5 things NOT to expect when launching your business
Entrepreneurship is a word that’s become almost synonymous with freedom and ambition. And while we’re bombarded with things to look out for and be aware of when launching a business, we rarely hear about the things that might not quite turn out as we expect! So, here is Tide member Ben Kamara’s top five things he didn’t expect when starting out on his own.
1. The universe to align
For some people, the thought of leaving steady paid employment can be a big hurdle. Life gets in the way: changes in living costs, relationships and other uncertainty can derail your glowing business idea before you even get going. This might come as good or bad news, but there’s never a perfect time to launch.
Trust your gut – it’s likely you’ll know when it feels like the wrong time or opportunity, but there’s no guarantee of a sign that it’ll feel right.
- Guaranteed success
We love a good start-up success story. But while business owners will rarely tell you negative stories, statistics show that only 44% of new businesses last more than 5 years.
It’s worth bearing in mind, and approaching your business with both a short-term mindset as well as simultaneously building the long-term vision.
- Someone to do all the boring stuff for you
It’s nice to think we can just ‘pay away the pain’ and get someone else to do the boring/ time-consuming work for you, but for most start-ups, it’s hard to do this without spending more money than is necessary.
Admin is the least glamorous part of running your own business, but it’s undeniably important.
4. Investors to throw themselves at you
There are plenty of startup newsletters and bulletin boards with daily news of startups who have raised capital. But whilst it can seem like there is unlimited money available to invest in your ideas, the truth is that investment can be a mirage. Like a mirage in the desert, you may end up spending your time and money never to reach the investment on the horizon.
Many small businesses do need an injection of cash to help them reach viability. So it’s a good idea to prove your concept as quickly and cheaply as possible – perhaps even before setting up your company – and then to start having conversations about financing with the right people as early as possible.
5. An easy mental journey
The phrase “it’s lonely at the top” has been around for decades. And for most people starting a new business, it can be just as lonely. Paid employment, especially in large organisations can be comforting, and you’re surrounded by colleagues and peers who often share your values and are in similar positions in life. When you become an entrepreneur, you’ll likely lose all of that. It’s tough – and clients can’t be expected to fill the void of colleagues.
You can find companionship in other entrepreneurs and small business owners, who you may come across at co-working spaces, shared offices or start-up meetups.
Tide business banking will be at Accountex on 1-2 May on Stand 210.
The tale of Morrisons data breach
You may remember 2014, it was the year of the top-knot, the ASL ice bucket challenge dominated our newsfeeds and Morrisons suffered one of the biggest data breaches in modern history.
That’s right, Andrew Skelton, in a story stranger than fiction, deliberately posted personal payroll information including names, bank account details, salaries and NI details of nearly 10,000 employees. Why? Well besides the obvious reason that he mustn’t have been in the right frame of mind, Skelton was the subject of disciplinary action following an incident and reportedly harboured a grudge. YES, REALLY.
To cut a long story short, the data breach cost Morrisons nearly £2m to rectify, a court case that lasted years, not to mention a headache of epic proportions. Skelton? He was jailed for 8 years. According to David Holderness from the Crown Prosecution Service:
“The potential loss to his victims and the sheer quantity of potentially compromising data was very significant and could have resulted in employees’ identities being stolen….The sentence imposed today sends out a clear message”.
Basically, the Crown Prosecution Service are not messing about when it comes to personal data and protecting employee payroll information. Got it?!
“But what has this got to do with me and my business?” I hear you ask. This employee deliberately set out to do this and all businesses must ask themselves: how do you protect against an inside threat, a disgruntled employee?
Well here’s where it gets interesting because in October this year, Morrisons lost a Court of Appeals decision that said the supermarket was vicariously liable for this data breach, even though it was carried out by a disgruntled employee. Why??
Well for one. The payroll data was briefly stored on Skelton’s computer (he was an internal auditor at the time) where there should have been arrangements to ensure the deletion of such payroll data. Arguably the point at which Skelton obtained the personal employee data exposed a vulnerability in Morrisons’ data protection processes. Plus, there is speculation that the protective strength of their policies may not have been up to scratch. It seems they are being made an example of.
