Category: Case Studies

Founded in 2018, PolicyMe is a startup life insurance company that modernizes the way people purchase life insurance online – making the process quicker, smoother, and more approachable. We sat down with their Strategy and Finance Manager, Suvansh Mehta, who has been with the company for just under two years. Since onboarding, Suvansh has first-hand experience using Float and had nothing but excellent feedback on the platform. 

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

We started using Float in February 2022. Last year, our company headcount grew by 50% and our spending process at the time simply wasn’t cutting it for our level of growth. Our team and expenses increased and it was getting difficult to keep track of. In January, I noticed a lot of gaps and missing invoices from year-end. This wasn’t the way we wanted to start Q1 2022 so we became eager to find a better solution. That’s when our CEO introduced me to Float and I was instantly impressed with the quality and breadth of their features. 

PolicyMe was looking for a way to issue credit cards easier – both physical and virtual – and Float deemed the best solution. Previously, we were sharing credit cards across the team, but this process wasn’t setting us up for growth. It became difficult to distinguish who was spending what, there was little accountability among spenders, and the reconciliation process was unimaginably tedious to say the least. 

Float’s receipt management feature really won us over. The capability to link receipts from an employee and finance perspective, being able to forward invoices directly into Float, and automatch to the correct transaction together has saved us so much time. 

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

Before Float, we had very little oversight of who was spending company dollars and what the transactions were for. Today, we have the ability to instantly issue credit cards per vendor and assign them to specific users in various departments, resulting in greater spending accountability – all thanks to Float. 

Being able to set card limits also helps us stay on budget and reassess whether a specific vendor is still worth using. These pre-set spending limits have been a positive trigger point and encourage us to constantly question and stay on top of our expenses.

“If there’s one corporate card used across the company, it’s difficult to discern if there are fee increases or unauthorized renewals from a vendor. But Float makes it easy for us to monitor and avoid that altogether.”

“Float’s approval workflow feature is also really helpful because it enables us to structure spend approval based on job titles. We’re able to give department managers the authority to approve a specific dollar amount, while anything greater goes to upper management to approve. “

As a startup, it’s incredible for us to experience this level of financial organization by implementing a platform that doesn’t come with a hefty price tag or intense infrastructure. Not only has Float upgraded the way we keep track of how and where money is being spent but it has also improved our lives in the finance department. We’ve got multiple eyes on our dollars now. 

What particular features were the most useful to your team and why? 

The ability to issue and assign individual cards to employees was incredibly useful for us. Before, our team would have informal discussions on corporate spending and there was no clear or documented form of communication for it. At one point, we started using Google Forms to formalize the way we approved spending but it didn’t hold a candle to Float.

Now that we are fully immersed in Float, we’re able to easily communicate cross-functionally about spending policies, card limits, and authority – with the added benefit of being able to instantly distribute cards and adjust spend as we need to. The entire process is speedy and efficient – it’s exactly what we needed.

“Float has also played an integral role in the way we monitor and prevent expense fraud. While we haven’t come across any grave instances, it’s reassuring to know that we have these controls in place. “

How did the PolicyMe team respond to Float? 

We received a really positive response from leadership.

There’s a general reassurance that Float offers – we know where funds are going and there’s more accountability being shared. 

Float makes our spending process less ‘top down’ and allows us to provide managers and employees more autonomy to make daily spending decisions.

Our employees were also very enthusiastic about the simple process of getting a corporate card and requesting spend. We also received a lot of positive feedback about being able to upload a picture of a receipt via text. Our employees value convenience and Float delivers every time.

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

Go for it! Float is a fantastic company. It’s really great to be able to issue cards, manage receipts, monitor spend, and integrate with your accounting software.

“The level of support from the Float team is unmatched. It’s been the best part about working with their team. They are extremely responsive, personable, and always address my questions and concerns without delay.”

