Month: May 2022

Float Bookkeeper Guide

Posted on by Jennifer Mcnamee

What is Float?

Float is Canada’s first smart corporate card and spend management software that provides businesses with real-time control and visibility over company-wide spend. We provide businesses with an unlimited number of high-limit Visa corporate cards tethered to our spend management software. 

What does Float’s spend management software do?

  • Simplicity for bookkeepers by moving the entire spend management function into one single platform with added visibility, control and sharing capabilities 🤩
  • In-depth analysis of company spending with real-time data 👀 
  • Elimination of expense reports and other manual tasks like reconciliations with automatic receipt collection and matching 🙅🏻‍♀️
  • Improved accuracy by minimizing human error and expense fraud ☑️
  • A healthier company spend culture with greater productivity and communication 💸
  • Empower employees to easily spend and request approvals for what they need with smart approval flows 🙌🏻

How does Float improve the spend management process?

✅ Physical and virtual corporate cards

Float offers both physical and virtual corporate cards that directly link to our spend management software. Our cards provide full visibility of usage and spend, they link directly to your General Ledger, enable simple and fast card issuance and seamless reconciliation. They’re straightforward for employees to use because of their pre-approval workflow and help administrators control budgets and dictate how much money is being spent and where. Virtual cards are accepted and function like physical credit cards and reap the same cash-back benefits. They offer high levels of efficiency, visibility and control, which traditional cards lack.

✅ No more expense reports

We understand that filing expense reports is a huge time constraint for bookkeepers, so we made sure to fix it for you! But we didn’t just solve the problem — we completely eliminated expense reports altogether! Float users get quick-view access to the vendor name, the date and time of the purchase, the method of payment, the purchase amount and access to the receipt upload tool. By empowering managers to pre-approve company expenses and easily issue controlled corporate credit cards, employees no longer have to use their personal cards to make company purchases or be reimbursed. With automated receipt compliance on purchases made with Float, you’ll never have to chase down another receipt.

✅ No more manual reconciliations

Having to manually reconcile purchases is time-consuming, there’s guesswork involved and minimal control is permitted. Float offers an automated process that can be completed in a fraction of the time and easily uploaded to your accounting software. You can see the payment date, the method, the amount, the spender and the transaction status. It also allows you to easily upload files into your accounting software of choice with integration tools. The “Status” tab will let you know if the specific transaction has a receipt attached, if the GL code of the transaction has been uploaded to your accounting software and provide a description of the purchase. 

Three key functions of spend management with Float

1. Accounting automation

Our automated spend management software is designed to reduce human error, eliminate cross-system reconciliations and save time for finance and accounting teams to focus on higher-value work. By increasing efficiency through automation, it enables faster decision-making at the company level. 

2. Approval workflow

Our approval workflow processes allow companies to set up administrators who can approve and review company expenses. The administrator is directly linked to the card spend, which means expense requests and approvals are carried out before a transaction takes place. Our approval workflow processes can be integrated with communication tools such as Slack to speed up the request and approval time-period. It allows for greater productivity, increased visibility and control for budget owners, compliance protections for employees, audit trails of approval and adjustable budgeting.

3. Real-time reporting

Real-time data increases the visibility of spend and access to key data insights on the spot. With real-time reporting automation, Float optimizes this process to be completed in a matter of days – no more waiting weeks to update the books. This simplifies month end and year end tasks and it also allows managers and administrators to track KPIs and better manage budgets.

Closing your month end books with Float

Float makes month end a lot easier with an array of features that simplify the process from start to finish.

  1. Categorize & tag transactions: Most transactions are coded during the card creation phase or Merchant Rules Set Up. For missing transactions, you can easily go in and tag them accordingly. 
  2. Follow up for missing receipts: After a purchase is made, users will be instantly prompted to submit their receipt. If employees do not comply, we also have a “card pause” feature that auto-locks the card if a specific number of receipts are missing. If you’re not using this feature, you may have to follow up with employees directly to submit their receipts.
  3. Bulk export transactions: This can be done through our Xero or QBO integration. If you are using a different accounting system, you can simply download a CSV extract, format the file to fit the requirements and bulk upload the transactions. 

