Services › Business analysis › Payments modernization BA
Business analysis engagement typePayments modernization BA
Lockbox, cash application, remittance data, payment APIs and processor onboarding: analysis done terms-first, with written estimates and lawful, auditable methods.
You are the CEO of your world; this engagement type tells EliosTech where you want us. Vice-president–level ownership takes vice-president–level money, while a narrow individual or external-consultant focus can carry significant discounts. Contracts set the boundaries, EliosTech work is proprietary, and service continues while paid. How it works →
What this work is
Payments work touches money, customers and auditors at the same time. EliosTech, Inc. helps payments, banking and finance teams modernize how money comes in and gets applied: moving from paper and file drops to APIs, onboarding a processor, cleaning up remittance data and making exceptions visible instead of buried.
What EliosTech does in this engagement type
- Map payment flows end to end: card, ACH, check and lockbox, from receipt to cash application and reconciliation.
- Document remittance and settlement data, file formats and API payloads field by field.
- Write requirements for processor and bank onboarding, including the test and certification steps.
- Define exception handling: unapplied cash, short pays, returns and chargebacks, and who works each queue.
- Keep card data out of scope: hosted payment pages and tokenization, never card numbers in email or tickets.
- Plan cutover and parallel runs so the first live day is boring.
What you get
- Current / future payment flow diagrams
- Data and file mapping (remittance, settlement, returns)
- API contract notes and Postman collection for the sandbox
- Exception and reconciliation requirements
- Cutover and parallel-run plan
- Written estimate and budget tracker
Good fit when…
- You are moving lockbox or remittance from files to APIs
- A new processor or bank connection has a go-live date
- Cash application depends on one person and a spreadsheet
- Auditors keep asking questions nobody can answer quickly
Tools we bring to your development team
Over many engagements, EliosTech, Inc. has worked side by side with development teams on the tools they already run. We work inside your licenses, repositories and boards; we do not resell software or lock you into ours. The point is simple: a business analyst who speaks the team's tools turns requirements into working, tested software faster, with fewer surprises at demo time.
Postman
Shared Postman collections and environments for every endpoint in scope, so analysts, developers, testers and partners call the same requests with the same examples. Collections double as living documentation and can run in the team's pipeline (for example with Newman) as a quick API smoke test.
In this engagement type: sandbox collections for every payment, refund and status call, shared with the processor and your team.
SmartBear / ReadyAPI
Functional and data-driven API tests in ReadyAPI (the SmartBear suite that grew out of SoapUI): REST and SOAP, assertions tied to acceptance criteria, test data sets for the edge cases business users care about, and suites the team can rerun every sprint instead of re-testing by hand.
In this engagement type: regression tests for amounts, currencies, declines and return codes, rerun before every release.
Redocly & OpenAPI
API contracts written and reviewed as OpenAPI, linted and published with Redocly so the reference docs stay in step with the spec in version control. Business rules, error codes and examples live next to the endpoint they describe, and partner teams read the same contract your developers build to.
In this engagement type: one published contract for internal teams and partners, with error codes and examples.
Microsoft .NET teams
We have spent years helping teams that build on Microsoft .NET: Web APIs, background services, integrations and the configuration around them. We read a solution well enough to know where a change lands (controller, service, data layer, config), write stories that match how the code is organized, and check each pull-request demo against its acceptance criteria. Your developers write the production code; we keep the requirements and the code honest to each other.
In this engagement type: we work with the .NET services that post, apply and reconcile payments, story by story.
Jira, Confluence & Azure DevOps
The board is where the plan lives. We set it up to match the Epic kickoff (epics, features, stories, tasks), write acceptance criteria, refine and size the backlog, link stories to tests and defects, and keep the dashboards that show progress and budget every sprint. Same discipline in Azure DevOps Boards or similar tools.
In this engagement type: exceptions and certification steps tracked as stories, so nothing is left to memory before go-live.
What our BAs do in Jira (and similar)
- Structure the board to match the Epic kickoff: epics → features → stories → tasks, so what you approved is exactly what the team works.
- Write stories developers can build and testers can prove: clear user stories with Given / When / Then acceptance criteria, data rules and examples.
- Refine and size the backlog with the team before each sprint, with agreed definitions of ready and done.
- Trace everything: link stories to API contracts, test cases, defects and the Confluence (or wiki) pages that explain the decisions.
- Report in the open: sprint dashboards, burn-down and a budget view, plus the written progress and change report you get with every demo.
- Triage and route defects so the right person fixes the right thing, and nothing new enters a running sprint without your written approval.
- Track certification and onboarding checklists from the processor or bank as stories with owners and dates.
Jira and Confluence, Azure DevOps Boards or the tracker you already use. We work in your instance and your workflow.
How it runs: Epic kickoff → Sprint 0 → Sprint 1
- 20-minute intro call → Epic kickoff: we walk the whole project (features, stories, tasks) and you decide whether the work and price are right for you.
- Sprint 0 needs the down payment first. About 2 weeks and up to about 30 days of investigation. It produces your Sprint 1 plan.
- You may decline Sprint 1. If you accept it, that scope is honored and demoed as completion. Then the next payment is due.
- After that, two-week sprints: steady two-week payments, a demo every sprint and a written progress and change report.
Rates and how this engagement type starts
| Engagement shape | Typical rate |
|---|---|
| Long-term remote engagement (roughly 1–2 years) | from ~$80/hr (typically $80–$140) |
| Onsite or heavier hybrid, Cook / Lake counties | ~$130/hr |
| Operating domain + crew (EliosTech runs analysts, developers, testers) | $140–$200/hr or an annual program |
| Short C2C surge, rescue or go-live push | ~$200/hr |
| Discovery = Sprint 0 (default start) | $8,000 down payment before Sprint 0 starts, confirmed in written terms |
| Sprint 1 and later sprints | Billed per two-week sprint from your accepted Sprint plan |
Senior bands, stated up front: domain ownership, not commodity staff augmentation. C2C through EliosTech, Inc. preferred. Longer terms and prepaid work move the rate down; short notice and onsite days move it up.
Configure this engagement type
- Configure the job below
- Estimate — a rough range, instantly
- Terms — read and accept
- Down payment — we invoice; kickoff goes on the calendar
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Read about this work →Rather talk it through?
A 20-minute scope call is free and tells you whether we are the right fit. Discovery (Sprint 0) is paid work that ends in a Sprint 1 plan you may accept or decline.