengths
- ✓ Integrated corporate card
- ✓ Automatic insights
- ✓ No fees
Weaknesses
- ✗ US only
- ✗ Startup focus
- ✗ Limited customization
Flash Expense
Strengths
- ✓ Brazilian solution
- ✓ Good cost-benefit
- ✓ Local support
Weaknesses
- ✗ Basic interface
- ✗ Few reports
- ✗ Limited mobile
Project Requirements
Functional
- Smart receipt scan with OCR and AI
- Customizable multi-level approval flow
- Corporate card integration
- Automatic reports by cost center
- Real-time executive dashboard
- ERP integration (SAP, Oracle, Totvs)
Non-Functional
- Image processing in less than 3 seconds
- 99.9% availability (enterprise SLA)
- GDPR and SOC 2 Type II compliance
- Support for 10,000+ simultaneous users
- Native iOS and Android apps with offline mode
- SSO with Azure AD, Google and Okta
Infrastructure
Screens
Visual System
Color Palette
Primary Blue
#3B82F6
Success Green
#10B981
Warning Orange
#F59E0B
Dark Navy
#1E3A5F
Results
-78%
Processing Time
From 30 days to 6 days average
95%
Fraud Eliminated
Detected by the AI system
4.7★
User Rating
On App Store and Play Store
320+
Internal users
In the first year