Helpful Float features and functions

⭐️ GL codes are designated and approved when a card is created

⭐️ Merchant rules help to categorize transactions with the option to override card rules

⭐️ OCR feature automatically extracts tax data from receipts instead of your accountant doing it manually

⭐️ QBO and Xero Integrations speed up the process and make things 10x easier

What to expect from Float

✅ Faster reconciliation versus the lengthy process with traditional credit cards

✅ Less categorization and tagging with the ability to apply GL codes in bulk

✅ Time saved tracking taxes using the OCR feature that pulls data automatically from receipts

How Float cards work 💳

Your Float limits = your bank balance. Float cards integrate directly with your bank account and automatically maintain your desired balance on your cards. You can connect your bank accounts and set up auto-top ups to ensure your cards never run out of funds. Float cards are accepted anywhere VISA is, which means you can use them for purchases just about anywhere.

Why is Float such a great option for bookkeepers?

Integrations. How we make Float work with you. 💡

Spend management seamlessly integrates with other software platforms and systems to make your financial processes simple and more efficient. We provide a direct integration with existing accounting software that uploads your Chart of Accounts as it appears in QBO or Xero. No need to retype or re-add data! We also give you the ability to classify tax codes and vendors before you export so that all the information is pre-populated within your software. Our support team is available to respond to inquiries and our help centre resources will walk you step-by-step through exporting. We also offer manual exports to download a .CSV or .PDF statement with receipts included.

Accounting (General Ledger) integrations

Our accounting General Ledger (GL) integration allows users to implement rules to automatically categorize transactions as they happen, which can later sync to the GL. We’ve developed a seamless process between Xero/QuickBooks and Float, where your Chart of Account and vendors are regularly maintained and updated inside your Float account. This allows you to export all of your expenses at month-end directly into the accounting software with the receipt. It requires you to spend less time on each individual vendor and improves speed and accuracy throughout the process.

Custom exports

While we don’t yet have Netsuite or Sage two-way integrations (coming soon), we do customize export and accounting settings for our customers who use these integrations. We do this by taking your master template and customizing your Float exports so that you can make a bulk upload into the accounting software.

Other integrations

Our Slack integration allows employees to request a virtual or physical card for future purchases by typing “/spend” in Slack. When a request is made by an employee, the administrator receives both an email and a Slack message where they can choose to approve or reject the request. The employee simply enters a request name, recurring expense option, purchase amount, the expiration date of the card and request description/notes. The administrator then has full visibility of these input parameters and has the choice to approve or deny the request. 

Does this process look familiar?

Corporate cards workflow before Float.

What about this?

💡 The Float Effect 

Want to see it in action?

Categorize Transactions

Once you’ve made your first transaction with Float, you can view it on your Transactions page. From there, you can modify and prepare your transactions for an easy accounting export. This includes updating GL codes, making bulk transaction edits, attaching receipts, updating tax treatment and assigning vendors. You can also add custom tags or add departments to better track your transactions. 

Receipt collection

Float’s automated receipt collection feature allows you to create automatic reminders for spenders to upload receipts and send recurring reminders every 24 hours until the receipt is submitted. If receipts are not collected in time, managers have the option to enable an auto-lock feature, which prevents the employee from making purchases until their receipts are uploaded. 

Export transactions in QBO, Xero or CSV

If you’re using QBO: 

  • Expense records are created on the export of every transaction and contain all details of the transaction such as categories, tax, receipt, description and the uploaded receipt/invoice.
  • Users must click “Transactions” and then click “Export to QBO”
  • The transaction amount gets debited to the appropriate expense GL account and credited from the Float Clearing Account in QBO account.

If you’re using Xero: 

  • Invoices and payments records are created in Xero.
  • The record contains all of the details of the transaction such as categories, tax, receipt, description and the uploaded receipt/invoice.
  • Users must click ‘Transactions’ and then click ‘Export to Xero’. 

