Month: April 2022

Better Expense Management with SMS Tracking

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

Ready to learn more? Reply YES!📱

Allow us to introduce you to our SMS Tracking feature. It gives users the option to add a phone number to their Float account so that every time a request or purchase is made on their Float card, they receive a text with the details of their transaction. This will include the vendor name, approval status and total dollars spent. Shortly after receiving the first text, users will then be notified to text back a picture of their receipt. If the receipt is sent back within 10 minutes, it can be stored in the Float platform and automatically matched with the transaction for easy review. 👨🏻‍💻

It’s the most convenient expense management tool around 👍🏼

With our SMS Tracking feature, employees no longer have to collect and save their expense receipts and managers don’t have to chase them down ever again. Spenders can simply snap a photo of their receipt after every purchase, submit it within Float and toss the physical receipt away. This feature also notifies cardholders of every transaction made via text, making it easier to identify any fraudulent activity or inaccurate charges. 👀  If you’re travelling for work, taking photos of your receipts versus collecting physical receipts will save a lot of time and keep things way more organized.

The Benefits of SMS Tracking

Employees can track their own spending 💸

Users can view and monitor their own corporate spending and see their approvals in real time. For example, if they were to make an online transaction, they could instantly see if the request was approved, make the purchase and confirm whether the purchase went through. Sometimes you don’t realize if a transaction was rejected unless you revisit the website, but this feature makes it 10x easier by instantly notifying spenders if the transaction was completed. ✅

Easy receipt collection and matching 🧾

Employees no longer have to worry about keeping a pile of receipts and submitting them to the finance department at month end. They can simply snap a photo after a purchase is made and send it off for the OCR tooling software to work its magic! If a receipt is submitted within 10 minutes of a purchase, the software can automatically recognize the receipt and match it to a transaction. This will save your finance team hours of valuable time, removing the need to manually collect, review, match and mass upload thousands of receipts!

Allows for seamless spending with no interruptions 💳

Float allows finance managers to pause purchases on corporate cards if a certain amount of receipts haven’t been submitted. It’s a great incentive to hold employees accountable to their spending responsibilities — and the SMS tracking feature is one more way to ensure this. It gives spenders an extra nudge to send in their receipts immediately and prevent their corporate card from being paused. Whether you’re in the middle of a conversation after a business meal or running to catch your flight to a conference in Montreal, it’s easy to forget to send in those receipts. With Float’s text reminders, we can help you stay on top of things for seamless corporate spending!

Smarter expense management for a happier finance team. 🤩

Let’s say it like it is. 🤷🏼‍♂️  When accountants don’t have the right system in place, they’re likely spending endless hours reconciling expenses and matching and collecting receipts. Float’s SMS Tracking feature cuts that time in half and allows for greater accuracy throughout the process. It speeds up reconciliation and makes it easier to manage and review corporate spending over the course of the month.

For more information on our SMS Tracking feature,  book a demo with us today!

3 Common Misconceptions About Corporate Cards

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

It’s no secret that difficulty accessing corporate funds is a common challenge for many startups in Canada. Whether you can’t seem to get enough funds for your growing team or are unable to get approved for credit, it’s not as daunting as it seems. We’re here to set the record straight with the answers you need.

Myth #1: All corporate cards are the same.

Not exactly true. Purchase rates, card limits and annual fees typically vary between banks and financial institutions. For example, most banks take two to three weeks to approve a credit card application – and that’s with a 19.99% purchase rate and a $120 annual card fee. 😕 Float captures this entire process in just three days – no purchase rate or annual card fee required. With a physical or virtual Float card also comes an automated spend management software that allows for easy receipt collection, expense tracking, accounting sync and more. And, you get 1% cashback on all your purchases. So, to say that all corporate cards are the same just isn’t true! 🙅🏻‍♂️

Myth #2: Startups are not allowed to get corporate cards.

Getting approved for a corporate card as a startup is no easy feat. The application process isn’t always kind to new businesses due to a lack of experience, credit history and collateral. And most of the time, banks aren’t willing to budge and give out credit cards because of this perception of risk. If they do decide to give them out, it’s usually with lengthy and expensive terms and conditions that could impact company financials in the long run.

We know that businesses run smoothly when everyone in the company has access to corporate funds to get their jobs done. So if you’re having trouble getting enough corporate cards for your growing team, Float’s prepaid corporate cards are a great alternative to take the stress away. 💳 The application process is simple and there’s no personal guarantees. All you need as a company is an active business bank account and you can issue and fund as many corporate cards as you need in a matter of days! 💨

Myth #3: A personal credit card is a good alternative to a corporate credit card.

Wrong! 🚫 Putting your personal and business expenses on a single credit card is a common error many companies make. As a founder, sharing personal credit card information with employees can result in unauthorized transactions and increase chances of fraud. The same goes for employees who use their personal cards for business-related purchases. While it might seem like a good alternative if you can’t get approved for credit, it’s actually extremely inefficient, not secure and makes expense management more complex than it needs to be.

Ready to get a corporate card that lets you scale? Book a demo with Float today to learn how we can make this process easier for you as you grow and scale.

Product News: Introducing Float’s Slack Integration Feature

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

Float launched an integration feature that enables users to connect their financial workflows right within Slack. Companies can easily manage their spend and approval processes directly in their internal chats, making it convenient for all departments within the organization. From approving a corporate card to requesting spend, all of it can be done in a matter of minutes. 🤩 We’ve also moved all our notifications into Slack so that you can ditch those lengthy email threads and have interactive engagements using our Slackbot.

