Who is Futrli?
Futrli is an all-in-one forecasting and reporting tool that aims to give business owners the insights they need to take it to the next level. It can provide live business plans, cash flow forecasting, performance tracking and KPI analysis. “Futrli is about getting tomorrow’s insights, today,” said Harris. “What we’re really trying to do is help businesses to forecast so they know where they’ve been and where they’re going. “It’s not just cash flow forecasting, although that’s a huge part of what we do, but it’s also about creating an actionable business plan so you can take those insights and start to use them for informed decision making.” According to Harris, the key is to have all of the pieces of the puzzle in one place – she cited an example of a client in the North of England that runs three bars. The owner had been using spreadsheets, and found that he no longer had much time to work on the direction of the business itself because he was trapped doing laborious tasks. Futrli worked with him to create dashboards and insight areas for his bar managers – they can now log in and see all their predictive indicators and see how the business is trending on a daily basis.Overcoming obstacles
The SME approach to supplier contracts
As with many small businesses, the person in charge of organising supplier contracts is whoever picks it up. Harris organised the London and Sydney offices, and her business partner organised the Brighton office. At the time, Harris used a price comparison website to find suppliers for everything, but once she had an idea of who she wanted to go with she took some time to look up their site a do a bit of research. “Setting up a business, Google is your friend,” she said. However, she did try to avoid spending too much time on it, as there were other more pressing priorities. “We just got set up and cracked on really.” Convenience was the most important factor for Futrli initially, followed closely by cost. Harris said that a supplier being environmentally friendly was also an important factor, but that it’s something she would expect from them. The ideal supplier for Harris is “somebody who’s fast and reliable”. “I just want the service and I don’t really even want to know that they’re there – they’ve got to be in the background because the service is so good,” she said. So far, Futrli has not switched suppliers for any services, and although Harris acknowledges that as the business grows it will probably need to appoint somebody to take on the hat of supplier contracts manager, her outlook for now is simply, “if it’s not broke, why change it”.Share this story