If you’re using CSV: 

  • While logged in to your Admin portal, navigate to “Transactions” in the left sidebar. 
  • Select the transactions that you would like to export. 
  • Hit the “Export to Excel” button in the top right of the page and select “Regular.”
  • Mark all transactions as “Exported.”

And that’s it! If you’re interested in using Float as a Bookkeeper for your clients, feel free to reach out to our team for a demo!

Why Better Corporate Spending Starts With Strong Policies

Posted on by Shawn Qanun

They say if you follow all the rules, you miss out on all the fun. But when it comes to your financial policies, you’ll want to ensure your team knows every single one! 

The road to better corporate spending is always smoother when there are robust financial policies in place. They instantly map out expectations from every employee and link their actions directly to the bottom line. For startups in particular where growth is fast and expenses pile on quick, this is even more essential. These policies act as a bridge between your finance team and employees and formally outline the “boundaries” of corporate spending in your organization. When everyone is aligned on this, you can expect greater compliance, lower risk of expense fraud and a healthier spend culture.

It keeps everyone aligned on spending goals 💰

By formally outlining financial policies, it’s an opportunity to get employees aligned and informed on the larger financial goals of the company. These policies communicate key financial expectations related to the distribution and use of corporate cards, spending responsibility as well as transaction limits across all departments. ✅ They also help to clearly define roles when it comes to spend and expense management. Having these policies in place are especially important during onboarding as you can set expectations early on and build a healthy spend culture from the moment they join. 👍🏼

It enables greater oversight and spend control 👀

As your team grows and more corporate cards are assigned, it becomes even more critical to have financial guidelines for spending – especially from a risk management standpoint. With more people having access to corporate funds, greater oversight and control is needed. 

At Float, we take this one step further by allowing managers not only to create policies but to distribute corporate cards with predefined limits. Not only does this allow you to protect your business but it also empowers employees to make smart spending decisions in a fast and reliable way – without long approval wait times.

It can save time and money with the help of automation 🙌🏾

Setting financial policies eliminates a lot of frustration and wasted time – especially during critical times like month-end. When you add automation into the mix, it’s even easier! Smart spend software like ours at Float can help to promote your financial policies and encourage compliance through a range of key features. 🤩 For example, our receipt collection feature not only allows companies to set a standard for how they wish to track and manage daily transactions but it also holds employees accountable to their spending. Once a transaction is made, employees are instantly prompted to submit a photo of their receipt. 🤳🏻 And if they don’t, finance managers can auto-lock the card after a certain number of receipts are left unsubmitted. 


At Float, we empower startups and SMEs to establish financial policies, simplify complex processes and gain more visibility into company-wide spending. We want to ensure that you’re equipped with everything you need to grow your team, spend smarter and keep a pulse on your finances at all times. Book a demo with us today and learn how Float can help you!

Float and Letterbox Doughnuts Make for the Sweetest Combo

Posted on by Amrita Gurney

Letterbox Doughnuts was growing fast, but with all that dough coming in they needed a solution to keep up a pace with all their expenses. Donut worry, Float saved the day!

During the summer of 2020, Jonathan Oliver and his wife found themselves with a lot more time on their hands. Priom Mahbub, a baker at heart, was constantly churning out doughnuts for all the socially distanced celebrations in their family. Eventually the two of them along with their friend Mallory Greene decided to officially share these delicious treats with their community. What started in their kitchen at home eventually grew into Letterbox Doughnuts, a local Toronto bakery selling personalized, lettered doughnuts perfect for any occasion. With such rapid growth and expansion, Letterbox was looking for a better way to manage their expenses and make company spending a hole lot easier. We sat down with Jonathan to discuss how Float is helping them spend smarter as they scale.

How long have you been using Float and what made you choose us?

