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Futrli has always understood that to leverage the power of software in your day-to-day workflow, we must do the heavy lifting for our customers. The alerts that Futrli has had since its inception are used by accounting firms and business owners to provide a proactive monitoring service for any account or key performance indicators (KPIs) that are important to them.
The integration of performance monitoring alerts
Our alerts have now been enhanced with a Xero HQ integration. HQ’s own alerts within the activity feed, provide notifications for your everyday compliance-based work and are essential to improving the workflow in your practice. Futrli takes care of the operational and business performance monitoring which is equally as important.
Put simply, it’s all very well knowing that your clients have an upcoming BAS or VAT statement due, but if there isn’t cash in the bank to pay for it there are more pressing issues that you need to help your client with.
Monitoring your key performance indicators (KPIs)
Our alerts monitor the current performance of any performance indicators (KPIs) or metric that is deemed important. If you are uploading non-financial data to Futrli, you can also set up alerts to be notified of critical changes there. It truly is game-changing:
“If a client is moving into a red zone with cash flow we are alerted as it happens and can address the issue before it gets critical. We can react and that was simply impossible before. You’d find out at the end of a month or quarter when it was too late.”
James Solomons, MD of Aptus Accounting & Advisory (Head of Accounting for Xero, AU).
Tailor the automation to fit your client's organization and practice
No organization is the same and you should expect to be able to tailor what the performance indicators monitored to your each organization's key needs:
Are there cash issues? Is expenditure too high? Are wage%’s increasing? There is so much opportunity for you to be part of the good news story with your clients. You don’t always need to be the bearer of bad news, as our alerts are used very successfully in celebrating positive target milestones.
How powerful are Futrli alerts?
- Any account or category within the chart of accounts
- Any formula (key performance indicator (KPI)/metric) that you want to create: This can include account groups and non-financial data as well as any account or category. These alerts can be a currency, percentage, or margin alerts, giving you ultimate freedom.
- The transactional or cumulative aggregation of the data for said account or category. This doubles the effectiveness of our alerts. We bring in journals from Xero, and cumulate data from the beginning of time to give you your balance sheet data, but conversely, if you want to cumulate P&L information you can, and if you want to monitor transactional data of a balance sheet account such as bank activity, you can.
The reports behind an alert are run when you create it and every time new data comes into the system.
How will I be notified?
If triggered, you will receive a notification in-app, in the Xero HQ activity feed, and you can assign users (including yourself!) to receive email alerts as well. Xero HQ alerts mitigate a lot of the need for sending yourself emails, however, we highly recommend that you do this for critical alerts for extra efficiency.
Many of our accounting partners who have white-labeled Futrli assign email alerts to be sent to their clients. The emails are branded with their firm’s branding, extending a seamless client experience. It has also proven to be highly effective in encouraging a proactive relationship. If you are working together to reduce debt, monitor accounts receivable levels, track fixed asset expenditure, etc, it makes sense to work in partnership.
The Futrli – Xero HQ integration is a simple one-click authorization process and then any Xero organization that exists in both Futrli and HQ can have alerts sent.
This is how Futrli alerts are displayed in Xero HQ, seamlessly interacting with your daily workflow. The HQ vision is to provide a one-stop hub for your accounting practice: empowering partners to provide superior client services and making the lives of accountants and bookkeepers much more efficient.
Using alerts at scale
We recommend that every client should have at minimum 2 or 3 alerts set up for them by you or your team. Use their introduction as an opportunity to drive adoption and process within your firm. Our favorites would be:
- Cash position – lower thresholds that you are comfortable with
- Revenue targets – good news, please!
- Salaries as a % of revenue
- Expenses as a % of revenue
- Accounts payable levels
- Accounts receivable levels
Every Futrli alert is an opportunity for you to have a discussion with your client which could ultimately lead to a further opportunity for you to offer additional fee-generating services.
It really is a game-changer and something we cover in-depth in our advisory certification program. Speak to our team to find out more.
