Accountants are brilliant—there’s no denying that. However, even experts can sometimes get things wrong, especially when trying to predict the future. Past performance is a fantastic indicator of future performance, but it’s not infallible. Your clients’ businesses might be rocked by losing a large customer. Their staff might leave en masse if your cash-strapped clients can’t increase wages in line with inflation. A problem at their factories could grind production down to a standstill.
This isn’t meant to strike fear into you—we just want to highlight that anything can happen. The future is far from certain. Such uncertainty might make some accountants hesitant to predict their clients’ future. They’re not 100% certain they’ll be right, so they avoid advising clients whatsoever for fear of getting it wrong. Accountants are generally more used to operating in black and white, the numbers don’t lie. However, they may feel uncomfortable wading their way through murky, grey, “This might happen”-type scenarios.
That’s why Futrli allows accountants to play around with their clients’ predictions. Our platform does far more than just spit out what we think will happen to businesses going forward: how much cash they’ll generate, spend, owe in taxes, and have in the bank. The algorithm is flexible, allowing accountants to adjust their clients’ figures and determine the impact this will have on their business.
What would happen if they switched their VAT scheme at the end of their current accounting period? Thinking of launching a new product line? Great—what sales volume and ramp would they need? How much can they afford to spend on marketing this new product?
Customise your clients’ predictions at will. Conduct financial dry runs to predict how changing one element of their business will impact their income, expenses, profitability, taxes, and more. Advise them on a range of potential scenarios, not just what will happen if their business continues performing exactly how it has performed to date.
After all, when is business ever consistent and unchanging?
Gain an automated assistant
Entrepreneurs’ businesses are their babies. They care intensely about how their ‘baby’ performs, and they’re keen to learn all they can to improve its prospects.
So, what does this mean for you as their trusted financial advisor?
They don’t just want to hear how you predict their business will perform, and what you’d advise them to do based on these estimates. They also want to know why you’ve come up with each particular figure. This is especially true if they hope their business will perform better than your forecast has indicated.
You could, of course, manually take them through every single aspect of your manual cash flow forecasts. It’s doable—but it’s hardly fun for either party. Poring over dense spreadsheets and trying to bring the figures to life is a time-consuming, yawn-inducing activity.
With Futrli, however, you can remove the manual effort from explaining your rationale. Simply click on each prediction to bring up our automated prediction assistant, which will outline exactly why it has generated that figure. Make it as easy as possible to back up your predictions and build trust in the advice you provide off the back of these figures.
Advise your clients like never before
Futrli bridges the gap between accessing your clients’ figures and providing invaluable business-building advice. Cut down the time it takes to generate detailed cash flow forecasts.
Provide more accurate predictions that account for every single aspect of your clients’ operations.
Turn regular check-ins into vital opportunities to advise businesses on how to maximise growth and minimise risk. Play around with the predictions, assessing what would happen in a range of different scenarios, and rely on an automated prediction assistant to bring complex predictions to life in a simple, easy-to-understand manner.
It’s high time for accountants to become trusted business advisors. Implement Futrli today and take your firm’s first steps towards building an advisory-focused future.