We joined Float in December 2021 but officially began using the platform earlier this year. Our motivation for signing up was two-fold. We had recently moved from Toronto and were no longer going to be in the kitchen everyday. Being there all the time made it easy for me to pick up receipts from staff and later input them into Quickbooks manually. After moving, this way of doing things was no longer working. Second, we are growing our team and just hired a Bakery Manager at our Toronto store. Right now, our team consists of five bakers and we’re hoping to double that in the near future, as well as grow our delivery team. We’re also planning to expand our business across Canada and potentially in the U.S. and U.K. in the coming years. With that in mind, we want all our employees to be able to spend and purchase easily – whether it’s supplies, ingredients or other business-related transactions based on the needs of their location. Now that we’ve signed on with Float, we can issue multiple corporate cards to employees, set clear spending limits and even get 1% cashback too!  

What did company spending and expense management look like before Float?

Before, we would use my personal credit card and I would have to keep track of everything myself. I was the one filtering through transactions, balancing the books on a monthly basis and double-checking receipts to match up expenses. It was very manual, time consuming and oftentimes, many receipts were missing. I would like to be spending my time focusing on growth and what the future looks like – reconciling and looking for receipts was not a useful way to spend my time. I used to spend every Saturday doing this but now, I have my Saturdays back to plan, forecast and look at other markets to grow in. 

“Float is a massive time-saver and it empowers people who don’t have a financial background to be in a position where they can confidently control their corporate finances and gain greater insight on company-wide spending.”

As we continue to grow, I know that having Float will provide even more simplicity and clarity over spending from one location to the next. Right now, we have a Float card designated to our one location but as we plan to hire more people, I’m looking forward to issuing individual cards to team leaders and having a platform that automates all the heavy lifting for us. 

What were the biggest pain points that Float solved for your business? 

Since we were experiencing such quick growth, we were faced with the challenge of making the ordering process more seamless. Originally, I was placing orders myself, but we needed to find a way to allow the team to have full autonomy and purchase ingredients and supplies on their own. We wanted to empower our employees to do this but still wanted to be able to set the guidelines and expectations from a management standpoint – and Float made this possible. 

“Float is a very simple, unintimidating system to use. It gives people the ability to spend without any roadblocks but also makes it quick and clear to track spending. It allows managers to set expectations for monthly spending and empowers employees to feel like owners and take on more responsibility.” 

What particular features were the most useful to your team? 

“Float keeps us on top of our corporate spending. I don’t have to constantly put reminders in my phone and I can easily review the transactions at my own discretion.”

The fact that Float provides an automated breakdown of the subtotal and HST on every purchase has saved our team a lot of time. I also have the ability to change things on my end if there’s ever gratuity, which is even more of a game changer. At the end of the day, the team doesn’t have to run to me with questions and I’m not chasing anyone down for answers. 

Float allows our employees to make smart spending decisions and feel a greater sense of financial responsibility in their job. Accountability is shared across the team and if I set a specific spend expectation, Float makes it easy for everyone to comply. It eliminates a lot of awkward and confusing conversations and there’s never any guesswork. Sometimes, managers and team members don’t have a good grasp on finance stuff, and the reason why we love Float so much is because they provide a very straightforward way of going about it without getting overwhelmed.

A lot of the bakery suppliers we work with operate in a more traditional sense. Translation: paper receipts and invoices. Priom and I both come from a tech and investing background where everything integrates. So much so that while I used to pick vendors based on pricing and quality, part of that criteria is whether they could integrate with our systems. With Float, this isn’t something I need to think about. If we receive paper receipts, all our team has to do is take a picture and upload it to Float and it’s taken care of. 

About Letterbox Doughnuts

Letterbox Doughnuts creates custom lettered doughnuts for Canadians to celebrate their special moments and enjoy personalized treats. Baked fresh daily, the doughnuts are made using authentic ingredients with no artificial preservatives – just great taste!

Why You Should Create a Separate Card for Each Vendor

Posted on by Jennifer Mcnamee

Overcharged and Overwhelmed? Not on our watch. Float has designed a feature that allows you to easily manage transactions from ALL your vendors. 