The introduction of GDPR and a number of high profile data breaches means that our personal data and how it is used is at the forefront of our collective consciousness. This is supported by the fact that Morrisons is now being sued by 5,000 of their employees. Yikes!!
This case alone highlights the level of GDPR technical and organisational controls that need to be in place, even in the most trusted parts of the company. But this is such a huge task and I am surely doomed to fail! How can I ensure that my employee payroll details and client data is secure? Where do I even start?
Well, there is a GDPR payroll solution that is tailored to help you and your clients overcome some of the key challenges GDPR presents when processing payroll. BrightPay Connect is a GDPR compliant payroll tool that provides one of the most secure payroll platforms on the market.
With BrightPay Connect, the payroll information is accessed from a secure portal with end to end encryption. All sensitive data is stored on the cloud where clients and employees can log in to access the payroll information that is only relevant to them. Each employee has an individual password and access to their own personal payroll information only.
Also included in BrightPay Connect is an automatic cloud backup feature, an employee self-service portal, client payroll entry and payroll approval features amongst many others.
Book a free demo today and get a good night’s sleep knowing BrightPay gives you the tools to be GDPR protected.
An accountants' practical guide to R&D tax relief
Tax Cloud will be hosting a speaker session which aims to give accountants a practical guide to HMRC’s R&D tax relief incentive in the Tax Theatre at Accountex on 1 May 1, 4pm.
Designed and created for accountants, this presentation will help you understand all the latest information on HMRC’s R&D tax relief scheme, covering aspects such as:
- What are the thresholds for the R&D tax relief scheme?
- What could R&D tax relief be worth to a profit-making SME?
- What could R&D tax relief be worth to a loss-making SME?
- Directors' pay and R&D tax relief claims.
Accountants who attend this presentation will walk away with ideas on how the R&D tax relief scheme can help them attract new clients, grow their practice and boost revenue as well as how they can identify low hanging fruit amongst their client base.
What are R&D Tax Credits?
R&D Tax Credits allow businesses that incur costs in developing products, processes, software or services to receive a corporation tax deduction or cash payment from HMRC. But many businesses don’t realise that they qualify for R&D tax credits or that they are not claiming their full entitlement. These businesses are missing out on one of the government’s top incentives which allow up to 33.3% of a company’s R&D spend to be recovered as a cash repayment.
That is why Myriad Associates have used their specialist knowledge and experience to create Tax Cloud, a much-needed solution for accountants who are looking to offer their clients R&D tax relief services with support from a leading R&D tax consultancy.
Tax Cloud (stand 140) will be hosting a speaker session which aims to give accountants a practical guide to HMRC’s R&D tax relief incentive in the Tax Theatre on May 1 at 4pm.
Offshore Staffing: Is it for everyone?
What motivates a firm, big or small to recruit a full-time employee, thousands of miles away from their current office?
Declining profit margins and rising costs of operations have made offshoring more appealing to both the large and small-scale businesses.
The principal reason to outsource a staff relates to an increase in the efficiency and a reduction in wages all the while maintaining the same quality of work.
It also provides a flexibility in one’s allocation of resources to achieve the firms optimal value.
Several challenges
Large businesses have been exploiting the service to achieve their competing edge when contesting on a global platform.
However, the SME sector have faced several challenges when it comes to outsourcing, be it a process, one staff or a team.
A major drawback in remote staffing is identifying the need for offshoring itself and allocating the resources efficiently.
Delegation is the only major cost when it comes to hiring a remote staff. However, managing employees oversees has become simpler and trouble-free when the partner firm holds accountability in both parts of the world.
As technology has greatly helped in promoting and facilitating remote staffing, an offshore team located 10,000 miles away is no different to one on another building.
A data security plan should be developed, covering the transfer of data, levels of access and network security measures to ensure the reliability of the information that is being communicated.
With economic development in various parts of the developing world, there is greater access to global talent at a very affordable price, even for a startup.
Successful businesses adapt swiftly to the market changes in adjusting themselves among their competition. Offshore staffing grants more freedom to the employees, both in-house and remote with less emphasis on where the job is done.
Exel Solutions will be on Stand 152 at Accountex, 1-2 May 2019.
