Nerva’s Accidental Find Turned Treasure

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.

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