A common pain point we’ve seen across many startups and SMEs is the struggle to keep track of multiple vendor payments made across departments. Let’s say your marketing team is racking up their Google ad spend and software subscriptions, while your sales team is expensing Uber rides and client lunches. When you’re scaling rapidly, this can be incredibly difficult to keep track of and it’s next to impossible to know what you’re actually spending. Now, imagine all of this with just one corporate card?

At Float, we’ve not only made it easy to issue multiple corporate cards in 3 days or less, but you can now code these cards to your individual vendors.

What’s in it for you?

👀 Full visibility of spending and transactions on the Float dashboard 
🚨 Spot fraudulent transactions in real time
❌ Set limits on cards and cancel then instantly 
🔎 Keep a pulse on subscriptions and reduce overcharges
💆🏼‍♀️ Close your books at month-end without all the stress
💳 Quickly replace and renew cards based on your growing needs
💸 Spend quicker without any downtime on your company’s operations

Greater spend control. Less stress and headaches. 

If you’ve ever been double charged or charged incorrectly, then you know the headache that comes with getting it fixed. 🤯 You can avoid this altogether when you create a separate card for each of your vendors and set a hard spend limit. For example, if you know that your Zendesk subscription is $100/month, you can authorize a recurring withdrawal from Zendesk without giving them access to any additional funds from your account. The vendor will only be able to charge the preset amount that you agreed upon at sign-up and nothing more! 👍🏼 

If any vendor tries to charge more, your Float card will automatically decline the transaction and alert you of this attempt. From there, you can simply connect with the vendor and inquire about the additional charge. Float also makes it easier to cancel your card if you’ve terminated a subscription or contract with a particular vendor. No confusion. No long wait times. No extra charges. ☎️ 🙄

Spend management has never been easier 🤩

For the Finance Team 👩🏻‍💼

Float allows you to have a “set it and forget it” attitude. You don’t need to keep a close eye on unauthorized transactions that may be going through because you’ve already pre-approved vendor withdrawals and set limits on every card. With the long list your finance team likely has going – Float gives them one less thing to stress about. 

For Bookkeepers 👨🏻‍💻

Using this feature, bookkeepers will already have the GL account pre-coded at the card level. This cuts down on time spent during month-end close because they don’t have to waste hours categorizing hundreds of transactions at the very last minute. Since GL codes can be approved the moment a card is created, bookkeepers can have the peace of mind knowing there aren’t any errors to look out for when closing the books. The accuracy is there but the stress isn’t! 

At Float, we’re in the business of making spend and expense management a whole lot easier, quicker and more efficient for businesses. We know how stressful the process can be for finance teams, managers and even employees! That’s why we’ve designed each one of our features with you in mind. 

Book a demo with Float today! 

3 Float Hacks You Should Know

Posted on by Natalie White

Ready to level up your experience with Float? Don’t go anywhere – we’re about to let you in on all the tips and tricks. 😉

We’re in the business of making things easier, faster and more reliable for our clients at all times. To deliver on this promise, our team put their heads together to give you the latest hacks so you can make Float work for you at maximum speed and efficiency.⚡️

Hack #1: Tag transaction categories using merchant rules 🔎

Is your finance team sick and tired of constantly attaching GL codes, specific tags and tax codes to the same vendors and transactions? We have a solution for you! All you have to do is go to the Transactions page > go to the top right > select Manage Merchant Rules. Here you can automatically tag and assign whichever filter you want to a specific vendor so you don’t have to do it every single time. 🙌🏾

Here’s an example: anything purchased from Air Canada is most likely a travel expense. In instances like these, you can tag these recurring transactions as “travel” or “flights” and save time by tracking the same GL code to the same vendors.

