What they built
A self-service Bonus Buddy calculator — a branded, interactive web tool that lets employees estimate their own quarterly bonus at any time, without needing to ask HR or their manager.
Key features:
- Currency toggle (British pounds / Indian rupees) for HowNow's London and Mumbai offices
- Target bonus percentage selector (10%–30% tiers)
- Department OKR tracker — employees tick which OKRs were met that quarter
- Performance rating selector (with named tiers, e.g. "Steady Grazer," "Moving Forward," "Exceeding")
- Real-time calculation showing: annual target bonus, quarterly eligible amount, adjusted payout based on OKRs hit and performance rating, and a kicker amount for top performers
- Breakdown of the 60/40 split (quarterly vs. annual ARR-linked component)
- Disclaimer noting figures are estimates
Why they built it
- Employees received bonuses but didn't understand how the numbers were calculated — generating repetitive questions to managers and HR
- An existing Excel spreadsheet was available but underutilised
- HowNow publishes salary bands and is explicitly values-driven around transparency; bonus was a gap in that transparency
- Employees needed a way to budget and forecast their own earnings across quarters
Tools used
- Lovable — no-code/vibe coding tool used to design and build the calculator (Pauline's first build on the platform)
- HowNow's existing brand assets (colours, logos, fonts) fed into prompts
How you could build this yourself
- Map your bonus logic first - write out every variable that affects a payout (salary, bonus %, OKR attainment, performance rating, any hold-back or kicker rules) before touching any tool.
- Align with Finance - validate your formula with whoever runs payroll to ensure the calculator matches what employees actually receive.
- Sign up for Lovable - start in Plan Mode, which asks clarifying questions before consuming tokens; switch to Build Mode once you've approved the plan.
- Write tight prompts - include: the full bonus calculation logic, all input variables, any multi-currency or multi-location requirements, and your brand colours, fonts, and logo.
- Specify tone and style - tell Lovable whether you want the tool to feel fun or corporate; this shapes the UI output.
- Iterate with follow-up prompts - correct anything that looks wrong by prompting specifically (e.g. "the OKR section should allow individual checkboxes, not a single number input").
- Pilot with a small group - share with a few managers and senior employees; ask whether they could use it to explain a bonus to a direct report clearly.
- Remarket at bonus season - don't just launch and leave it. Resurface the tool when performance ratings are issued so employees can immediately model their payout.
- Use it internally for payroll checks - run the calculator alongside your payroll process to catch discrepancies before employees do.
Source
Built and presented by Pauline Taylor, VP of People at HowNow, as part of an Open Org "Shipped by HR" session - a series where startup People leaders demo AI tools they've built for their organisations.