Removing any friction from your financial workflows

We always knew that to create the ultimate spend management product of the future, we needed to build an integrated experience that removed as much friction from your financial workflows as possible. ✅ To be successful, we needed to meet our users where they were already spending a lot of their time – on Slack.

Our Slack integration feature allows us to better serve companies with distributed teams by giving them the power to embed their financial workflows within their existing communication channels. So, if you’re operating in a hybrid workplace where some employees are working from home, you can easily approve spend requests and ensure seamless financial communication across all departments. 💸

Users will also get reminders and notifications through Slack when they’re missing receipts and other important information.

Creating a simple onboarding process 👩🏽‍💻

We recognize that onboarding your employees and getting them acquainted with your financial tools and processes isn’t always a smooth transition. The main purpose of Float’s Slack integration feature is to make it easy for spenders in your company to understand, adopt and comply with your financial processes and tools. Given that most people know how to use Slack, getting started with Float is nothing less than seamless.

Spenders can easily submit their spend requests by typing ‘/spend’ directly in Slack. Managers then have the ability to approve or decline requests directly from the Float App within Slack. Managers can also create a shared channel for upcoming top ups and notify the team when they arrive.

Promoting a healthy spending culture 💸

Our Slack integration feature allows companies to manage corporate spending in a more efficient, transparent and quicker way. Since everything is done in one single tool, managers have greater visibility and control over spending, while employees are empowered to make business purchases easily and responsibly. With the ability to view spending frequency data and communicate directly through Slack, this integration enables employees and departments to improve the way they share financial information.

Our team at Float is always looking to make the way you and your teams spend as effortless as possible. The more we can integrate Float into your day-to-day workflows, the more we can make spending for businesses easier across North America.

Book a demo with us today and experience all of the features Float has to offer.

Nerva’s Accidental Find Turned Treasure

Posted on by Natalie White

We sat down with Heather, Nerva Energy’s financial controller, to talk about the company’s Float experience. Nerva Energy delivers real-world solutions that improve indoor air quality, maximize energy performance and decrease greenhouse gas emissions for commercial real estate and public sector markets. In 2021, what started as an accidental find, turned out to provide a solution addressing various pain points for different divisions within Nerva Energy. Here’s what Heather had to say.

Q1: When did you start using Float and why did you choose us?

We’ve been using Float since August 2021. We have dozens of technicians in the field and the way that we were managing expenses was incredibly inefficient. From technicians racking up our credit cards to never submitting their receipts on time, it all became unmanageable, especially as our team grew.

“When our VP of Energy Engineering saw an ad for Float, he immediately asked if this is something we should consider exploring. And here we are seven months later!”

Q2: Are there any particular Float features that have been extremely useful to the team?

From a finance team perspective, I would say managing the pool of money is a great feature, and also the ability to manage various merchants has been helpful. Float gave us added capacity for other functions in finance. The time we save makes a huge difference.

“We set up all the merchants that we know are applicable to a certain GL Code in Float so that every time the system sees say Burger King, it automatically assigns it to the correct GL account we have set up for that spend category.”

The ability to take a photo of your receipt and upload it immediately is extremely useful for our technicians. Before Float, it would typically take us about a month to reconcile the previous month. And most of that time was spent chasing people down for receipts and getting clarity on what they were spending on. It took the finance team away from more important tasks. Today, reconciliation is much faster – we have full visibility into what employees are spending and they can now instantly submit copies of their receipts upon every purchase. 

Q3: You grew from eight to over 40 employees. Did you have Float during this growth period?

Luckily, we had Float before too much growth took place. You know, if you’re trying to manage paper receipts with eight people, that’s one thing. But when 16 people come in and give you an envelope full of receipts that need to be sorted through, things can get really complicated. Today, we have 35 field employees using Float on a daily basis. We have hundreds and hundreds of transactions a month, which is why this platform is so huge for us. To go through that many receipts would be impossible.

Before Float, we used standard credit cards that were branched off to multiple users – but everything was still fed back into the main credit card. We had roughly four or five of these cards floating around and one technician from each crew was responsible for collecting the receipts from employees and submitting them to finance with an expense report. As we started growing, we knew a better solution was needed – that’s where Float came in.

Q4: What is the best part about working with Float?

The best part is that our employees always have access to company funds to pay for their daily business expenses. For example, sometimes I get calls because an employee has gone to a rental company and gets hit with a massive deposit fee. If their Float card limit isn’t high enough to cover that fee, I can simply top up their card from my laptop in minutes. It’s quick for myself and for them, and they never have to dip into their own pockets while on the job. At Nerva, we believe that when you’re a part of a company, they should be able to support you with your needs. So it’s really important for us to make sure that our technicians have access to corporate funds to do their work efficiently. Thanks to Float, we can deliver on that.

“The number one reason I would suggest other companies implement Float is because it’s a big timesaver. The team is very helpful, quick to reply and also very open to suggestions from their users on ways to improve their features.”

This really shows that they care about our success and the experience we have with their platform. Although our introduction to Float was an accidental encounter, our organization couldn’t be more grateful. I’m optimistic that anybody who wants to save time and manage their paperwork would find that Float is a big help.

About Nerva Energy

We are a team of award-winning energy advisors with decades of real-world experience, helping raise awareness for industry best practices and innovative technologies that improve energy performance and drive sustainability.  As Canada’s fastest growing energy advisory firm, we deliver real-world solutions that improve indoor air quality, eliminate energy waste and decrease GHG emissions.