Hack #2: Bulk edit your transactions ✅

Float allows you to edit, delete or modify multiple transactions all in one shot! This hack is especially helpful if you have a recurring set of transactions and vendors on a monthly basis. It speeds up month-end reporting and improves accuracy by eliminating the chances of human error and letting the software work its magic. 🪄

To bulk edit your transactions, go to the Transactions page, select a group of transactions and instantly apply the same GL code, tax code or any other key details. So if the majority of your employees expense Uber rides on their Float card, you would then go to Transactions > Ready to Export > Search “Uber” and mass select those transactions with the GL code: Transportation. 

Hack #3: Mark receipts as lost 🧾

Missing receipts. It happens to the best of us. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Although Float provides the option to auto-pause cards after a specific number of receipts are missing, we also enable users to bypass the receipt locking feature and mark receipts as “lost.” This not only eliminates roadblocks on daily spending but it actually allows employees to go back and upload the receipt once it’s been found. Of course, you’ll want to be cautious of how often employees are using this feature to ensure they remain compliant with corporate expense policies.

To label a receipt as “lost”, go to the Transactions page > click on the Transaction > click Receipt Options > select “Receipt Lost.” 

Porta meets Float: A recipe for success

Posted on by Shawn Qanun

We sat down with Porta’s General Manager Jason Cassidy to discuss the company’s experience with Float since their launch back in November. Porta is a subscription-based direct-to-consumer Italian food distributor that sells freshly prepared and frozen Italian cuisine. Porta engaged Float in their earliest days out of their desire to set up and automate payments for their digital advertising platforms. From the get-go, Float has made life easy on this fast-moving startup. Here’s what Jason had to say.

Q1: How long have you been using Float and what made you choose us?

We’ve been using Float since our early days back in November 2021 when we first launched. Our marketing team was finding it challenging to pay for online advertising with multiple cards across multiple sites. It became a hurdle to manage and we knew we needed a better solution. When we expressed this to our external accounting firm, they immediately referred us to Float. We did our homework and were instantly amazed with everything they had to offer. Being able to set up multiple cards for different channels was a big selling point for us. As a busy startup just getting off the ground, the last thing we wanted to do was spend time searching for a corporate card let alone setting them up. Float’s software was quick, flexible and super effective. Their automation and reporting dashboard was also really straightforward and simple to use. We also got access to all of our virtual cards in less than 48 hours!

Q2: What were the biggest pain points that Float solved for your business?

Float gives us the peace of mind of not having to constantly think about processing payments for multiple vendors and partners. It allows us to focus on higher priority projects while knowing that our vendors are being paid from the capital we already have. The platform is also automated and secure, and in the event that we exceed our spend limit, the system is always updated and reloaded within 12 to 24 hours. Before using Float, I would email my accounts payable team and have them pay nearly 30 bills a day. We certainly don’t have the mental capacity and time to do this as we grow. Today, Float gives us greater control on corporate spending and fully executes all our payments with ease.

Q3: What did company spending and expense management look like before Float?

“Before Float, we were doing things more conventionally — sending payments to vendors through e-transfers and having to keep track of it all. Now, we’re taking a more dynamic approach as Float automates the entire process for us.”

Our total spend has increased since we started using Float. The platform has not only allowed us to keep up, but it’s been able to keep up with our changing needs too. We’re buying all day, everyday in the digital advertising space so having this kind of flexibility has been great for us. We needed an option that enabled us to set parameters on spending, automate meticulous tasks, while still being able to access the capital available in our accounts.

Q4: How has Float helped to streamline your processes? Which features are the most useful?

Float has made our spend and expense management process a lot more streamlined for us. We’re not paying for anything that we’re not aware of and we have full visibility over the money going in and out. We’re a small but growing team and Float plays a key role in our ability to continue expanding. We can quickly spin up virtual cards for our employees, set limitations and categorize them virtually – it’s a huge time-saver. If we sign a new partnership, I know I can easily create a credit card for that vendor in a matter of 30 seconds, which is perfect for the way we work. At the end of the day, Float has removed a lot of the complexities by automating the flow of approvals, speeding up card issuance and simplifying the payment process with vital partners on a daily basis.

