Firms that advise

Helen Cockle, COO at Futrli by Sage, took to the stage at Accountex London 2023 to introduce ACCA’s latest partner to members and attendees. The session aimed to showcase real-life industry examples of successful advisers and how they have implemented tech to support their advisory in forecasting, reporting, rapid client analysis, and scenarios and budgets.

Futrli by Sage is the ultimate advisory solution for accountants and uses maths that ‘thinks’ like an accountant. Futrli helps accountants and small businesses make the best business decisions using predictions. By synchronising to clients’ ledgers, Futrli’s platform processes financial data through thousands of algorithms. Using this information, users can see three-year cash flow forecasts, create budgets and scenarios, use drag and drop reporting, and – most importantly – spend more time with clients.

The evolved advisory landscape

• Cloud accounting ensures that accountants are able to see their clients’ data, which means they can control the quality of the data by doing bookkeeping themselves 
• It’s time to couple this rich data with online software. Software integrated with clients’ ledgers ensures firms have the capacity to deliver value-adding services. Futrli by Sage, for example, enables accountants to run three year forecasts of their clients’ financials 
• Firms were provided with a greater capacity. They could take on more clients or deliver more services to the clients they already had and start to seriously consider advisory as a key component of their firm
• The data we have access to is better than ever before. Coupled with regular interactions and forecasting and reporting technology means firms have the potential to provide value-adding services every time they meet with a client.

Industry examples 

Forecasting at scale

Westcourt (an accounting firm) wanted to maximise its advisory potential and offer forecasting.​ It decided to offer forecasting solutions to empower clients to make business decisions grounded in the financial source data. ​

Its connections with clients are meaningful and through predictive forecasting with Futrli. Recently, it shaved $1m of costs for a client over a 12-month period, and over a two year window reduced its deposition by $1.2m.

Reporting

Brearley and Co wanted to generate reports that help small business management borrow or secure finance.​​Brearley and Co decided to make several tailored reporting packages with Futrli.​ It now has reporting packages suitable for every lender on the market.​ Brearley and Co used management accounts and reporting to take one of its clients to £1.25m profit.

Rapid client analysis​

Simpkins Edwards have a growing specialism with healthcare businesses. Their dental clients face challenges pricing their offerings.​ To solve this Simpkins Edwards used Futrli to combine complex financial and non-financial data to generate financial predictions in minutes. ​This information is live, tactile, and creatively presented.​Their clients are empowered to make decisions when pricing and they have increased client profit margins following effective pricing strategies.​

Scenarios and budgets​

Laura at More Than Bookkeeping noted that accountants were struggling to put together budgets and scenarios models that made sense to clients.​ She has implemented tech solutions that can be easily understood by clients​. She builds budgets and scenarios in Futrli where both the adviser and client can get into the platform and have a play around with the features. These collaborative tools ensure both adviser and client are on the same page​. This has fostered a collaborative atmosphere between adviser and client​.

Scalable advisory in accountants’ workflows​

Accounts and legal needed tech solutions to unlock potential advisory bottlenecks and improve workflow.​They now use accessible visualisation in Futrli’s boards and reporting which have unlocked advisory bottlenecks as all employees feel empowered to make advisory recommendations.

Through improving their workflows, they have doubled turnover in one year to £2.5m and doubled staff members from 26 to 52 in one year.​

Find out more about Futrli and its special ACCA offer.