Co-Founders Lee-Martin Seymour and Tim Griffiths drive Xref.global. The rapidly growing business takes the pain away from candidate referencing for leading brands like Qantas and Bupa. With 3 international offices, the pair is certainly racking up their frequent flyer miles. We caught up with them when they flew in from Sydney to work in their London office. It was the perfect opportunity to catch up with them both to learn how Futrli is powering their financial future – this is a must read.

Challenge

Xref is a cloud-based solution for candidate referencing. They needed a financial reporting and (small) business forecasting tool with the same way of working and commitment to speed and accuracy as themselves. As the owners are on the move frequently, they needed a tool for financial management they could log in to from anywhere. Futrli gives them access to real-time data, such as profit and loss statement, business finances, business expenses, and cash flow forecasting. Like in many (small) businesses that are fast-paced, communication is crucial to such a growing company, particularly with investors. They needed clear insights at a moment’s notice.

Solution

Saving a load of time with their reporting and (cash flow) forecast means the (small) business owners have been able to focus on operating. Real-time data has allowed the business to be flexible and move with industry peaks and troughs. Futrli also plugs into accounting software. The board and their investors can now see a clear breakdown of the company’s progress and factors like business-related expenses, too, which has improved communication and business planning.

Results

Clear analysis of data coming in from three countries in different time zones has contributed heavily to the success of Xref. Being able to grow sustainably has meant Xref lists on the Stock Exchange. The company was always going to be a hit, but using Futrli has accelerated its achievements.

Interview in full

We are huge admirers of Xref.global but can you introduce yourself to our readers?

Of course, we’re big fans of Futrli. I am Tim Griffiths CTO & Co-Founder of Xref.global. The business is consistently growing and we are now supporting some of Australia and the world’s leading brands like Qantas, Westpac, Skycity, Newscorp, and Bupa with their HR needs.

Our cloud-based platform automates the candidate referencing process by streamlining what was a very manual, time-intensive process for these teams. One client now has 50% of their references completed overnight and it is brilliant success stories like this that are driving our success – the demand is enormous and we always need to keep one eye on our numbers.

You’ve given us a clue, but, tell us, why Futrli?

Tim: We are 100% cloud as a business and it was important we found a partner with the same philosophy. We’ve got so much respect for what the team at Futrli have built and continue to deliver, we knew that as a long-term business they would support us to scale. We are making so many changes and opportunities are coming really, really quickly to us. We need to take advantage of those, and with Futrli the ability to do that is amazing.

The scenario planning, the real-time updates, the ability to use it on any device anywhere, is fantastic. It also allows us to bring other parts of the business into it. We can take specific dashboards and share them with different areas of the business and get them to comment on it.

Lee (CEO & Co-Founder of Xref.global): This year Xref is listed on the ASX. Tim and I realised that we had so much opportunity overseas and to truly globalise the platform we needed to raise significant capital. To list, you have to go through a certain amount of rigor and due diligence otherwise you just simply can’t get there. As part of that, you need to go through an audit. We used Xero to manage our accounts over that time and went on to launch in Toronto and London, growing to over 35 staff.

Tim and I are always on the road and to have figures in our back pockets really means the world to us. So to consolidate them into a single platform and to be able to have them in consolidated boards is crucial. Google docs and Excel just doesn’t cut it – they slow you down!

Awesome, what else?

Lee: When we had our first board meeting, our incumbent board members asked for board reports to be printed and sent to them and I immediately said no. They had that classic look of surprise, but then I gave them the link to the Futrli platform and explained that you don’t need to request accounts from me when things change, all you really need to do is click on the link again and you’ll see it in real-time.

Tim and I don’t want to have to be worrying about accounts. We’re building a global business in Online Candidate Referencing and to know we can test a theory and get a result showing what our position in 18 months will look like is priceless to us.

Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration, is when you are scaling a business, the applications, offices, etc need to have the ability to scale. The platform we use to consolidate all of our accounts, looking at past and present data, Futrli of course, and test our forecasting moving forward has meant that we can scale. The Futrli team has a very progressive development cycle that moves with our business.

Has it sped things up for you?

Lee: Yes! Internally we’re always talking about 4 weekly cycles through the year, but then we have to switch that and turn it into a quarter. We might hit budget in our quarter but we haven’t in our 4 weekly periods, so that was a real problem for us. An awful lot of people on the outside of the business don’t realise that we do that, but the boards make it so easy for us to get those figures quickly.

Tim: We used to use a Google spreadsheet and sit there and laboriously smash it out. Then you’d come back to it later on and forget something or not be able to find it, it also wasn’t real-time, so you’re constantly making iterations, and to be quite honest that’s a pain. So now to be able to do the scenarios and actually do correct budgets in something that’s linked to real-time data is amazing.

Has it improved the way you communicate as a business?

Tim: We now have a huge number of investors that we need to keep constantly updated. So it’s fantastic to have something like the boards available to us, that gives us information right away, that we can actually present back to our investors.

Lee: Aside from the boards looking beautiful, when you have a really big global financial issue then you need to be able to report very, very quickly and as the outside world is not used to what you do internally, the boards make it an awful lot easier.

Sum up the difference Futrli has made

Tim: The significance of Futrli to Xref.global’s success has been huge. When you think that we have data coming in from 3 countries all in different time zones, that need to be analysed clearly, quickly, and effectively in real-time, then Futrli is just amazing – it makes our lives so much easier.