“Float feels like a product that was built for the future and will continue to evolve as we grow as a business.”

Q5: What would you say to other companies that are considering working with Float?

“Float has the feel of a major financial institution, but they treat you as if you are vital to their success – and that’s something I believe many startups can appreciate.”

Float provides entrepreneurs and business owners a consistent and reliable platform to track and manage their spending with the flexibility to simplify and automate daily accounting tasks. It allows businesses to focus more on growth and less on the nitty gritty. If you have capital and you’re looking for an easy way to issue corporate cards to your team, I would consider giving them a try. The platform also streamlines well with any existing SaaS products your team may be using – which is a key benefit that eliminates so many headaches. 

About Porta

PORTA™ is Ontario’s first Italian meal delivery service that delivers restaurant-quality, authentic Italian dishes to your door that are freshly made, flash frozen and cooked in 15-minutes or less. Use code FLOAT30 to get $30 off your first PORTA order at www.eatporta.com

Back at It Again With Crazy Expense Write-off Attempts

Posted on by Shawn Qanun

Are you ready for another round of insane expenses? We’re back with some more amusing and out-of-this-world attempts that folks tried to pass off within their companies. These poor finance teams… 🤦🏻‍♂️

Here comes the bride.. and a major bill! 👰🏾

Your daughter’s wedding is a once in a lifetime event. You’re surrounded by a room full of family, friends and maybe even your most loyal clients and colleagues – all having a great time.  Nonetheless, this isn’t your ordinary work event. It’s your daughter’s very costly, fairytale wedding that she’s always dreamed of. One father thought it was a good idea to write off the nuptial celebration as a business entertainment expense. If anybody objects to this, speak now or forever hold your peace! While the marriage was a success, we can confirm this expense was not approved. 🚫

Tatted during lunch hour ✍🏽

Picture this: Noon hits and a bunch of your co-workers are headed for a team lunch. Someone decides it’s a great idea to grab a burger and a new tattoo. While your Combo #6 with a side of fries may count as a business meal expense, that fresh ink on your arm definitely won’t. An employee in Boston thought differently when he tried to submit a receipt for a new tattoo, labelling it as a “medical” expense. 😆

Don’t forget the tomatoes, honey! 🍅

A sales representative who worked in advertising claimed to have purchased gourmet gift cards to give to clients. In most cases, this could be deducted as a business expense and the story would end there. However, this sales rep had other plans. He decided to keep the gift cards and go on a major grocery shopping spree! 🛒 Before they could even enjoy their first home-cooked meal, they were caught. Yikes!

An A+ for effort 👩🏼‍🏫

Every parent wants their kids to excel in their school, don’t they? Regardless of how noble her intentions were, one mother attempted to write off her child’s tutoring sessions as a business expense. How did she try to justify this one? Well, she firmly believed that her employer owed her one since she had to spend the majority of her day at work and was unable to tutor her own child. Looks like this assignment failed. 👎🏼 Expense = rejected.

Seasons greetings gone wrong 🎅🏼

In Ohio, one employee submitted an expense for her family’s personalized Christmas cards – 52 of them to be exact. Since she had been working long hours during the holiday season, she supposedly had no other time to design and order them other than during her lunch break. So, she decided that it was only right for her CEO to pay for them! 🤨 Although it’s the season of giving, this expense was definitely not approved.

Whether they have good intentions or not, it’s important for finance managers to monitor and keep track of employee spending to ensure expenses like this don’t fall through the cracks. Thankfully, Float gives you an eagle eye into your daily corporate spending so you can spot anything crazy in real time. Book a demo today!

Blue J Secures Corporate Spending With Float

Posted on by Natalie White

We sat down with Suzanne Gratch, VP of Finance at Blue J, to discuss her experience using Float. Blue J is a tech startup delivering a SaaS platform that helps legal and tax experts conduct research and analysis 100x faster. Something that Blue J and Float have in common is their shared goal of delivering a tech-powered platform that improves productivity while enabling teams to focus on higher value tasks. Here’s what Suzanne had to say about Float.

