Author: Ruslan Nikolaev

Introducing Canada’s smartest corporate card for USD spending

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

We’re excited to announce that Float’s new USD smart corporate cards are here to help you simplify your U.S.-dollar business spending. 

You and your team can spend, track, approve and reconcile all your business expenses no matter which currency you’re spending in. Our USD smart corporate cards can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted – which is basically everywhere. Whether you’re purchasing new software, going on a business trip or need to stock up on product inventory, we’ve got you covered. 🙌🏻

It’s easy as 1, 2, 3! ⬇️

Step 1:

Connect your USD bank account to Float

Step 2:

Issue an unlimited* number of physical or virtual USD cards to employees or vendors

Step 3:

Export transactions to your accounting software at month-end and enjoy having all your receipts automatically matched, embedded, and categorized for you 

With our new USD smart corporate cards, you can: 

Manage your USD and CAD spending all in one place 💸

You can spend, track, approve and reconcile all of your CAD and USD expenses within Float. Regardless of which currency your team is spending in, you can track purchases and export them into your accounting software without any guesswork or confusion. 

Leave foreign transaction fees at the door 🌎

With Float cards, you can avoid foreign transaction fees on USD spend by using a Float USD card. You can also link Float to your USD bank account so you can avoid your bank’s currency conversion fees. 

Easily manage and pay for subscriptions and advertising ​​💵

Many popular subscription software plans charge in USD, like Zoom, Slack, or Deel. Advertising platforms can also charge in USD, including TikTok and LinkedIn. Float offers unlimited virtual cards, so you can instantly create a card for each vendor. With virtual cards, you can set up card controls and spend limits to limit fraud, overcharges, or cards pausing in the middle of a campaign due to low card limits. 

Quickly pay and reconcile U.S. travel expenses ✈️

Hooray! You can now issue physical USD corporate cards to your travelling employees. All cards are linked to your Float software and set up with individual card controls and automated receipt compliance, giving you full visibility over team spending regardless of the time zone they’re in. Your team can now travel stress-free and easily make business purchases without having to wait for any management approvals. Even better, you’ll never have to hound them for receipts ever again – Float will notify them to upload a snapshot any time they make a transaction. 🧾

Get access to USD corporate cards with high limits with no personal guarantees 💳

Big banks make it difficult to access corporate cards in general, let alone those in USD currency. Many banks will require you to have a legal US entity before issuing you a US-based bank account or corporate card. Float offers easy access to USD corporate cards with high limits and no personal guarantee – so you can spend with ease and accelerate your company’s growth worldwide! 🚀

—

Float’s USD card is ideal for Canadian businesses that earn and spend USD. Does your team need access to USD smart corporate cards? Float provides fast approvals with no personal guarantees or credit checks needed. Book a demo with us today or sign up for free! 

*Unlimited physical and virtual cards for Professional Plan members. Essential members get unlimited virtual cards and 5 physical cards.

New! SAML SSO login for Float

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

Account security is vital for companies who are giving their teams access to software that contains valuable company information. For any organization, it’s important for team members to have the tools they need to perform their jobs on a daily basis. At the same time, it can be difficult to keep track of accounts, ensure employees are using secure passwords, and verify that account access isn’t being shared with others. 

At Float, account security for our customers is one of our biggest priorities. That’s why we’re excited to offer SAML SSO login for our Professional Plan members, and multi-factor authentication for all Float customers. 

What is SAML SSO?

User management can be a headache, especially for large companies or those who are scaling. The reality is, employees come and go and keeping track of accounts and logins can be quite difficult – not to mention, it poses a security risk too. 

SAML enables Single Sign-On (SSO) and provides increased security and convenience for companies by allowing for just one set of secure login credentials across platforms, including Float. SAML works by passing information about users, logins, and attributes between the service providers and identity providers (iDp) including Azure, Okta, Auth0, and OneLogin. 

For Professional Plan members, Float uses SAML to securely pass authentication and authorization from your identity provider to Float for a secure Single Sign-On experience! 

The Benefits 🤩

Employee onboarding or offboarding 👋🏼

IT and security teams can seamlessly manage users in the organization.

Greater convenience 👍🏼

Employees only need to sign into one platform. No need to remember multiple usernames and passwords! 

Increased security 👀

SAML SSO is one of the most secure ways to enable account access for companies and teams. 

We’ve got more tech acronyms for you! 