It’s very easy for us to reach out to Float and have our questions solved in a timely manner. There’s zero down time because the team addresses our problems within an hour, as opposed to three days or more. If I have a problem, I’m able to get a solution quickly. This is important especially if I am troubleshooting something for someone else in the company. If you’re looking for a software that checks all the boxes, it’s definitely Float. 

About PolicyMe

PolicyMe offers a better way to buy life insurance in Canada with a mission to always put families first, protecting them with simple and affordable insurance policies.

Athennian is a SaaS startup with a mission to make work easier for paralegals, law clerks, lawyers, tax professionals, and finance teams – with software that manages documents and legal entities all in the cloud. With a lean finance team and rapid employee growth this past year, Athennian knew they needed to level up their internal spend and expense management process; that’s when they found Float. We sat down with Athennian’s Director of Finance, Zach Hill and Junior Accountant, Trevor Aasen to learn how Float is changing things at their startup for the better. 

Q1: How long have you been using Float and why did you decide to choose us? 

We’ve been using Float since September 2021. We had always been interested in virtual cards as a way to manage spend but there weren’t really any solutions available in Canada. We found Float and it was everything we needed and more. Prior to Float, we had difficulties categorising purchases and identifying spenders on many of the expenses coming through our corporate card. As the company continued to grow and the volume of transactions continued to increase, old processes were no longer sustainable. 

“Float’s functionality met all of our needs for a spending software. They make it easy to set up and issue cards, automate approvals and manage transactions across all departments.”

Our global headquarters is in Calgary and we have employees scattered across North America. We believe it’s important for everyone to be able to travel and come together as one team and this is a major reason why we were so eager to partner with Float to help manage that category of expenses.

Q2: What did company spending and expense management look like at your company before Float? 

Super manual is the best way to describe our old way of doing things. Our processes lacked structure and expenses didn’t always have a clear paper trail. With a fast-growing team, it became increasingly difficult to categorize our transactions and identify spenders.

Managing expenses became more onerous as our team grew, particularly as a company that has folks travelling from different parts of the continent. We had credit cards from traditional Canadian banks and different employees would use those cards to make business purchases. The problem was that it wasn’t always crystal clear where to code those purchases and our finance team had to move mountains to figure everything out, while getting a hold of receipts at the same time. 

Working with Float has changed things immensely for us. Today over 50% of our SaaS subscriptions have their own designated Float card; we know exactly what the subscription is for and which department owns the subscription. We can also issue corporate cards easily for individual employees so they can make business purchases directly on their own card, whether they’re travelling or not. 

Q3: What were your biggest pain points?

Zach: A significant portion of our month-end process used to involve the finance team tracking down receipts and trying to understand the nature of the expenses. Without a scaleable way to accurately code expenses, putting together departmental forecasts required a significant lift. Float has unlocked so much additional time for the team around month-end. Even as the company has nearly doubled in size since we engaged with Float, Trevor can now independently process the company’s expenses in less time, while I have significantly more visibility and insight into departmental expenses which drives an effective forecasting function.

In March 2022, Athennian closed its Series B funding round to secure $42 million of funding to take the company to its next growth stage. Due diligence for the funding round required us to provide potential investors with SaaS financial metrics and other detailed financial reporting.  Float allows us to easily capture these metrics with accuracy, while giving us the confidence to share them with potential investors to accelerate our growth.

Q4: What particular features were the most useful to your team? 

“The receipt capture feature has played a big role in improving receipt compliance to close to 100% and enhancing the overall accuracy of our accounting.”

Before Float, we maintained all of our merchant, account and department relationships in an Excel spreadsheet that we had to refer back to everytime we posted a transaction. We also had people sending JPEG files of their receipts – not a scalable process to say the least. When team members found out they could automatically submit receipts by sending in pictures, it was such a game changer! Float also automatically codes our receipts by merchants, accounts and tax codes, making the process even more efficient and significantly improving the employee experience.

“We’ve been able to reduce our number of manual expense reports by 80% even with our company headcount growing nearly 40%.”