How accountants can scale sales and boost their trusted status
Most customers search for services and compare products online. So, your digital footprint is more important than ever.
According to a Harvard Business Review study of B2B buyers, 53% of buyers turn to social media when assessing tools and technologies. Currently, 94% of B2B buyers perform online research before making a purchasing decision. If you do not have an online presence and a strong identifiable brand you will miss out on most online inquiries.
In my last article, I showed how professional accounting services firms had room for improvement, now let's deep-dive into Scale Your Sales strategies to accelerate growth. Branding should evoke an emotional response that motivates your ideal customers to sign on as a client. Your brand must reinforce the brand values, engage new customers and make clients want to remain with the firm over their lifetime.
With 72% of firms struggling to win new business and a third of existing clients considering switching to competitors; your engagement and education process is critical.
Even if you are not planning to grow your accounting firm or sole practice, you will want to retain your existing client relationship.
Scale Your Sales is the ultimate relationship system that helps professional accounting services engage, educate and elevate your client relationships into trusted and loyal partnerships.
Scale Your Sales Engagement Strategies
Engagement starts long before the first meeting. It is in the brand messages the resonate with the ideal customers. The brand is the first impression, that set their expectations of what will follow. Do you encourage the customer to schedule their own appointments, is this process easy? What is the on-boarding process in the first, and subsequent years? Are clients invited to an introductory webinar before the meeting? Are they sent a list of questions to ask their accountant? With the confirmation is a photo of their accountant sent? Do you have an engagement process in place? Although a great deal can be automated, it is important that engagement is not overlooked.
Start by asking,
- What would be useful for the client to know?
- What is the best way that they want to receive information?
- How do you know you are exceeding their expectations?
Do you have the benchmarks in place to measure the level of deepening relationship?
Online engagement is no different from offline. It is just a conversation, sharing relevant information. You know what is relevant by asking relevant questions and commenting on other relevant posts to strike-up a two-way conversation. The key is to be active, be helpful, informative and genuine.
Scale Your Sales Educate Strategies
Customers lack knowledge leading to a lower perception of value and higher buyer uncertainty.
Not all your messages will relate to your entire database of clients. Segment your database by the customer stated preferences, characteristics and business sector. Then you are better able to align the relevant messages and offers to the most interested clients.
This is your push strategies, but you must have a pull strategy as well. This allows prospective and existing customers to draw down relevant information as and when they need it. It is important your clients see you are a source of knowledge and insight. The person that can solve their business problems. You must enable your customers to self-select and self-educate from your knowledge platform. If you do not your competitor will.
It is important to educate prospective customers on how best to access accounting services and what best fit looks like. Make it your mission to stop business owners like me, making mistakes that cost them.
Every other industry, technology continues to make inroads into accounting. Yet, technology will not replace relationships. Trusted professional advisers are needed to interrupt the data, to educate clients on the more information created from technology.
The firm itself must be at the leading edge, embracing technology and this includes getting a grip of social media and social selling. Technology plays a significant role in gaining clients and creating brand awareness.
Education creates opportunities that can lead to loyal clients and lifetime partnerships.
Scale Your Sales Elevate Strategies
Satisfied customers deliver an average of 7% higher revenues, what is your retention strategy? Do you know your level of churn and whether you are retaining your customer relationships?
Attracting new customers, retaining existing clients and growing existing revenue. Are all business goals that require defined benchmarks and strategies to drive your accounting firm’s growth results.
It’s about building relationships to help your clients achieve their business goals. This takes professional accounting firms beyond handling the taxes. To elevate the relationship to a trusted partnership.
When the on-boarding team meet with clients, focus on asking questions that help identify the client’s business needs. To help your clients set a direction of travel to greater financial opportunities. A partnership relationship will enable the accounting firm to sit at the client table (either virtually or literally) in key financial business decisions as a trusted independent partner. Without a deep understanding of the information held on your clients, along with a strong trusted relationship. Professional accounting firms must invest in internal systems to easily serve customers’ needs and meet their expectations.