Have you heard of MFA? No? 🤷🏼‍♂️ Well hear us out! Multi-factor authentication (MFA) provides basic authentication for your company’s team. It works to improve account security and prevent unauthorized login attempts by requiring an additional “factor” to verify that the person logging in is really who they say they are. 🧐

This can include a text message with a unique code or a one-time-password (OTP) issued by a third party authenticator app such as Google Authenticator. 

The Key Benefit: Increased Security

By adding an additional checkpoint for a user login, you protect the company from hackers getting access through compromised passwords. 

Here’s how it works ⬇️

To set up SAML SSO

SAML SSO is available to Professional Plan members. (Not yet on our Professional Plan? Upgrading is easy! Just contact our Support team and we’ll walk you through the process of coming to the Professional side.) 

  • Head to your Settings page and click “Account Security”. From here, you’ll be asked to enter your identity provider’s information and connect to Float.
  • Visit our Help Centre for more detailed instructions on setting up SAML SSO.

To set up MFA

Did you know MFA is available to all Float customers?! Here’s how you can enable it: 

  • Go to your company “Settings” page and click “Account Security”. From there you can configure your login policies with our MFA settings. 
  • Once enabled, the next time your team logs into Float, they will be prompted to set up MFA and choose either text or OTP as their second factor for login security. 
  • After that is complete, they will be prompted to enter their one-time code or password. 
  • Visit our Help Centre for more information on setting up MFA.

At Float, we’re bringing you one step closer to smarter, more secure spend management. 👊🏼 If you have any questions about enabling SAML SSO or MFA, we’re a click away!

New! Float’s Expense Policy Feature

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

Fact: Expense policies aren’t always the easiest for employees to understand or follow. From chasing people down for receipts to reconciling transactions for days on end, it’s no wonder the finance team limits corporate spending to a select few. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Plot twist. Float’s about to change the game. 🎲

Our new Expense Policy feature allows you to implement company expense policies directly in Float using our Submission and Approval Policies. Our new Submission Policy feature lets you define the transaction information that employees are required to submit, like receipts and accounting codes, and allows you to assign specific GL codes by expense type. With Float’s automated Approval Policies you can assign multiple approval layers for employee spend requests within your organization. Combined, this unstoppable duo automates and digitizes your company’s expense policies. ⚡️

Available to Professional users, Admins can create unlimited Submission Policies that reflect internal company guidelines around corporate spending – such as travel, work from home benefits and entertainment policies. 

It’s The Feature Your Whole Team Has Been Waiting For 🎉

💳 Empower employees to comply with spending policies

Float allows you to set boundaries for corporate spending with automated rules for transactions that reflect your company’s expense guidelines. You can also define what information is required under specific policies, including receipts and accounting codes. 

🙌🏻 Make month-end a breeze for your finance team 

Float lets you apply specific GL codes to transactions, while encouraging spenders to categorize their transactions so your finance team doesn’t have to. Finance teams no longer have to chase employees down or search for missing information for hundreds of expenses.

How It Works ⬇️

  1. Go to your company settings page to find “Submission Policies”
  2. Click on “Create a Policy”
  3. Enter your policy name and a brief description so your team knows which expenses are covered
  4. Select the policy type and the teams it applies to
  5. Create spending boundaries for single-use cards and recurring cards including:
  • Setting specific GL codes by card
  • Selecting whether or not receipts or GL codes are required to be submitted based on transaction amounts
  • Turning on card compliance to auto-pause cards that violate expense policies
  1. When creating a new card, select the expense policy that spend should be tied to. For each transaction, the spender will be prompted to follow your GL code and receipt requirements.

Note: Every Float account will apply a Default expense policy that includes GL codes and receipt requirement capabilities. 

The Perfect Pair: Submission Policies + Approval Policies 🤝

Float’s new Submission Policies paired with our Approval Policies’ multi-level approval flows make managing team spending a breeze. 

Excited to see how this new feature works? Login to create your Submission Policies or  book a demo with us today! 

Float’s New Smart Corporate Cards Are Here!

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

With many teams back on the road and in action, our new smart physical corporate cards couldn’t have come at a better time. With enhanced tap functionality paired with speedy spend approvals — Float cards are making real-world business spending easy and better than ever before. 

These new cards empower on-the-go business spending for expenses like:

✈️  Travel (hotels, meals, car rentals and fuel)

💆🏼‍♀️  Monthly employee benefits

🍩  Snacks for the office 

☕️  Monday morning coffee runs 

🤩  And so much more!