Being able to issue individual cards for specific spend categories has also been a huge success for us. As mentioned, business travel is a big one for us. Now that travel restrictions are easing and people are out and about, we have had employees venturing off site and attending conferences in Las Vegas and New York. With Float, we were able to issue our employees physical cards to book their accommodations and flight tickets, as well as any other business-related purchases during their trip. 

Our team also loves the flexibility of having SaaS subscriptions on separate cards. It provides visibility on categorisation and is much cleaner to wind up one card when we want to close off a particular software subscription. Previously, we had all of our SaaS subscriptions on two credit cards which was difficult to manage, and it wasn’t always clear which employee owned the software relationship. Because so many vendors were mapped to only two cards, simply cancelling a card after terminating a specific vendor contract wasn’t possible. 

Q5: What is the best part about working with Float?

Athennian prides itself on being a company of builders, learners, and creatives, and working with Float has unlocked so much more capacity for us to do those things as a team. 

About Athennian Athennian is a modern, cloud-based business entity management platform that powers legal, finance, and tax professionals to seamlessly manage and automate corporate entities. As an innovative business solution disrupting one segment of the business world, Athennian is helping clients reduce expenses and increase efficiency while enabling them to be transaction, audit, and compliance-ready at a moment’s notice. Business professionals use Athennian to automate workflows for ownership, governance, tax, and corporate compliance. Athennian’s headquarters is based in Calgary and has a second office in Toronto, with additional team members across the U.S. To learn more, please visit www.Athennian.com.

Forma.ai, the world’s first end-to-end sales performance management (SPM) platform, is growing and they’re growing fast. Andy O’Reilly, Forma.ai’s Senior Manager of Finance & Technology, swiftly recognized after joining the company in 2021 that a quick and efficient spend management solution was necessary. With the company’s headcount increasing 4x in a little over a year, Float was the obvious solution to help manage spending and track expenses. Read how Float has enabled Andy and the entire Forma.ai team to reach their goals and maintain their rapid growth without the distractions of over-complex and manual spend management processes.

Q1: How long have you been using Float? What about Float made you choose us?

I joined Forma.ai in March 2021 and coincidentally, in April 2021, one month after I joined, Float reached out to us and we’ve been working together ever since. Given the nature of my job, I see a lot of demos – but Float’s was one of the best I’ve seen. I felt immediate confidence in the platform and in their level of service and attention. I also quickly saw that Float was able to offer our teams the financial autonomy and agility we were searching for, while maintaining full control of budgetary spend. At the time of onboarding, I was a team of one and we were a company of 50 employees.  Checking expenses against receipts was a huge bottleneck for everyone. We’re over 150 employees now and without Float we would have had an A/P nightmare.

Float has created an independent workflow where everything is automated, integrated, and digitally captured – allowing us to focus all our attention on taking Forma.ai to the next level of our growth.

Q2: What did company spending and expense management look like before Float?

Before Float, spend and expense management was tedious and time-consuming. We did not have an efficient system in place or a way to track expenses. We had one credit card and often had to facilitate wire transfers, which cost us money every time! 

Working with Float, we’ve been able to save so much money and become more streamlined at the same time. AND we get back what we spend on our Float cards with their cashback feature – it’s a win-win! 

Float also gives me the power to manage and oversee everything without having to be directly involved. Our senior leadership team can now control their own spending and expenses without constantly seeking approval to use their corporate cards. It not only makes my life easier but for our whole team too!

We recently raised $45 million in our Series B funding round, which is a big milestone for the company. Given our tremendous growth in the last year, I don’t think it would have been possible to get to where we are today without Float.

Q3: What were the biggest pain points that Float solved for your business? 

Before using Float, we had a single corporate card that a lot of people needed to access. We have a large sales team distributed across Canada and the United States – just imagine the receipt tracking that came with that!

I really value how much Float has streamlined our bookkeeping. It integrates so well with our accounting software and the process of balancing our books is no longer manual. 

