Challenge

Owner John Ryder was wasting hours on unnecessary admin. That is processes that can be automated with the right software. The team aims to provide impact and results, not wasting time. John needed an accurate view of their cash flow as the business started to grow. And he wanted to see when he could reinvest in his business. Transparency is the aim of Hive.HR – the team all need to be working towards the same goals.

Solution

Automating previously manual tasks has saved the whole team hours of time. Signing up with Futrli has meant that financial admin tasks are almost eradicated. That means there’s a lot more time to spend serving their clients and making sure they’re happy. John aims to be proactive in running his business so it can reach its potential.

Results

John uses Futrli to check the current position of the business, which helps him make decisions that will better the company. The whole team can now work towards hitting KPI targets and overall goals for the business. Collaboration is made easy. John can even present his achievements to his board of directors, making use of security settings to allow them access. Hive.HR is spending more time on helping clients and growing the business, no longer wasting time on admin.

Interview in full

What did you use before Futrli?

We spent a lot of time on what we class as ‘unnecessary admin’ using Google Sheets and Google Slides. That’s a term we’ve coined for anything that we think could be automated or greatly improved through the use of technology because our maxim is ‘less admin, more impact’. It’s a phrase we’ve used to underpin our own product offering and we’ve adopted it in terms of how we run operations at Hive.HR as well.

As an early-stage startup, we can’t justify spending development time on building our own operational systems because we’re working on making our own product even better. So we like to identify products, tools, and platforms that we can use as part of a stack, with the aim of reducing as much admin as we can. Less admin, more impact!!

Futrli was recommended to me by the CEO of GrowthFunders, the crowdfunding platform that we used to raise investment. Norman’s background is in finance, so I knew that it was a recommendation I could really count on. We looked at and trialed a handful of other management information platforms and whilst they were OK at looking at how we’d performed, I’m most interested in is how the business is shaping up when looking forward. No other app on the marketplace was focused on the future.

Tell us the top things you love about the app…

Cash flow forecasting

My absolute favorite thing is the forecasting feature. Having an accurate cash flow forecast as we accelerate our growth of the business is absolutely critical, it’s a startup imperative.

Naturally, I like to make sure that the business’ cash position is healthy; but not too healthy because we’re utilising that capital to accelerate growth. By using Futrli’s feature to create our own cash flow forecasts, we can quickly play out multiple scenarios to see how cash flow could be impacted if we make that new hire or invest ‘big’ in that conference. Using the forecasting process in Futrli, we can make the right, informed decision with confidence. Cash forecasting is a critical success factor.

Easy access of data

I also love the fact that I can share management information with the board easily. They have logins and can review the same data that we have access to.

What do your team think about Futrli?

They absolutely love it. Transparency is just part of our culture here at Hive, so it’s a great fit. Everyone has an opportunity here to play their part and influence the numbers that decide the success of our business strategy.

We’re all accountable for driving business performance in one way or another. Futrli acts as the lens through which the whole team can view and connect with the strategic narrative of the business. As the CEO, I feel strongly that it is my job to share the vision, give shared accountability and keep the team up-to-speed with the right management information and have it accessible not just to the management team. This way your team will have more autonomy to make a positive difference to your KPIs and business success.

What advice would you have for others thinking about getting started with Futrli?

I’d advise people to opt for the assisted set-up so that you can get maximum value out of Futrli as soon as possible. I’m allergic to instructions or how-to guides, so the assisted setup was the fastest way to see how everything works because I prefer to reverse engineer what’s there to figure things out.

Sum Futrli up in a few sentences…

Futrli makes it really easy to see where our business is going and how we’ve performed against the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most important to us. It gives the (small) business owner the insight and confidence to be able to make the right informed decisions on an ongoing basis, achieve their business objectives and become successful entrepreneurs.