Float also allows you to spend in style! 😎 Our new physical cards are made from premium materials in a matte and gloss black finish – a professional and sleek addition to your wallet that you’ll always want to use. 😉

Corporate credit cards on another level ⚡️

Corporate cards have played a crucial role in daily business spending for decades – and so we sought to give them an upgrade! We’re all familiar with traditional corporate cards such as your standard physical Visa or AMEX — the ones that get shared around the office, or even worse, over Slack or email. 🙄 These traditional cards typically come with high monthly fees and very rarely give finance teams any insight or control of company spending. 

At Float, we do things a lot differently. We give companies access to high-limit, hassle-free physical (and virtual) corporate cards integrated with smart spend management software — ultimately giving finance teams greater spend control. Float not only boosts your spend visibility, but it completely eliminates the need for card sharing across your organization. That’s right! You can issue an unlimited amount of cards to employees as needed! 🎉

Physical vs. virtual smart corporate cards 💳

Float’s physical and virtual cards are essentially the same but serve two different purposes:

  • Physical cards are great for real world, on-the-go expenses. You can issue these to anyone within your company with smart functionality like spend limits and automated approval flows.
  • Virtual cards are perfect for online purchases, whether they’re one-time or recurring transactions. Float even allows you to categorize your virtual cards by vendor — like your monthly software subscriptions! 💰 

Smart corporate cards are for everyone 🤝

Traditionally, corporate cards were limited to C-suite team members, executives and founders –  often leaving other employees to use their personal credit cards to make business purchases and be reimbursed at a later date. Red flag 🚩 This “traditional” way of doing things can be a major roadblock when you’re trying to grow and scale.

At Float, we don’t discriminate against corporate spenders. If you’re using Float’s professional plan, you’ll have access to free unlimited physical and virtual cards that can be distributed across your entire company – with no monthly fee. Our automated spend management software also gives managers and finance teams the ability to set spend limits, enforce greater receipt compliance and have full visibility and control over daily spending in real time.

Use your Float card anytime, anywhere 🌍 

Float’s smart corporate cards can be used anywhere that accepts a traditional credit card. We run on the VISA network which means merchants can treat your Float card just like any other card they’re used to. They’re easily accessible, offer high-limits and come with a hassle-free experience from start to finish. No credit checks or personal guarantees needed!

If you’re an existing Float customer, just log into your account and order your new Float cards today. If you’re not a Float customer, become one today 👊🏻 Book a demo or sign up for free!

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.

A Closer Look at Float’s Professional Plan

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

Manager Permissions 🙋🏼‍♂️

Professional customers can give managers greater control and visibility over team spending with the authority to set predefined budgets, distribute corporate cards, approve spend requests in seconds and empower teams to make responsible spending decisions! 💸

Team Management 👫 👫

With Team Management, Professional customers can assign both managers and spenders to various teams with added functionality like auto-tags to clearly define each employee’s role and spending authority. Easily distribute corporate cards to departments and/or team members with customized limits based on expense type or project budget.

Team Management Feature

Multi-Level Approvals ✅

Professional customers can easily decentralize spending with a simple and efficient approval process embedded in Float. You can create multi-level approvals for each team and define approval levels based on the spending amount for any request. Whether it’s a $200 or $20,000 request, the correct individual will be prompted (via Slack or email) to approve it, with an e-paper trail that you can always depend on. 🤝

Unlimited Physical Cards 💳

Professional customers can provide anyone on their team with access to their own physical Float card. Empower spending no matter where people are, and easily update limits in real-time from your account. Whether your team is on the road, meeting with customers, or just purchasing home office supplies, physical cards can help anywhere.

Slack Integration 🔗

For Slack Users on Float’s Professional plan, Float can provide even faster updates by surfacing information directly into a dedicated Slack channel. Stay on top of Float activity with these capabilities:

  • Spenders can request new cards for approval through a simple /spend command in Slack
  • Admins will receive a Slack notification to approve requests in a dedicated Float channel
Spend Request Slack Notifcation
  • Improve receipt compliance with automatic reminders to Spenders in Slack
  • Finance Admins can be notified of new fund transfers as soon as they are initiated and completed

Want to know more? Our team is always happy to connect and share more details about how you can benefit from our Professional features. Click here to get in touch with them now!