Float also sends every employee a notification after a transaction has been completed, reminding them to take a picture of their receipt and upload it. It’s now so much easier to get a handle on our receipt paper trail because it’s all stored in the cloud.

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

Float’s ability to integrate has been a game-changer for us at Forma.ai. The automation gives us back so much time we otherwise wouldn’t have had. It has also created a smooth expense approval workflow, with no hold-ups or delays in reimbursement. 

With Float, we can easily set financial or time limits on cards and having this control gives everyone clear guidelines and expectations when it comes to company spending. 

Since implementing Float at Forma.ai, I’ve recommended the product to several colleagues in the industry. The Float team is always available and attentive, supporting us with whatever we need. The direct chat has allowed for seamless communication and no mixed messages. 

Aside from the people, the Float platform is critical for us now. Float’s virtual cards continue to give our team the flexibility and autonomy they need and deserve – we have a total of 60 currently active. If one of our team members leaves, we can immediately stop their card without having to worry about cancelling any of their subscriptions or memberships.

About Forma.ai

Forma.ai is the only sales compensation platform that allows organizations to flexibly manage what are currently brittle and easily broken sales compensation management processes. Their unique platform enables organizations to design, execute, and optimize their sales compensation strategy with a scientific approach driven by a collective data model. Forma.ai transforms one of the largest cost centers in an organization into its most powerful lever for top-line revenue growth. Founded in Toronto in 2016, the company is backed by ACME Capital, Crosslink Capital, xFund, Panache Ventures, Golden Ventures, Uncork Capital and Gaingels. Forma.ai is trusted by a growing list of innovative global enterprises with clients including Autodesk, TrustPilot, OpenTable, CareerBuilder, and more.

We sat down with Adrian Pape, Klue’s VP of Finance, to discuss the company’s experience with Float over the last year. Klue’s software combines the best of competitive intelligence and revenue enablement — giving their clients a leg up through advanced market and competitive insights. When it came to their finances, Klue needed a change, especially after facing regular issues of fraud, blocked credit cards, unauthorized purchases and more. Here’s what Adrian had to say.

Q1: How did you hear about Float?

I found Float after doing a bit of my own research. Eventually, I met with Shawn and watched some pre-recorded demos of the platform. In terms of customer care and service, the standard Shawn set was a cut above. As it turned out, Float (called Journal at the time) was exactly what we were looking for. Plus, the 1% cashback was definitely something that caught our eye.

Q2: Before Float, what did company spending and expense management look like?

We had roughly 13 corporate credit cards — seven American cards and six Canadian. During that time, our credit cards were constantly being blocked. Employees who didn’t have corporate credit cards were filling out reimbursement forms and uploading receipts. As you can imagine, correctly capturing tax information from those receipts was a headache. There was probably between $10,000 and $20,000 of accumulated GST from old expense reports that fell through the cracks.

“Credit cards in our company were scattered everywhere and there was a slew of unidentifiable charges on these cards. Finding out who they were from or what they were for took days, if not weeks.”

There were also a few instances of external fraud. Because all the cards had been compromised at one point or another, 13 new cards had to be issued, with each and every connection having to be re-established using a new credit card number. We had no control over who was adding recurring charges to cards and there was no visibility or accountability. Essentially, no one knew who was spending what because the cards were used so often – it was a significant challenge. 🤯

Q3: What are the biggest pain points that Float solved for your business?

At the time, we didn’t have someone dedicated to looking after payroll – so I had  taken on the responsibility in the interim. On top of my primary responsibilities, I had to review and import expense reports and keep track of 150+ people who needed to be reimbursed. Since implementing Float, the burden is a lot smaller. At Klue, we have established a strong culture of trust and transparency, so it’s been a nice perk to be able to set up virtual cards for employees and give them the freedom to make business-related purchases. Another huge advantage for us is the SMS receipt capture feature. 🤳🏾 ​​It allows our employees to submit their receipts in real-time directly through Float using their smartphone. 

