When you're invited to a Futrli organisation, it may be the first time you've used this software. To help you get familiar with using Futrli, run through our steps below.

📌 TIP: To follow along with the steps below, you can use any organisation you've integrated with Futrli. Alternatively, you can use one of the available demo organisations.

📎 NOTE: If you're the user who has created a Futrli workspace, our alternative introductory guide may be more relevant to you - Your first five steps in Futrli.

Step 1 - View tour of Futrli

Use our interactive walkthrough to become familiar with Futrli and how it works.

View walkthrough

Step 2 - Check you have a Demo UK Organisation in your workspace

A later step is to create forecast types and reports in your demo company. Before you can do this, you need to make sure you have a Demo UK Organisation.

📎NOTE: All demo organisations are free to use.

If you have access to multiple organisations in your Futrli workspace, you'll see all your organisations at do.futrli.com/workspaces.

Alternatively, when you're within an organisation, on the top right click on the organisation name, then click Manage Organisations.

Here you can see whether Demo UK Organisation appears.

I do have Demo UK Organisation listed

That's great, you can now move on to Step 3.

Demo UK Organisation isn't listed

If you don't have a Demo UK Organisation:

Click Add new organisation.
Under Or connect a demo organisation, click UK demo.

📎NOTE: If you're not able to add organisations, this may be because of your user permissions. Reach out to a workspace administrator for them to add the organisation and give you access to it.

Step 3 - Create forecast types in Demo UK Organisation

This is where you start getting into the main features in Futrli, starting with forecasting. Let's cover the basics before looking closer at each type of forecast you can build.

Forecasting basics

Any forecast created starts life as a 'draft'. That means the creator, and only the creator, will be able to see it. To make the forecast available to other Futrli users, it will need to be published. Once published, it will then be available to be referenced in a report.

Forecasts can be created in different ways:

From scratch - meaning there will be no predictions set up against any account
With auto-predictions - every account will have a prediction created for it, automatically
From last year's actuals - pre-built predictions will reference the account 12 months prior
From an existing Futrli forecast - predictions will be copied over from a forecast already built in Futrli

In any forecast, you can create as many different manual predictions as you'd like. These could be repeating, or built a formula, or added freestyle, or even unit based with a selling price and quantity to be sold.

You can also bulk import predictions via the Import feature.

In your Demo UK organisation go to the Forecasting tab and create one of each forecast types:

1 year P&L using last year's actuals

The 1 year P&L forecast will start from a month of your choice, then look at the following 11 months.

The information in this forecast type is P&L, so if you were looking for a balance sheet or cash flow view, you'd need to use either the 3 year cash flow forecast option, or the 3 year cash flow with due invoices option.

Once a 1 year P&L forecast has been built, there is the option to lock it, meaning no further changes can be made by any Futrli user.

3 year cash flow using Futrli's auto-predictions

The second option when creating your own forecast is a 3 year cash flow.

A 3 year cash flow will always start in the current month and run through the next 3 full financial years, plus the remainder of the current financial year.

Historically, the last full 2 financial years will be available, plus the first part of the current financial year.

You then have the option to set where the actual data stops, and the forecasted data takes over.

3 year cash flow with due invoices and override the due invoices

The 3 year cash flow with due invoices is slightly different to the other two forecasting options.

As well as the options available in the first two forecast types, the 3 year cash flow with due invoices has an Invoices tab. Within that tab will be listed all due invoices from the data source (Sage Accounting, Xero or QuickBooks Online).

You then have the option to override the expected payment behaviour for each invoice, giving you the power to produce accurate short-term cash flow forecasts.

Create forecast

📌TIP: Use our interactive walkthrough on how to create a report.

In your Futrli account, click Forecasting.
You'll see the option to Create a budget, forecast or scenario, with the three options shown below.

In this example, we're going to create a new 1 year P&L using last year's actuals. Click the 1 year P&L option, then select the Create from last year's actuals method.
Give it a name, then set the start date to be from the start of next month.
The forecast has now been created with no further action required, we can now use it within a report.

📌 TIP: You can add new predictions.

What can I do with this forecast?

Export to Google Sheets

You can export your forecast via the controls dropdown. You can find this in the top left corner of the window.

Publish

Any new forecast or report you create starts life as a draft. The creator of the draft is the only person with access to it. Nobody else can see it until it is published.

To publish, head back to the main forecasting homepage where you'll see the forecast sat in the drafts on the left-hand side. Click the dropdown and you see the option to publish.

Once published, you can 'close' the forecast - this locks the forecast and prevents others from making changes.

After you publish a forecast you can reference it in a report, which we cover in the next step.

Step 4 - Create two reports in your Demo UK Organisation

You have full control with reporting in Futrli. For example, what do you want to report on? What date range you want to report on? Do you want to compare multiple forecasts with your actual data, etc.

With the drag and drop functionality, the design of the report you create is completely up to you.

📌 TIP: If you don't want to start from scratch, there are plenty of templates options to choose from, including the option to create your own templates.

To get familiar with how to create reports.

Build a new report
Create a report using a Futrli template

Below we run through how to create a new report and use the newly created budget to reference data from (you'll need to make sure the forecast you created earlier has been published).

Click Reporting, then locate the Create from section.

In this example we going to use the Portrait option in the Scratch tab.
In your new report, you'll see a menu bar on the right-hand side. In the Builder section of that menu is various display options. For example, do you want a pie chart? A Line graph? Just a table? In our example, we'll use a bar chart.
Drag and drop the icon onto your report, you can then reposition and resize.

You then have four tasks to complete:

1 - Set a title/sub-title

Give it whatever name you want. If you don't want a title or sub-title, just leave it blank, it exports with a blank space.

2 - Select the dataset(s)

Let's select the newly created 1 year P&L forecast you just created.

You can add datasets can either by dragging and dropping into the Datasets box, or by double clicking them.

3 - What do you want to report on?

You'll see two Y-axis boxes. This is for if the data type is different (one might be a percentage, one financial). Drag and drop whatever you want to report on into a box.

For this example, let's use both Y-axis options. Add Gross Profit into Y-Axis 1 and Gross Profit % into Y-Axis 2.

Step 5 - Delete dummy reports and forecasts created

Now you're familiar with how to create reports and forecasts, you can delete these test examples.

Click on the reports in your drafts, then click Delete.

Now you know the basics, you can start using Futrli to create reports and forecasts whenever you need.

What is Futrli?

VAT/GST/sales tax in Futrli

Your five first steps in Futrli

What is a 3 year cash flow forecast?

Futrli walkthrough tours