Holiday Spending with Float

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

Keeping the spirit alive with distributed teams

As we get ready to wrap up 2021, there’s no better time than now to celebrate! With most teams distributed across the globe and traditional offices still largely vacant, companies are in need of innovative tools to thrive in this new environment. This holiday season, Float wants to spread cheer by making it easier for organizations to spend smarter, work better and celebrate the season regardless of where they are!

Have more fun this holiday season with Float

Whether you’re a startup with a five-person team or an organization with global teams, spreading holiday cheer has never been easier. Float’s spend management feature will simplify your finance team’s workflow during a hectic year-end so that you can have more fun and less stress! 

1. Deck the halls with zero admin work

Looking to make things more festive in the office this holiday season? Give your employees their own Float card to have some fun and decorate the office! But don’t worry, Float allows you to set clear limits so your team stays on budget as they deck the halls. You can even use our mobile receipt capture feature so everyone can save their receipts just seconds after they spend in-store. 🧾

2. Organize a ‘Secret Santa’ that everyone wants in on

Get the entire organization into the holiday spirit and organize a company-wide Secret Santa exchange. Use Float to issue virtual cards to all of your employees so they can easily purchase gifts with no muss and no fuss. With our new team management feature, only finance managers can see Santa’s secret list – you don’t have to worry about anyone peeking at each other’s receipts! 👀


3. Manage travel expenses with multi-level approvals

For distributed teams planning a holiday party, you can manage spending for those who are flying, driving or riding the train to attend the event. 🙋🏼‍♂️🧳 With Float’s multi-level spend management feature, you can empower employees and create spending rules based on category and amount. For example:

  • $10 meal in an airport? 🥗  No approval is needed. 
  • Need an extra night in the hotel? 💤  Submit a request to your manager.
  • Want to rent a car to get to the holiday party in Montreal? 🚘 The CEO needs to weigh in.

4. Mix your way into merriness

Bartending or mixology events are a great way to bring employees together and teach a new skill that they can use during their own holiday celebrations.🍸 Use Float’s virtual cards to distribute funds for employees to shop for ingredients! You can set a clear spending limit so your teams stay within budget and circumvent anyone from accidentally buying that luxe 50-year-old scotch! 🥃

Happy holidays from Float!

At Float, we have loads of fun building our platform together and enjoy spending time with each other, both during and after work hours. We recently came together to decorate our Toronto workspace with our team members who live in the city. Check out the video below to see how we got into the holiday spirit as a team! 🎄

Is your organization a distributed team as well? We’ll be releasing more tips and showcasing our own online holiday event later in December with Floaters from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Stay tuned! 

What are Virtual Cards?

Posted on by Ruslan Nikolaev

Virtual cards act in the same way as a normal credit card, but they don’t have a physical counterpart meaning that you get your card number right away and don’t have to wait for a card to be shipped in mail. This allows you to create a lot of cards each with it’s own limit to better control spending and avoid exposing your entire credit card limit with every purchase that you make.

Benefits of Virtual Cards 👌

  • Virtual cards ensure that your real credit card information does not get stolen. Credit card scammers have been getting more and more intelligent and they have been able to acquire many credit card numbers through hacking websites. Once a website’s security is bypassed, any saved credit card information is accessible to hackers and can subsequently used without the owners knowledge. For example, you can buy stolen card credentials for $15 on the black market.
  • In the case that your credit card details are compromised, you would need to call your bank to cancel it and wait a lengthy period of time to receive a new credit card. With virtual cards, the randomly generated credit card information is only used one time for a specific purchase and never used again, thus even if hackers find the information, they can’t use it again.

Drawbacks of Virtual Cards

  • Virtual cards are intended to protect your identity and information online and are not designed to be used in person at stores. Depending on your use case, virtual cards may not act exactly the same as the physical credit cards you are used to.
  • Getting your hands on Virtual cards in Canada can be difficult, unless you’ve heard of Float 😉

Virtual Cards for Business 📈

Virtual cards are very useful for businesses who need to let employees use company money. The business can an unlimited number of virtual cards to employees with limits and expiry dates to manage their spending. This not only makes it easier for employees to spend company money and not spend out of pocket, it also ensures that the company credit card info stays safe. Furthermore, during these times of working from home, virtual cards are 2 meter apart compliant!

So if you’re looking to upgrade your business spending practices, try the virtual cards and spend management software Float.