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Case study 11

Drivus

Drivus runs the business side of a car-rental and rent-to-own operator. It collects and analyses lead data, manages customers and their contracts, automates recurring payments through Pay Advantage, keeps vehicle records and tracking, and handles tolls, fines and incidents. Accounting and loan-amortization engines generate the financial reports, and task automation, CRM notifications, SMS and email keep staff and customers informed. Automated workflows cut manual reconciliation time by 35%.

No public site or source code. The architecture and the decisions behind it are described below.

At a glance

Role
Founding Software Engineer & Tech Lead
Type
Enterprise
Timeline
Jun 2023 – Nov 2024
Domain
FinTech
Focus
CRM, Car Rental, Rent-to-Own, Payments Automation, Loan Amortization
Stack
  • Next.js
  • NestJS
  • PostgreSQL
  • Pay Advantage
Architecture: Contract-centred CRMCRM app to API (HTTPS); API to Accounting engine (post); Accounting engine to PostgreSQL (journal); Pay Advantage to API (payments); API to Events (emit); Events to Notifications; Notifications to SMS & email (send)HTTPSpostjournalpaymentsemitsendUICRM appNext.jsSVCAPINestJSSVCAccounting engineamortization · reportsDBPostgreSQLcontracts · ledgerEXTPay Advantagerecurring billingMQEventspayments · contractsJOBNotificationsCRM alertsEXTSMS & emailproviders
Fig. 11 Drivus architecture: Contract-centred CRMSolid: request · dashed: async · dashed box: external

What Drivus does

  • Lead capture and lead analytics
  • Customer management
  • Contract management with automated recurring payments
  • Vehicle records and tracking
  • Tolls, fines and incident management
  • Loan amortization for rent-to-own contracts
  • Financial and accounting report generation
  • Task automation and CRM notifications
  • SMS and email integration

The problem

A rent-to-own car business is part rental desk, part lender and part fleet manager. Every contract carries recurring payments, an amortization schedule, a vehicle, and a stream of tolls, fines and incidents to pass on to the right driver. Run in spreadsheets, reconciliation alone eats days.

Approach

One platform follows a customer from lead to contract to final payment. Contracts drive recurring billing through Pay Advantage and an amortization schedule; payments, tolls and fines post to the accounting engine, so reports come from the same records the staff work in. Events from billing and contracts fan out as notifications, SMS and email.

Key decisions

  1. D1

    Contracts at the centre

    Payments, amortization, vehicles, tolls and fines all hang off the contract, so a driver's full position is one lookup.

  2. D2

    Accounting by automation

    Financial events post through the accounting engine instead of being re-keyed, which is where the reconciliation time went.

  3. D3

    Event-driven notifications

    Billing and contract events trigger reminders and alerts, rather than staff chasing payments by hand.

Highlights

  • Architected and delivered Drivus, a CRM/ERP platform for car-rental and rent-to-own operators, covering fleet, vehicle tracking, contract management, payments, tolls/fines and financial reporting.
  • Engineered accounting and loan-amortization engines with automated workflows, cutting manual reconciliation time by 35%.
  • Integrated Pay Advantage for recurring billing and built an event-driven notification system for payments, contracts and compliance.

My contributions

  • Joined as the founding software engineer and laid the foundation: requirements, architecture, database design and tech stack
  • Engineered the accounting and loan-amortization engines and the automated workflows around them
  • Integrated Pay Advantage for recurring billing
  • Built an event-driven notification system for payments, contracts and compliance
  • Led the engineering team as tech lead

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