A guide to implementing your expense policies in Float

More often than not, company expenses are typically handled in a “reactive” way. For example, employees will make a business purchase using personal funds, they’ll submit the necessary information and get it approved by finance and later get reimbursed via payroll. Yikes – that sounds like a lot of hoops to jump through. At Float, we make life a lot more simple with our new Expense Policies feature. We have successfully replaced this reactive approach to company spending with a faster, more proactive one.

👍🏼 Float makes expense approvals easier and more efficient with automated, multi-level workflows for spend requests.

💳 Float lets you issue unlimited smart corporate cards tied to our smart spend software, eliminating the need for employees to use their personal credit cards.

🧾 Float ensures employee spending falls within your company guidelines with policies that require you to submit receipts and set GL codes for a faster month-end.

What is an expense policy?

An expense policy is a set of guidelines made by a company that clearly identifies acceptable and unacceptable business expenses. This gives the accounting department and administrators the ability to quickly determine the validity of an expense. Having these guidelines in place is essential to maintain control over employee spending.

The benefits of an expense policy

Expense policies offer a structured and logical way to control company-wide spending. That way, when an expense is rejected or questioned, your expense policy will serve as the final standard for making decisions on approving or rejecting the spend request. It standardizes the rules for your expense management process, while also helping to prevent expense fraud.

Float’s expense policy feature helps companies better communicate their rules around expenses to employees to ensure alignment and greater compliance. It also gives your finance team a gold standard to govern those incoming spend requests and quickly determine what’s acceptable and what’s not. With everyone aligned on the company spending guidelines, senior management is better able to control costs more efficiently and calculate spending forecasts.

Depending on the size of your business and the industry you’re in, your expense policy will differ. Some companies may have one broad expense policy and others may have multiple expense policies specifically related to travel, entertainment, or departmental expenses. The good news is that Float allows you to customize your expense policy and include all of the necessary guardrails that best suit your unique spending habits. 

How to automate your expense policy in Float

1. Invite your employees to join Float and give them a user account with an assigned role as a Spender or Manager.

2. Create a Team in Float – add a manager who will approve the expenses and the employees who are spending.

3. Set up your Approval Policies which will automatically direct spend requests to the right people.

4. Set up your Submission Policies that define the information that employees need to submit once a purchase is made on a Float card (such as receipts or GL codes).

Once you’re all set up, you can start issuing physical and virtual cards to your team and have employees begin requesting spend from their managers. Float’s physical and virtual cards come with automated reminders to submit receipts via text or email so the finance team has everything they need. Managers also have the option to set spending limits and pause or cancel cards if your company’s expense policy is violated.

How to roll out your expense policy with Float

If you’ve recently switched to Float for your company’s spend management, here are some simple steps you can take to roll out your Expense Policies across the company. 

1. Create your company’s expense policy and include all relevant expenses. Clearly outline what qualifies as a valid company expense.
2. Introduce Float as your new company spending procedure. 
3. Communicate the following concepts to your employees:
   • All employee spending occurs through the platform with Float cards. 
   • No personal reimbursements or use of personal credit cards is required. Expenses are pre-approved by a manager and the employee will be granted a virtual or physical corporate card upon approval.
   • Employees no longer have to file expense reports. They can easily text, email or upload their receipts to the Float platform and will receive notifications as a reminder to do so.
4. Have every employee read over your new expense policy and ensure they understand the process of requesting and completing a business purchase with Float. 

Want to see expense policies in action? Watch our video below on how to set up common expense policies in Float!

Login to Float to implement your company’s expense policies, or Book a demo today to explore the PERKS of Float’s new expense policy feature!

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