Afreximbank’s global trade missions, the structured trips that put the bank in front of financial centers around the world, ran on paper, PDFs, and email threads. There was no system of record. Approvals stalled in inboxes, reports were reassembled after the fact from scattered messages, and the Office of the President had no reliable way to track what was coming in or who owed what.
Net Solutions didn’t start with a screen, we started by mapping the bank’s actual approval hierarchy, role structure, and document flows, then let that logic drive the architecture. The result, BTOR (Back to Office Report), is a purpose-built operating system for how Afreximbank plans, approves, executes, and reports on its missions spanning web and native mobile, with governance and auditability engineered in from the first commit rather than bolted on later. Building on the success of the initial rollout, Afreximbank expanded its partnership with Net Solutions to deliver a Virtual Exhibition Platform for global trade events, leveraging established technical patterns and a trusted working relationship.
Afreximbank’s mission-related processes had no digital backbone:
Memos and approvals had no standard path, version control, or traceability.
Multi-level chains from line managers to the President’s office had no digital tracking or audit trail.
The Office of the President had no centralized way to receive, prioritize, or track the volume of inbound documents and feedback.
Staff on international missions had no mobile access to internal systems, so post-mission reports were stitched together retroactively over email.
The brief wasn’t to build an app. It was to replace a fragile, manual institutional process with software that enforces the bank’s own rules.
Before any architectural design work began, we ran a full discovery pass across Afreximbank’s workflows: every role, every approval step, every point where a document could stall or go missing. That map became the spec. We treated the bank’s governance structure as the actual product requirement, then engineered a role-based access system so each user’s permissions and visible data matched their real designation, not a generic template.
Post-launch, we didn’t stop at delivery. We used voice-of-the-customer data from real usage to drive iterative releases: reporting dashboards, mission delegate functionality, and refinements that came directly from how the bank’s teams actually worked once the system was live.
We built a centralized, highly secure digital workspace that automates Afreximbank’s critical operational workflows, from executive correspondence to multi-tier mission approvals. By eliminating manual friction and introducing strict data governance, this system accelerated institutional decision-making and laid the foundation for entirely new digital product lines.
Structured, web-based mission proposals capture itinerary, dates, and agenda as data rather than free text. Every document gets a unique reference ID and QR code for end-to-end traceability, with granular privacy controls so departments only see what they should.
Afreximbank’s authorization hierarchy is encoded directly into the workflow logic. Documents route automatically from submitting staff through supervisors, line managers, and executive leadership. Rejections require mandatory comments, and every revision is preserved in an immutable version history.
Mission approval automatically triggers logistics workflows. A CKEditor-based real-time collaborative editor lets dispersed mission delegates co-author post-mission reports from wherever they are, with final sign-off auto-generating archived reports in multiple formats.
A centralized intake system lets Office of the President staff log inbound correspondence with full sender and document metadata, scan and link physically annotated documents to digital follow-up tasks, and auto-generate calendar invites via Outlook/Office 365 integration.
Inbound official mail is pulled into the same governed pipeline logged with sender metadata, tagged with QR tracking codes, and routed to the right department under enterprise security rules.
Fine-grained RBAC mapped to exact job designations, bulk CSV onboarding, and OKTA single sign-on for frictionless, secure authentication at institutional scale.
Rather than stopping at internal workflow software, we used what we’d learned architecting BTOR to design and ship a standalone digital events product: Virtual Trade Floor iframe integrations, customizable exhibitor booths, subscription plan purchasing through integrated payment gateways, automated expiry notifications, and real-time visitor analytics. This is the clearest evidence of the engagement’s engineering depth. This is the clearest evidence of the engagement’s engineering depth, enabling us to expand Afreximbank’s digital ecosystem with an entirely new product line, rather than a simple feature addition.
Because BTOR replaced manual, paper-based processes end to end, the impact shows up in how Afreximbank’s teams now work, not in a single dashboard metric:
Offline document handling is gone entirely; strict version histories and mandatory rejection comments catch errors early instead of after the fact.
iOS and Android apps mean mission staff contribute to reporting in real time from wherever they’re deployed, closing the reporting lag that used to follow every mission.
The OOTP now runs on a defined, digitally tracked process for correspondence, feedback, and scheduling, a system of record where there used to be an inbox.
SSO and bulk onboarding support continued organizational growth, voice-of-customer-driven releases keep the platform evolving with real usage, and the architecture proved robust enough to spin off a second product, the Virtual Exhibition Platform.
We prioritize systemic understanding over immediate code execution. By mapping enterprise workflows, hierarchies, and manual touchpoints before development starts, we build platforms that reflect how the business actually runs, not a generic template with the client’s logo on it. Our ability to deliver full-stack solutions, spanning secure workflow engines, native mobile apps, and complex identity integrations, is what let this engagement grow from a single operational tool into a governed platform capable of launching new products on top of it.
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