The customer experience is more important than ever with 72% of businesses saying they switched due to a reactive service. Some customers want a lite touch, however, if this is not their expectation, you are delivering a poor customer experience. Firms must lead in creating the best possible personalised customer experience with a commitment to engaging, educating and elevating customer relationships. If they are to increase the customer base, retain clients and grow their professional accounting firm.
To hit your growth goals and to develop stronger relationships into long-term partnerships.
You need:
- Clearly defined brand and brand values.
- Customer data segmented for your most valued customers.
- Personalisation engagement strategy that elevates your customer relationships.
- An education strategy that builds credibility.
- An engaging onboarding and retention strategy.
Very few people love to sell much more love to build relationships. The more focused you are in serving your customers, the better your chances of scaling your accounting firm. You must in inject more than a bit of personality but fill-in your invisible box with colour and character. Make your professional accounting firm identifiable for the things your client cares about. By completely immersing your firm in partnering with your clients on their journey to business success.
Janice B Gordon is a Sage Business Expert and awarded 25 of the #TOP100 Global Business Influencer 2017 and founder of Scale Your Sales. Janice will be sharing brand building strategies at Accountex. Make sure you book your seat on May 2 in the Sales and Marketing Theatre at 11 am, for 6 Ways to Scale Your Sales Building Brand.
How to keep your talented young accountants
If you want to keep them, it’s important you make sure your younger members of staff feel valued and involved...
We recently spoke to a client who expressed concern about the struggle they have in attracting and retaining younger employees. So what can they do to address this?
Younger employees are a valued part of most workforces, offering fresh perspectives to pre-existing working practices on account of their recently obtained qualifications. Firms who are experiencing difficulties attracting and retaining younger employees may wish to consider making the following alterations to their business.
As the structure of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) requirements enables staff to be paid different hourly rates depending on their age, companies who structure their payroll in this manner could be inadvertently discouraging younger individuals from applying for available roles. Instead, consider paying all staff the suggested Real Living Wage of £8.75 per hour to increase pay equality.
In order to attract younger staff it is important that you advertise jobs in the appropriate manner. Multiple platforms should be used when placing job adverts, to give them a greater chance of being viewed by a wide range of applicants. Additionally, pay particular focus to online platforms such as LinkedIn, or use recruitment agencies that specialise in graduate positions.
Younger individuals will often be drawn to organisations that make concerted efforts to invest in staff and help provide them with the skills needed to succeed. Therefore, you should consider introducing a specially tailored graduate scheme or training programme aimed at helping younger individuals progress in their organisation.
Designated workplace buddy
Naturally, it is common for younger workers to lack the employment experience of their older counterparts, so providing them with a designated workplace ‘buddy’ during their first few months will help them settle into their role and increase retention rates.
It would appear that flexible working practices are favoured by younger employees, given their significant representation in gig-economy industries such as retail and hospitality. Although this may not be appropriate in all working environments, you could consider offering flexible working hours and part-time employment opportunities as a way of attracting younger employees who may wish to work reduced hours as a way of supporting themselves while working towards university qualifications.
It is vital that decisions surrounding promotions and bonuses are based on a combination of merit and ability as opposed to age. Companies who make the mistake of favouring older employees for roles and responsibilities purely because of their age will likely see younger employees become disheartened and seek alternative employment. As a result, they should ensure their organisation remains a meritocracy and that performance is rewarded appropriately, regardless of age.
By following these steps businesses will make their workplace a more attractive environment for all employees, but specifically those of a younger age. This will help set them apart from their competitors in what is an increasingly competitive UK job market.
Amanda Chadwick is an employment law and health & safety presenter at Peninsula Business Services
Why should accounting firms invest in a powerful BI solution?
Time is usually considered to be one of the most valuable assets for accountants.
A good BI solution will reduce manual work tasks so that you can free up time to become your customer's best financial adviser.
With a good BI solution, you should be able to present reports and key figures to your customers at any time, so customers always have access to fresh data. A complete online solution makes this possible.
The digital transformation results in that business services are to a greater extent expected to be offered on digital platforms. This also applies to accounting services, it has become more and more common to order accounting services directly online.
There are many digital marketplaces that customers can visit to retrieve information about accounting services, and quickly compare reviews and competencies for accounting firms.