“It gives us greater control because we’re able to monitor company spending, easily approve purchase requests, and Float reminds employees to submit their receipts on time.”

Float also saves our employees time since the last thing they want to do at the end of the month or year is dig out and submit hundreds of receipts. Instead, it gets it done in the moment and is off their plate, which many of them appreciate.

Q4: What features were the most useful to you and your team?

“Float’s Quickbooks integration allows us to seamlessly connect to our chart of accounts and retrieve and update our tax codes – no problem!” 

With the QB feature, we no longer have to waste time producing expense reports. It’s as easy as reviewing the tax figures, allocating the expense, and clicking Export to Quickbooks – then Float takes care of the rest! 🤩I would also say that being able to give non-managers and non-finance employees access to an individual corporate credit card with a pre-approved limit has been great for our team. 💳  It’s eliminated a lot of the complication and mess we were previously experiencing with unauthorized purchases and poor spend visibility.

Q5: How did your finance and operations team respond to implementing Float?

The crew was ecstatic that it all worked out. 👏🏼 Buying software is always a little frightening but after a couple of demos, and working with the Float team, we were up and running pretty quick. We also have a Float x Klue Slack channel where Float employees can read our threads and listen to what’s going on. Every now and then, we will tag their team and share any key concerns and the team is incredibly responsive and helpful. 

Q6: What advice would you give to other companies considering Float?

Don’t hesitate and get started right away. 🙌🏽  It’s quick, saves a lot of time, and the onboarding process is straightforward and easy. And the best part is that the Float team is right there with you at every step. They’re always taking our ideas and needs into account and continually looking for ways to better support us. 

About Klue

Klue provides a lens into your competitor’s world, continuously updating and connecting the dots to help you win more business. It’s a new way to capture, manage, and communicate market insights from the web and across the company, in the platforms you already use.

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!

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

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.

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.

Coinberry is the first-ever Ontario Securities Commission-registered and regulated crypto company, which is a reflection of their commitment to abide by all anti-money laundering, KYC and customer protection requirements. After implementing Float in 2021, Jerry shared that Coinberry experienced a noticeable shift in the way the company handled their expenses and spending processes.

Here’s what Jerry had to say about us.

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

I began using Float in my previous role as VP of Finance at FlipGive – I believe we were one of the first clients Float onboarded at the time. Even though I joined them in their early days, using Float was such a seamless experience compared to all the other credit card providers out there. From the moment I joined Coinberry, it was a no-brainer for me to reach out to Rob, Shawn and the rest of the Float team. The driving factors included the ease of onboarding, control, customization and the ability to structure prepaid cards to our liking.

Q2: What did the company’s spending and expense management process look like before Float?

We didn’t have any corporate credit cards. Instead, we had a central bank account that we used to pay vendors and wire money – it was a total headache. Using this method made it harder for us to settle invoices. Not only that, we were paying more to wire money and we were only able to send funds in Canadian dollars. If we wanted to pay our U.S. vendors, we had to find a way to do it through personal PayPal accounts. At that point, we decided to get three AMEX cards, however, we weren’t allowed to issue subcards to our employees. So while this fixed the challenge of paying our U.S.-dollar expenses, it provided no solution to improve our spend approval and expense management process. Employees were still emailing or messaging via Slack for permission to use the credit card with no other paper trail after that. We would see the charges come through and sometimes have to chase people down to find out what the charge was for and if there was a receipt for it. It was far from streamlined and more importantly, we just didn’t know who was spending what. With everyone sharing the same card number, it was really hard to understand our corporate spending from a control perspective.

Using Float, employees get their own card and it’s theirs. They don’t have to share it with anyone but of course, they’re accountable for it. And all they need to do is email or upload the receipt. It’s incredibly simple. Now that we’re all set up, we have specific cards for certain purposes, we have better control and our visibility into spending is crystal clear.

“From unwanted monthly subscriptions to unauthorized transactions, the level of control we now have with Float is saving us approximately $10,000 a month.”

