Q: How easy is it to use sherloc for financial forecasting?

Very. • It's designed to be used by leaders of UK small business for business management; no financial experience is needed. • The platform has ‘How To’ videos throughout. • It has contextual explanations, examples at all points of interest and educational material to help demystify acronyms used in finance and banking. • We have also developed features that use natural language options to replace frequently used formulas to make forecasting easy - no expert macro formula-writing experience needed, although the system also handles that if you need it.

Question 1

What does this platform do, and how can it help my business?

Accepted Answer

• Business Financials that you can trust for planning, growing or exiting your business. 
 • Business Management, which includes forecasting, and the addition of 3rd party market data that is relevant to your business. Brings together accounts and planning into a single view, which is personalised to your business. 
 • Identifies potential errors in your management accounts. 
 • Enables you to run endless ‘what if’ scenarios without any financial background.
 • Notifies and enables you to factor-in 3rd party market intelligence data on variables that affect your business such as interest rates, commodities or international currencies. 
 • Graphical charting of best case / worst case forecasts on key performance indicators.  
 • Unbiased Marketplace of services specifically aimed at UK SMEs.

Question 2

Is the platform secure and compliant with industry standards?

Accepted Answer

• Yes, it has been built from the ground up and is ‘Bank grade’ which means all technology used has been vetted and would surpass a review board by any Bank. 
 • sherloc is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV), who is rated as excellent by Microsoft, in all developments of the platform, adhering to every standard set. 
 • All data is stored securely on Microsoft Azure, please see our Terms of Business for details on data retention. 
 • Customers’ data is only accessed by the support team to enable us to assist with any queries. 
 • sherloc provides two-factor authentication by Auth0.  
 • Access to the platform is user permission-based. 
 • sherloc complies to UK GDPR – please see our Privacy Notice, for the details.

Question 3

How easy is it to integrate this platform with my existing systems?

Accepted Answer

Very.
 
 • Spreadsheets were our starting place for integration, as we recognised that most business planning and many accounts are run on spreadsheets. It takes minutes as you map the headings, with no need to move to a template. 
 • Xero takes seconds – as our platform directly integrates to Xero. The sherloc Application Programming Interface (API) connects into the Xero platform, adhering to all security standards. 
 • Quick Books and Sage integrations will be released in 2025.

Question 4

What kind of customer support is available if I encounter issues?

Accepted Answer

• Support is available in UK Business Hours, 9am to 5pm. 
 • Live messaging and a dedicated support inbox for instant visibility.
 • Every part of the platform has ‘help’ provided, either a ‘How To’ video, or educational notes providing more context and details. 
 • sherloc provides access to experienced Financial Analysts to assist customers with queries on their accounts – 120 minutes are available as an integral part of the service, to be used as needed. 
 • sherloc invested over eight months in development work and customer research to be able to onboard customers in minutes. Watching the ‘How-to’ video takes longer! However, there is an experienced ‘triage team’ if your business needs it - just reach out via live chat.

Question 5

How much does sherloc cost, and are there any hidden fees?

Accepted Answer

• £79 plus VAT per month, per legal entity for one user. 
 • Includes the 120 minutes of financial analyst time. 
 • Additional users will be charged at £35+VAT per month when available in early 2025. 
 • Additional legal entities will be charged at £60+VAT per month when available in 2025.
 • Payment is taken monthly by Stripe. 
 • You can cancel at anytime.

Question 6

Can I try the platform before committing?

Accepted Answer

• Yes, currently there is a two-month free trial available,
this includes access to the financial analyst for up to 120 minutes. 
 • If you would like to see a demo, please contact to set up a time.

Question 7

How easy is it to use sherloc for financial forecasting?

Accepted Answer

Very. 
​
 • It's designed to be used by leaders of UK small business for business management; no financial experience is needed.  
 • The platform has ‘How To’ videos throughout.  
 • It has contextual explanations, examples at all points of interest and educational material to help demystify acronyms used in finance and banking. 
 • We have also developed features that use natural language options to replace frequently used formulas to make forecasting easy - no expert macro formula-writing experience needed, although the system also handles that if you need it.

Question 8

How will this platform improve efficiency or save time?

Accepted Answer

• Makes management planning and forecasting easier, quicker and more accurate as you are working with the correct figures. 
    • Finds the source of any errors in your accounts.  
    • Highlights potential discrepancies, omissions in forecasts. 
    • Provides tips and tools to help validate your figures. 
    • Alerts you to potential ‘ripple’ effects – such as cost of packaging due to wildfires in the timber forests in Canada... 
    • Confidence and peace of mind in much reduced errors and broken formulas.

• Saves time & money 
    • Utilises any custom tables you already have 
    • Don't need to build pivots to run scenarios 
    • Don’t need to hire analysts to design forceasting models 
    • Graphically compare best / worst case scenarios against KPIs

Question 9

Can this platform help my business grow?

Accepted Answer

• Yes, it's an enabler. It has been designed and built specifically for UK based small businesses leaders to make good decisions. 
    • sherloc arms CEOs, Finance and Boards of Directors with the same data, market insights and scenario planning available to large enterprises. 
    • Provides a heads up on potential issues – like your Bank does on your account. 
    • Knowing that you are working with good information (theirs and the market) helps leaders be responsive, ambitious and confident in growing their business. 
    • As your data and plans are digitised, error-checked and (where integrated with your accounting system) have a clean data trail, it will make it easier, cheaper and faster for your business to access products and services from banks and solutions providers to help you achieve your business goals.

Question 10

How customisable is the platform to fit my business needs?

Accepted Answer

• It is finely customisable. You choose to receive or see what matters most to your business. 
    • Your management accounts are the starting place.  
    • Contextual Newsfeeds. 
    • Countries you trade with. 
    • Sectors you work in. 
    • Commodities (raw materials) that you use. 
    • Currencies and Foreign Exchange. 
    • Alerts based on global events that your business is sensitive to because of your supply chains, partnerships or customers.

Question 11

What kind of analytics does the platform provide?

Accepted Answer

All activity in the platform is time-stamped per user, so there is a history of user actions.

Question 12

What are the requirements for using the platform?

Accepted Answer

None, except uploads have a limit of 10 Mb.

Question 13

How often is the platform updated or improved?

Accepted Answer

• sherloc has a rolling functionality update every two weeks. 
 • sherloc enhancements are non-disruptive to any user.  
 • There is a documented roadmap of development in place.

Question 14

Can I cancel my subscription at any time?

Accepted Answer

Yes.

FAQs

sherloc in Action: Real Businesses, Real Results

Discover how sherloc has transformed financial planning and decision-making for small and medium-sized businesses.

Each story highlights the challenges faced, the solutions implemented, and the remarkable outcomes achieved

Subscribe to Our Newsletter