In addition, today's customers often need more than "just numbers" - they want business advice based on their financial data. Therefore, it is important to ask the following question: “can we offer a complete digital BI solution for our customers?”
We want to highlight how accounting firms can grow their businesses by investing in a powerful Business Intelligence (BI) solution.
A flexible BI solution that provides great opportunities for creating custom reports is also essential to meeting your customer demands. Custom reports provide your customers presentable data as they want to see it, which contributes to better financial control and decision-making.
Customized reports also help to emphasise factors that are particularly important to your customer's success. Often, a lot of time is spent on daily operational tasks that make it easy to forget the overall goals.
With a personalised dashboard that displays updated key figures, the customer can easily locate, for example, outstanding claims, balance year-to-date, actual to budget, which customers are most profitable, etc. This enables the customer to stay up to date on critical success factors and quickly show trends and challenges.
Expectations of an accountant seem to have changed progressively. Providing advanced advisory that gives the customer a solid ground for decision-making is becoming more and more crucial. The increased digitalisation also means that the accounting firms services are expected to be offered online. A flexible online solution makes it easy for the customer to get access to their reports and keep up to date on their financial situation. A powerful BI solution enables the accounting firm to meet today's customer preferences and create added value for both the customer and the accounting firm.
OneStop Reporting will be on Stand 526 at Accountex on 1-2 May.
Saving struggling businesses – could more be done by insolvency practices?
Insolvency is probably the last thing considered by new business owners. However, looking at the recent demise of some top UK retailers, insolvency can affect anyone.
Some companies go so far down the insolvency line that there’s often no turning back. Many don’t seek advice when the early distress signs appear, as they are reluctant to admit or fail to see that the signs are there.
We could equally look at this from a different perspective – could business recovery and insolvency practices be doing more to save struggling businesses?
After all, having the extra time determines why some businesses may fail and why some survive and prosper.
First signs of distress and reluctance of admitting failure
First signs of distress include cashflow problems, extended debtor or creditor days, increasing staff turnover, declining staff morale, high interest payments and defaulting on bills.
It’s often difficult to detect them. Some individuals within these organisations might sense them, but their voice is not heard or doesn’t want to be heard higher up the ladder.
In many cases owners/management don’t want to admit, or fail to see, issues.
Business recovery and insolvency practices – taking a proactive approach
Insolvency has negative connotations.
Owners, directors and managers may associate it with failure. They may not appreciate that employing an insolvency practitioner can save their business, providing that they are consulted in time.
It could be argued that business recovery and insolvency practices should be more proactive in identifying and approaching companies that need help. Early identification of companies in distress or with the potential of distress could offer those struggling businesses more options.
How can business recovery/insolvency practices identify struggling companies?
The answer would be an ‘early warning’ alert system designed specifically for business recovery and insolvency companies.
Vistra’s product, InsolvencyWatch, accesses a database that holds information on over 4.2 million live UK Limited Companies. We consider information that could be used to identify and target businesses in early distress stages and provide daily updates on those companies.
Our system can notify of key alert changes such as a defined negative change in credit score, CCJ filings, late filings of accounts, filings of petitions and winding up orders and potentially adverse director activity.
InsolvencyWatch has a capability to tailor results to specific business sectors or postal codes, making it easier to approach companies in early financial distress, before it becomes critical.
Benefits for struggling companies
By taking a proactive approach, business recovery and insolvency practices have an opportunity to gain new clients, drive revenue and obtain a reputation of a business who helps others and makes a positive impact to the local or national economy.
In terms of struggling companies - the earlier they speak to the experts, the more chance they have to take a turn for the better.
To find out more about InsolvencyWatch service, get in touch with Vistra Business Information team here on 0117 918 1364. Vistra will be at Accountex on 1-2 May on Stand 396.
The state of blockchain in the accounting industry
Blockchain is certainly being explored, but we are at the tip of the iceberg in terms of its use and adoption. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY) and KPMG, better known as the ‘Big Four’ auditors, all have established solid long-term blockchain roadmaps to remain relevant in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
It is important that the ‘Big Four’ have recognised the growing demand for both blockchain and crypto from an accounting perspective, and have taken different approaches to facilitate the rapidly increasing interest in the blockchain space.