Q3: What would you say were the biggest pain points that Float solved for Coinberry?

One is simply the transaction capturing between both ends – input at the spending level and expense reporting at the senior management level. Before, the bookkeeper would go through the statements, manually input the transaction (the spend, the HST, the expense, the invoice and the receipt) and would often have to chase people down for missing information.

“Using Float, our bookkeeper can track expenses throughout the month, instead of waiting for employees to submit their receipts at the last minute. By the time month-end comes along, 80% of the work is already done.”

Being able to categorize cards for specific spend types like Facebook ads has been a game changer. It’s fully integrated with our Quickbooks platform and we have the insight to know when a transaction on a particular card is related to Facebook marketing.

From a savings standpoint, the cashback feature is also very helpful. With Float, you get 1% cashback after every month. The best part is I don’t have to account for that any differently because you just earn the cashback and the system takes care of all the nitty gritty manual labour. Another piece that really saves us time is the speed to settlement and the speed to fund. We spend thousands of dollars per month on Facebook, Google and Apple advertising. By using Float, we’re able to maintain our critical spending categories for both advertising and acquisition without interruption. When we were using AMEX, it was incredibly time consuming to do this – I am talking two or more days – and it often put our ad campaigns on pause and we would lose users every day.

“Float makes this process seamless for us and always puts us in a position to win so we can move forward on our daily tasks without any roadblocks.”

Q4: How has Float impacted processes within your teams and how did employees respond?

It has definitely impacted the way we handle all our payables. Since Float has a 1% cashback, we’ve actually done a complete overhaul on how and when we pay our vendors. We do weekly pay runs and I’ve actually created a new process to identify all our vendors and determine who we can pay through Float.

Our spend process is also much more centralized and streamlined than it used to be. Before, employees were either using one of our three AMEX cards or spending on their personal cards. This made reimbursement complicated, expense reports were a hassle and there was a lack of control and visibility into what we were spending. Today, there’s no friction. Before money is even used, I have the ability to increase or limit spending and can consolidate as much of our AP, invoices and employee expenditures as possible. Instead of having to rely on 10 to 20 employees, Float allows us to put these processes in the hands of three people at most. And that’s saved us a tremendous amount of time and stress.

“We’ve saved our senior management team nearly 5 to 10 hours a month on expense reports alone and can give employees more responsibility and accountability when it comes to their spending.”

Our employees responded really well to Float – I remember feeling like Santa Claus when I was handing out everyone’s corporate cards! It was a great feeling to see everyone so excited because our old process really bottlenecked our teams’ daily tasks. Before Float, our employees constantly found themselves asking for permission and waiting for approval on minor purchases like signing up for software or paying for conference tickets. Giving them their own card immediately removed those roadblocks and really allowed me to empower the team, which made all the difference.

Q5: What particular features were the most useful to your team and why?

The number one for me is being able to issue as many cards as you need and the speed of doing so. We have a card for Canadian one-time account payables, another card for U.S. payments and one dedicated for marketing – all categorized for a particular spend. We enjoy the flexibility to issue multiple cards quickly, with the ability to code and create processes and structures for each one. We can also set our own limits – from as low as $10 to as high as $100,000 a month — and have the ability to customize and adapt each card based on our requirements. Nothing in the market really compares to that.  

If you meet Rob, Shawn or Natalie, they’re some of the most wonderful people and you can tell. They are passionate about the business and constantly working to resolve the pain points for all their users. On a personal and professional note, the best part about working with Float is the people. But as a platform, it’s the technology behind it – which has come a long way as well. If you’re considering Float, don’t hesitate. If you have bills to pay and more than five employees, it’s a no-brainer experience.

About Coinberry

Coinberry is a Canadian digital asset trading platform that provides users the easiest and safest way to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Stellar in Canada.

