Lumiere Solutions Portal

The Challenge

Lumiere Academic Solutions processes qualification applications on behalf of students, referred by a network of sales agents, and delivered through Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) and providers. Every application involves:

• Multiple parties — applicant, agent, RTO, provider, assessor — each with their own fees and commissions
• A multi-stage approval workflow with strict segregation of duties
• Dozens of supporting documents per application
• Money flowing in both directions: invoices to students and agents, bills to RTOs, assessors, and agents
• Constant communication across email, SMS, and WhatsApp

Running this on spreadsheets, a shared inbox, and manual Xero entry meant double-handling, missed payments, and no audit trail. Lumiere needed a single system that could manage the entire lifecycle — from application intake to certificate dispatch — with accounting that always matched Xero to the cent.

The Solution

We designed and built a full-featured operations portal that is now the daily workspace for Lumiere's entire team — admins, executive managers, accounts, dispatch, front desk, agents, and assessors — each with role-scoped access to exactly what they need.

Feature Highlights

1. Application Lifecycle Management

The core of the platform. Every application links an applicant, qualification, RTO/provider, agent, and assessor, and carries a complete fee structure (application, RTO, agent, assessor, student, and international fees).

• Single, draft, and bulk CSV/Excel application creation with duplicate detection
• Cancel, reinstate, on-hold/resume — with correct accounting side-effects at every step
• Full activity logging: every action attributed to a named user with a timestamp

2. Segregated Approval Workflow

A staged pipeline that mirrors the business's real chain of authority:

Assign Admin → Prepare → "Ready to Check" → Executive Manager check → CEO approval → Send to RTO/Provider → Certificate issued & dispatched

Each transition records who and when, giving management a complete audit trail and real-time status notifications.

3. Xero Accounting Integration (deep, two-way)

The most sophisticated module in the platform — the portal is the source of truth for fees, and Xero always agrees with it:

• Invoices (ACCREC) to students/agents and bills (ACCPAY) to RTOs, assessors, and agents — created from the portal, queued and pushed to Xero automatically
• Agent commission bills auto-calculated: (Lumiere fee − assessor fee) × commission %
• Bulk invoicing for priority agents — one Xero invoice covering many applications, managed per line item
• A parallel local invoice path with branded PDF generation for agents outside Xero
• Four-tier payment sync: push on creation, manual sync, scheduled delta + daily reconciliation, and HMAC-verified Xero webhooks for instant payment updates
• Accounting-correct cancellations: paid invoices become credit notes (auto-allocated), paid bills become refund invoices, unpaid documents are voided — never a dangling balance
• Automatic OAuth token lifecycle, rate-limit handling, health checks, and built-in repair/reconciliation tools

4. Document Management on Backblaze B2

• Per-application document uploads (certificates, PT files, attachments) stored on low-cost B2 cloud storage
• A full file manager with nested folders, tagging, search, bulk operations, and ZIP downloads
• Secure shareable links so external parties can view an application's documents without a login — token-signed, auto-expiring, with scheduled cleanup

5. Assessor Portal

Assessors get their own scoped login, automatically provisioned when they're assigned:

• They see only their assigned applications, submit assessment notes, and generate their own bills
• Next phase (designed and scoped): in-portal interview scheduling with Google Calendar/Meet — auto-created meeting links, recordings captured for CEO review, and billing unlocked only on a passed interview

6. Agent Portal & CRM

• Unified contacts module (agents, RTOs, suppliers) with import/export, trash/restore, and Xero contact sync
• Agents log in to create applications and track their own pipeline — nothing else
• Priority agent status unlocks bulk invoicing and certificate dispatch ahead of full payment
• An agent queries module handles inbound questions with replies by WhatsApp or SMS

7. Built-in Email Client (Zoho Mail)

A complete email workspace inside the portal, so staff never leave the system:

• Inbox, folders, labels, threading, search, starred, and bulk actions
• Compose with attachments, inline images, drafts, and per-user signatures
• Export to PDF/EML, contact autocomplete, permission-gated access

8. WhatsApp Integration

Each staff member links their own WhatsApp by scanning a QR code — then chats directly from the portal:

• Full chat UI: conversations, media, reactions, typing indicators, read receipts, archive, favourites
• Real-time inbound messages via secured webhooks from a dedicated Node.js gateway
• Also used transactionally, e.g. replying to agent queries

9. Qualifications & Price List

• Complete catalogue of qualifications, courses, RTOs, and providers with per-qualification pricing for every party
• Bulk add, import/export, and TGA (training.gov.au) template import

10. Notifications, Reporting & Search

• In-app notification centre plus email (Resend/Zoho) and SMS (Twilio) alerts for every key event
• Application statistics, under-processing and expiry reports, with Excel export on virtually every screen
• Global, permission-aware search across applications, applicants, and contacts

11. Roles, Permissions & Operations Tooling

• Custom hierarchical RBAC: nine roles from CEO down to assessor, fine-grained permissions with per-user overrides
• Built-in ops console for administrators: log viewer, queue monitor with retry controls, and Xero repair tools — reducing dependence on developers for day-to-day maintenance

Technical Architecture

Everything money-related runs through queued jobs with retry, reconciliation, and health monitoring — so a Xero outage or rate limit never loses a payment.

Outcomes

• One system of record — applications, documents, communications, and accounting all live in one place, with every action attributed and timestamped
• Accounting integrity — the portal's fee data and Xero stay in lockstep through four layers of synchronisation, including correct handling of the hard cases: cancellations, refunds, credit notes, and shared bulk invoices
• Self-service for partners — agents and assessors work in scoped portals instead of email threads, cutting back-and-forth for staff
• Operational independence — built-in queue, log, and repair tooling lets the team resolve most issues without developer involvement
• A platform, not just an app — the same foundation is now scoped to power a React Native mobile companion app for field staff

What's Next

• Assessor interview scheduling with Google Calendar & Meet, including recording capture and outcome-gated billing
• Native iOS/Android companion app (Applications + Price List) backed by a new REST API layer

Built and maintained by [Your Company Name] — end-to-end design, development, integration, and ongoing support.