From countless hours chasing invoices to 98% paid on time

Kato's society billing process was heavily manual, placing significant operational load on the Customer Success team and creating friction for organisations managing their members.

The goal was to move from a CS-led invoicing model to a fully self-serve billing experience, enabling organisations to manage seats, payments, and renewals directly within the product.

Billing for societies was fragmented and manual:

• Organisations relied on the CS team to renew memberships annually, adjust seat counts, and process invoices manually
• No in-product way to add or manage members, purchase additional seats, or handle renewals independently
• Renewal periods created a high operational burden: manual outreach and coordination across ~1,500 organisations
• Users joining societies did so externally via society websites, creating a disconnected experience

The result: high internal overhead, slow turnaround for customers, and limited scalability of the model.

01Self-serve billing & seat management

A billing experience that lets organisations pay for memberships directly by card, add and manage members within the product, purchase additional seats on demand, and handle renewals without CS involvement.

02Renewal flow redesign

Previously, CS manually contacted organisations, seat counts were confirmed over email, and invoices were created and processed by hand. The new approach: a clear in-product renewal flow with visibility of current seat usage and the upcoming renewal, letting organisations adjust seats and confirm in a few steps.

• Removed manual coordination and back-and-forth communication
• Removed external invoicing workflows entirely

03Join requests: bringing users in-product

Users and organisations can now discover societies within the platform and request to join directly in-product, previously handled externally via society websites.

• Reduced friction in user acquisition
• Brought a key part of the journey into Kato, creating a more cohesive product experience

Shifted a manual, CS-led process to a scalable self-serve system.

• 98% of ~700 organisations paid on time, with 90% paying by card automatically on the renewal date
• Just 7 organisations out of ~700 required active chasing, down from countless hours of manual follow-up the previous year
• Reduced operational load across ~1,500 organisations
• Enabled ~£1M in transactions through the platform
• Improved speed and autonomy for organisations managing memberships

• Complex systems don't need complex interfaces; clarity in states and actions is everything
• Self-serve only works when users feel confident they won't make mistakes
• Removing internal dependencies is often the highest-leverage product work
• Bringing fragmented journeys into the product unlocks both growth and usability gains