How long have you been using Float? What about Float made you choose us?

Blue J has been using Float since our launch in July 2021. I joined the company this past October and from the moment I started, I instantly loved how easy, quick and flexible it was to use. Before Float, we had a corporate card with one of the major banks and paid multiple vendors with it. When this card was compromised, everything changed for us. The time it took to first cancel the card and then reassign our vendors to a new card was more complicated and timely than we could have ever imagined. That’s when we really saw the value in a platform like Float. When we signed up, we were able to easily set up all our vendors on Float cards and even set spending limits for each one so we were never overcharged. But most of all, Float gave us the power to cancel our cards on the spot if anything were to ever go wrong. With the level of growth we have planned, it would be incredibly hard to manage it without Float. The platform allows us to do bigger and better things when it comes to managing our expenses and spending smarter.

What did spend and expense management look like before Float and how has it improved?

Before Float, we didn’t have clear visibility over our financials until month end rolled around. I recall getting these big Visa statements with all these charges and it was incredibly difficult to keep track of. I also found myself constantly concerned about fraudulent transactions. What made things even harder was that our corporate card was tied to a primary user. So if we ever had to dispute anything, it would be incredibly difficult because they would only speak directly to the primary user of the card, who was far removed from this process in general. This made it very difficult to both manage and distribute cards within the company.

“The platform really gives us more control and visibility from a finance department perspective. We now have quick access to key information to stay on top of our company’s spending and drive greater efficiency into our month-end processes.”

Today, we have full visibility of all the money coming and going out of the company at any given time. It allows us to extract and record data in such a simple way and really lets us forecast and budget better for the future.

I can now also designate accountability to certain departments and categorize cards based on vendors – for example, all purchases from the IT department go on one card with its own statement of purchases. This really helps us record the spend at the end of the month and distinguish where our money is going and who’s spending it.

Tell us about the security benefits that Float provides and what this means for you.

When our company was using traditional credit cards, I would only be able to log into the corporate bank account and view the transactions once a month – which was typically when our bookkeeper would go in and close the books. Now that we’ve implemented Float, I’m able to log in more frequently and see what’s happening on a daily basis. I have the ability to monitor transactions and resolve issues as they arise in real time, which has been a game changer. 

“Being able to set limits on specific cards makes for a great security measure because it eliminates fraudulent transactions and ensures that vendors aren’t overcharging or processing payment without permission.”

We have quite a few subscriptions and in the past – even when we’ve opted out – there have been additional charges that have gone through past the cancellation date. With Float, we have the peace of mind that this won’t ever be an issue again.

What is the positive impact that Float has had on the Blue J team?

Our team really enjoys the speed that Float allows for. If employees need a higher spending limit and submit a spend request, myself and our finance controller are now able to respond much faster. The Slack integration has made this process even more convenient. Float’s Slack integration helps us get things done faster and communicate cross-functionally about company spending in a much more efficient and seamless way.

“Float’s receipt management feature has also been helpful to ensure that everyone is compliant with our financial policies. It allows us to automate compliance procedures and really holds employees accountable to their spending.”

We also love the fact that we can pause cards after a certain amount of receipts are pending. Personally, I really enjoy this feature because I don’t have to contact employees myself. Instead, they are notified over time via text to submit their receipts and ensure they’re complying with our spending policies.

What is the best part about working with Float?

Float’s customer service is unparalleled. Personally, I’ve had a great experience communicating with Shawn. He is awesome and always ensures that I am up to speed with how the platform and its specific features work. When my predecessor left, he was really helpful getting me onboarded. Natalie has also been wonderful in training the Blue J team and being there to answer all our questions. Whenever we need something, Float’s response time is super quick! Their level of speed and dedication to customer satisfaction is unlike any other I’ve experienced.

About Blue J

Blue J leverages the power of artificial intelligence and legal expertise to help you conduct better research and analysis, test the predicted outcome of any scenario and gain the insights you need to succeed.