Discount management tool for tax admins · SaaS Enterprise
Discount Rate - Redesign
Vertex is a B2B SaaS company. Filing discounts are a small percentage companies can keep when they pay on time or e-file. The legacy discounts experience was confusing to navigate, and on top of that, the system removed a discount automatically the moment a filing looked late, even if the delay was only a couple of days. Partners wanted a clearer view of their discounts and more control over that removal decision when filing on behalf of their customers. This redesign addressed both.
ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
6 weeks
The Problem
User pain point
The legacy discounts experience was confusing to navigate. Just seeing what discount applied to a filing took a lot of back and forth across screens. On top of that, the system removed a discount automatically the moment a filing looked late, even if the delay was only a couple of days, with no way for the admin to step in.
Business impact
A discount is a small percentage a company can keep for paying on time or e-filing. Getting the removal timing wrong means a company either loses money it was entitled to keep, or keeps money it should not have. Small percentage, but it adds up across many filings for the enterprise accounts Vertex serves.
Key Insights from Discovery
Discounts came up across multiple partner sessions run for the rates feature, and three partners spoke about them directly. Their usage patterns looked different on the surface, but pointed to the same underlying need.
Discount Usage by Partner
Field
Discount Usage
Primary Behavior
Partner 1
Manual, based on state letters
Tracks correspondence in a dedicated folder, then manually applies the adjustment
Partner 2
Rarely adjusts manually
Only touches discounts when a jurisdiction change misses the monthly update window
Partner 3
More common than rate overrides
Wants the system to flag existing overrides when jurisdiction rules change, not silently keep them
WHAT WE ASSUMED
"A smarter system that automatically calculates lateness and adjusts discounts will save admins time and reduce errors."
WHAT THE DATA SHOWED
Admins did not want a smarter system deciding on their behalf. They wanted control and visibility. The system does not know the real world filing context unless a person tells it.
Research Artifacts
01
Automatic removal based on due dates alone took away control
Discount changes were almost always driven by state correspondence, a letter changing the rules for a specific jurisdiction. This partner's team did not want the system silently deciding a filing was late.
"The system should ask if the return is late. It shouldn't decide that on its own."
—
Partner 1
02
Real filing workflows do not match clean system logic
This partner's team files with the return open on one screen and the state's site open on another, keying data in by hand. A discount pulled based on a print timestamp would not match what was actually filed on time.
03
What was not the problem
Manually adjusting discounts was not something teams did often. One partner said they rarely touch discounts at all. The core problem was trust in automation, not frequency of manual work.
What the Research Turned Into
The insights above fed directly into the scoped product requirements. The epic confirmed the exact problem partners had described: discounts were calculated automatically with no way to view details, override rates, or disable them entirely.
Field
What Was Scoped
Disable discounts
Turn off discount calculations for the current filing period or all future periods, logged in the audit trail
Visualize discount details
Maximum amount, amount consumed, amount remaining, discount period, how it’s applied, and the applicable rate, all in one view
Override discount rates
Override rate, maximum, or consumed amount, with a clear Vertex vs. user-defined source indicator
Multiple discount tiers
Support tiered rates based on amount ranges, since jurisdiction rules vary by threshold
Audit logging
Every change logged with the action, field, old value, new value, user, and timestamp
This was scoped as a high priority initiative, tracked at 151 story points. Seeing that scale confirmed something I already suspected from the research: this was not a small tweak to an existing screen. It was a genuine shift from automated, invisible discount handling to something admins could see and control end to end.
The Final Solution
Override and revert
Admins can override the existing Vertex state discount manually. An override tag appears next to that rate in the table the moment it's changed.
To undo it, the admin clicks Revert and selects Save. The override tag disappears from the table immediately, no ambiguity about what is currently active.
Maximum amount and disable/enable
The maximum amount can be overridden through the same modal used for discounts, keeping the pattern consistent rather than introducing a second interaction to learn.
Disabling a discount pulls up a confirmation modal and only applies to that filing period, never a silent, permanent change. Re-enabling a discount restores the current discount rules automatically, so the admin doesn't need to reconfigure anything.
MORE WORK
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