Cenote - Merchant Dashboard for a Mexican Payment Gateway
Payments, Disputes and Payouts in One Place for Online Merchants
Designed and built a clickable merchant dashboard for a Mexican online payment gateway that takes cards with meses sin intereses, SPEI transfers and OXXO cash vouchers in MXN: every payment from authorisation to settlement, declines in plain language, refunds with approval limits, chargebacks sorted by deadline and payouts that break down to the last fee.
Most of our work is under NDA. Per agreement, we can share the work but not the company details - all names and identifying information shown here have been changed.
Impact
Home, payments list, payment detail, disputes with a dispute panel and payouts with a payout panel. Every one of the 28 demo payments opens its own detail page.
Issuer codes such as 51, 05 and 54 map to reasons like insufficient funds, do not honour and card expired, alongside 3DS failed or abandoned, risk blocks and expired OXXO vouchers. Each reason opens the matching payments.
Refunds above the threshold wait for a second person's approval. SPEI and OXXO refunds ask for the customer's CLABE and check its 18 digits and check digit before sending.
21 card payments (6 with MSI), 4 SPEI and 3 OXXO across 14 customers, with 12 disputes, 16 payouts and 3 refunds on a merchant with two accounts.
The Problem
Mezquite's merchants had a transactions list and a CSV export. A shop owner could see that a payment failed but not whether the issuer declined it, 3-D Secure failed or a risk rule blocked it. Refunds were requested by email, chargeback notices arrived as PDFs with deadlines nobody tracked, so about a third of disputes were lost by default, and finance teams could not match a SPEI payout to the payments inside it.
Our Solution
Cenote gives each merchant one dashboard for the whole life of a payment: a timeline per method from first attempt to payout, the decline reason in plain words, refunds that route to an approver above the merchant's threshold, disputes sorted by response deadline with the evidence form beside the claim, and payouts that reconcile to every payment, refund, fee and IVA line.
The Challenge: Three Ways to Pay, One Ledger
Mexican online shoppers pay by credit or debit card, often in interest-free instalments, by SPEI bank transfer or in cash at a convenience store. Each method has its own steps, failure modes, refund route and settlement timing, and the merchant has to understand all of them from one screen.
Every Method Fails Differently
A card payment can stop at 3-D Secure, the issuer or the gateway's own risk rules. A SPEI payment waits for a transfer to an 18-digit CLABE, and an OXXO voucher can simply expire unpaid. Merchants saw one word, failed, for all of them.
Refunds Without One Route
Card refunds go back to the card, and refunding an MSI purchase cancels the remaining instalments at the issuer. OXXO payments cannot go back through the store, so cash and SPEI refunds need a CLABE from the customer, and large refunds need someone to approve them.
Chargeback Deadlines Nobody Owned
Each card network sets its own timelines, and the gateway gives merchants an earlier internal deadline. A 3-D Secure authenticated payment generally moves fraud liability to the issuer, but only if the merchant can see that result when building the evidence.
Payouts Finance Could Not Reconcile
One SPEI payout nets payments, refunds, dispute debits, fees by method and MSI term, IVA at 16% and a rolling reserve. Without a breakdown and the SPEI tracking key, finance teams called support to ask where their money was.
Our Approach: From Mexican Payment Rules to a Clickable Dashboard
Spec and Rules Research
Mapped 6 roles, from merchant owner, finance, developer and support agent to Mezquite's own support staff and the paying customer, and 35 screens: 29 in the merchant dashboard, 2 public checkout pages and 4 in an internal support console. Defined the data model for payments, refunds, disputes, payouts, fee invoices, webhooks and audit entries, and wrote down the rules the design follows: SPEI and the Banxico CEP, card networks and MSI, OXXO vouchers, EMV 3-D Secure 2, PCI DSS, CFDI 4.0 fee invoices, Mexico's 2025 personal data law and the CNBV bank holiday calendar.
Clickable Demo on a Production UI Kit
Built 5 key screens on a production dashboard kit: Home with KPIs, volume by method, MSI split, declines by reason and a needs-attention list; the payments list with status counts, filters, quick view and a bulk action bar; payment detail with the timeline, 3-D Secure, risk, fees and the refund, capture and void actions; disputes with the evidence form; and payouts with the summary waterfall and fee breakdown. A Live and Test toggle and an incident banner run across every page.
What a Production Build Adds
Integration with an acquiring bank through Prosa or E-Global, a SPEI participant such as STP, the Banxico CEP lookup, OXXO and PayCash, a 3-D Secure server, Visa Token Service and Mastercard MDES, fraud scoring, a PAC for CFDI certification, and email and WhatsApp messaging. Sign-in with 2FA for sensitive changes, a full audit log, and the remaining screens: refunds queue, CFDI invoices, reports, customers, payment links, checkout customisation, developer tools, settings, the hosted checkout and the support console.
Why It Works: Every Peso Explained
Declines Say Why
Failed rows show their reason under the card, the Home chart ranks declines by reason, and each bar opens the payments list filtered to it. A shop owner can tell a customer to try another card or check 3-D Secure instead of guessing.
One Timeline per Method
Card payments show 3-D Secure, authorisation code, capture and payout. SPEI payments show the CLABE issued, tracking key and sending bank, and OXXO payments show the voucher, expiry and store. Cards show only brand, BIN, last four and expiry, never the full number.
Deadlines Drive the Dispute Queue
Disputes are sorted by respond-by date, highlighted within 5 days and red within 48 hours, with a sidebar badge and a Home alert. The dispute panel explains the claim, lists the evidence that usually wins it and fills in the 3-D Secure result and liability shift.
Payouts Add Up
Each payout opens a waterfall from gross payments through refunds, dispute debits, fees, MSI surcharges, IVA and reserve to the net amount, with fees broken down by method and the SPEI tracking key and CEP link for proof.
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Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
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Location
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
Enterprise Software Engineering - Human + AI
Contact Us
Locations
Global Headquarters
21 Merchant Road, 3rd Floor, Singapore 058267
Main corporate office and leadership operations
North America Office
548 Market Street, PMB 12345, San Francisco, CA 94104
Client operations and business development
India Office
402 Shivalik Shilp II, SG Highway, Ahmedabad 380015
Engineering and delivery center
© 2026 - Copyright. All Rights reserved Oceanlab