As a starting point, their interest and allocation of resource to the technology further solidifies blockchain’s legitimate and longstanding future within the industry.
Blockchain has the capacity to be directly integrated into existing accounting infrastructures and potentially improve many technical aspects from an audit perspective. Its implementation also opens up new avenues for consultation, in particular creating a new market looking for consultancy on blockchain. There are regulatory and technical risks that come with blockchain, but these have been identified by the big conglomerates which helps companies understand blockchain’s potential in a more realistic manner.
What’s the No.1 1 trend that will shape blockchain in accounting (2019)?
Throughout 2019 we should see a gradual increase in the use of blockchain technology. For example, apps will be released that leverage blockchain technology in order to help accountants as well as business owners. These apps will plug into and build upon the cloud accounting platforms already in existence, which is a natural progression in technology. But if history is a guide the adoption will likely be very slow.
Blockchain is becoming more and more mature, and much like the .com bubble that resulted in the appearance of Google and Amazon, we are going into that space where we’ll start to see the beginnings of major apps emerging who use blockchain.
What’s the #1 challenge to blockchain adoption in the accounting industry?
While cloud technology is now a given in the UK accounting sphere, it has taken roughly 10 years for it to get there. In the same way, blockchain technology is currently at its infancy, and has a long way to go to be at the early majority stage in the accounting profession.
Blockchain is going to have to go through a similar trend and process to be fully accepted by accountants, and potentially one of the biggest challenges to overcome on that journey is converting the more traditional firms to adapt and adopt the latest technological advances.
There is no denying that the accounting industry is seen as a traditional space. According to the FRC’s July 2017 report of Key Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession over 60% of members of the ICAEW are 35+ in age. Arguably, these statistics support the reasoning behind why the accountancy profession remains conventional and reluctant to change.
Resistance could stem from disinterest in new innovations or it could also be because there has been so much change recently with auto-enrolment, FRS102 and Maxing Tax Digital (MTD) that it is tedious and hard to keep up.
The challenge for blockchain is not that it isn’t useful - there are many use cases for the technology in financial services and outside of accounting such as ID verification in Estonia - it’s whether accountants are willing to go through another innovation and change in their industry.
What’s the #1 benefit for blockchain in accounting?
Blockchain technology provides transparency, allows for speed and enables automation in the accounting profession. It has the potential to enhance accountancy by reducing the costs of maintaining and reconciling ledgers, and from an audit perspective we are able to see with absolute certainty the ownership and history of assets.
By obliterating menial tasks, the automation that blockchain technology offers in replacement gives accountants the time and resource to better serve our clients, move away from compliance, and focus on consultancy.
The ICAEW agrees in stating that “Blockchain could help accountants gain clarity over the available resources and obligations of their organisations, and also free up resources to concentrate on planning and valuation, rather than record keeping”.
What’s the future of blockchain in accounting?
There is a long road ahead for blockchain. We are a long way off from full scale adoption, but eventually blockchain technology will revolutionise the way we record and exchange value in the digital age.
Blockchain is here to stay and with blockchain technology as the foundation, the potential aftermath could result in further benefits for accounting such as triple entry bookkeeping. In addition, blockchain technology provides the platform for artificial intelligence (AI) to scale and thrive.
How Futrli reimagines the small business landscape
Hannah Dawson is the Founder and CEO of Futrli and has just been named as part of the Maserati/Sunday Times top 100 entrepreneurs to watch. Futrli is a UK-based tech scale up whose Classic product supports 1,100 accountants and over 45,000 small businesses worldwide. They are Xero’s Practice app of the year and won a place on this year’s Tech Nation Upscale 4.0 programme, where the likes of Monzo have thrived before.
Futrli has been building a new platform over the past two years that complements Classic’s traditional forecasting and reporting capabilities. The platform reimagines how a small business works and succeeds every day, and with launch imminent, Hannah’s full steam ahead, but excited to talk with Accounting Insight News before her session at Accountex 2019 at ExCel.
AIN: Hi Hannah. Let’s take a brief trip down memory lane - tell us about founding Futrli...
HD: Futrli was born from my own experience as a small business owner. I was working in hospitality, running a pub in Devon. There were some simple things around the business’ financials that were far harder to get a handle on than they should have been, such as getting an up-to-date overview of our cash flow. Then I was landed with a hefty tax bill I didn’t know was coming, because the information on running the financial side of a business was so lacking. It nearly closed the company’s doors.
I needed a way to run the business with eyes on the future, not just the present or the past. Making decisions was difficult and full of risks because I didn’t have all the relevant information in one place when I needed it. So after doing some research, and realising there was a significant gap in the market for this specific type of software, I founded Futrli.
AIN: And how’s Futrli evolved since you founded it?
HD: Nearly five years later we have 100 people with offices in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Futrli Classic has done brilliantly and we’re incredibly proud of where we’ve got to. But we’re only just getting started.
We are nearly ready to launch our preview release of our AI driven smart platform for small businesses. It has a range of products that have been designed after careful research and design, which solve the most pressing pain points that small businesses face (and the accountants that support them). There’s no gold standard for the tools you use to run a small business. Our platform is this.
AIN: Why do small businesses need help?
HD: Despite all the technology available in the marketplace 50% of small businesses fail in the first five years. Something is broken. Classic is used for bigger small businesses and their reporting needs, but for the 90% of small businesses that don’t prepare monthly management reports or rolling forecasts, numbers are often a scary thing. They don’t have finance or analyst teams interpreting the data they generate every day - they need help.
The new Futrli platform is for the 90%. It discovers information; interprets it into real words and prioritises the most important things that need to be actioned every day: simple!
Whether that is something within non financial data sets, future cash flow issues or getting paid by your customers.
The benefit for our accountants it that Futrli Platform makes it quicker, easier and extremely cost-effective for accountants to service the remaining 90% of small businesses that they simply don’t have the time to get to.
The platform does the heavy lifting, every client knows exactly where they are today, and when there is a question about what to do next from the small business, the accountant is given an opportunity to service a client who would have gone unnoticed before or would have not been deemed the right fit for advisory.
Advisory will finally be democratised and Futrli accountants will be deemed heroes! Depending on whether you use the free or pro version of each product will dictate the opportunity for the accounting firm. Pro gives deeper information so that even more heavy lifting is done and there is a richer base for advisory opportunities to present themselves.
AIN: And what’s the first product to be launched?
HD: The first product to launch is Flow. Flow helps small businesses who are stressed about not getting paid and how much they owe by using the power of AI to understand customer and supplier habits. There are lots of payment chasing apps out there but what’s missing from many customer focused products is that there is no actionable detail. We’ve got risk assessment, dependency levels, customer ranking (who are your top 10 and worst for x/y/z), and because the platform doesn’t just pull data, it pushes it too, smart workflow is created as you can create invoices/bills etc directly from the platform and straight into Xero and QBO.
Layered over the top of it all is the AI driven predictive element. It’s all well and good having credit terms, but when will your customers actually pay you? Flow gets to the heart of the problem and gives you solutions.
AIN: And there are free features too?
HD: Yes! Our smart daily newsfeed for your business. We all consume information every day by scrolling until we are caught up: think Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn - so why not one for your business? Pulse is where you login to the platform. It’s where information from all activated products is prioritised and the next best action is recommended. It’s very cool!
If the status quo of software for the 90% is broken, let’s reimagine a new way with the smartest workflow, for every data source and pain point, so that small businesses are de-risked, de-stressed and can focus on why they went into business in the first place!
AIN: What does the future hold in store for Futrli?
HD: We’re really excited about all the products on Futrli Platform. After we’ve launched Flow and Pulse, our free newsfeed, next in line is Predict. This is forecasting totally re-imagined.
It helps small businesses who are uncertain about the impact of their decisions, by combining their knowledge with AI-driven predictions to forecast their future, and again the most amazing workflow has been created to ensure it’s something a small business will actually want to do every day.
Then we have Playground. It helps small business teams who are tired of juggling multiple data sources and making decisions in silos. It brings teams and information together to deliver coordinated and faster decision making and execution. It’s a world first and takes funnel to a whole new level!
We’ve got more products up our sleeve for later in the year, but you’ll have to interview me again to find out more!