We took the time to speak with Rhianna, the Finance Director at Properly, a Canadian real estate company with a mission to make buying and selling more customer-centric. While Properly focuses on relieving stress for buyers and sellers, they were also determined to find a stress-free solution for themselves – and Float came through! We discussed the company’s experience using Float to understand what their previous spending policies were and how we made it better. Here’s what Rhianna had to say.

“As a startup, our credit card limit was low and our spend policies were essentially non-existent. What we had wasn’t scaleable and Float turned it all around.”

Q1: How long have you been using Float and why did you choose us?

When I joined Properly in April 2021, I knew the company needed a better solution to manage expenses. By July 2021, after an extensive search, I came across Float and we got started immediately. One thing I liked about Float compared to other options was that it easily integrated with our existing accounting system and had the OCR capabilities to read the tax off any given invoice.

“Some of the other options we looked at weren’t able to register different provincial sales taxes, which means someone from our team would have to manually correct them. This was a big deal breaker for me and Float came through.”

As a startup, it’s also really hard to get credit cards with high limits unless you put cash deposits against them or have funds held in trust – working with Float helped us avoid all of that. The low limit and single card worked when Properly was smaller, but as we grew it was not sustainable for the needs of our teams. The card required daily monitoring and the lack of flexibility given we only had one card meant employees were paying for costs out of pocket and had to take on the administrative burden of expense reports.

Given that our corporate card was being used by multiple people for multiple transactions, we found ourselves constantly chasing down employees for receipts to understand who made a purchase and why. All of this combined really pushed us to find a better solution and Float checked all of our boxes.

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

Before, spend approvals were coming directly to me multiple times a day. I’m super busy so this would sometimes result in delays and employees were often left waiting for me to approve spend requests. This process was incredibly inefficient and not sustainable for us as a growing company. With Float’s Multi-Level Approvals feature, I no longer have to receive messages or questions about daily spending. These requests now go directly to the department manager for spend approvals of up to $10K, with anything higher required to go through the finance team. 

Another big pain point Float solved was that we’re now able to issue corporate cards per department with higher spending limits. This was especially helpful for our marketing team as their channels often depend on having a reliable financial partner to ensure smooth and uninterrupted execution.

Float also enables smarter budgeting across the company. Everything is displayed on the platform and it’s easier for us to track and review past purchases. So when Marketing sets a budget for  monthly channel spend and then requests an increase mid-month, we have the insights to identify whether or not it’s in budget and question why it’s needed.

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

Our one corporate card was held by a number of employees across the company, so there was one group of people actively using it and another group asking me if they could. Tons of requests were coming my way or employees with the card would spend without providing the supporting receipts/ documentation. This resulted in inefficient month ends and time wasted hunting down receipts. I was searching for a better way to improve our policies and Float was deemed the best route.

“Our team was growing, spending was on the rise and there was a deficiency in employees submitting their receipts. We weren’t set up to scale. If it wasn’t for Float, the finance team would have struggled to keep up with company growth.”

Q4: Which Float feature is most useful to your team and why?

Float gives us the flexibility to set up cards with different titles, controls and spending limits. For example, we can create a card that has a $20K limit for recurring purchases or we can issue a single-use card with $200 on it. Initially, we started off using Float for our marketing team since they were our biggest spenders. But now, our entire company is reaping the benefits. 

Float also gives our finance team the power to spot and audit expenses coming through in real time. Instead of waiting until month end or year end to review expenses or any unusual purchases, we can check in whenever we want. Now that Float has the Multi-Level approval feature, we’re able to align all of our employees with our budget and approval limits for 2022 and give our department managers more responsibility. The middle man (me!) has been removed and managers have greater autonomy to oversee team spending and their overall budgets

Q5: What is the best part about working with Float?

“At Properly, one of our cultural norms is to “act like an owner” and Float enables our managers to do just that.”

Honestly, it’s the simplicity. Float makes it so easy to issue individual corporate cards to employees, while making it even easier for our finance team to track and manage corporate spending. Also, the autonomy it’s provided to our managers is next level. Our managers own their budget, have the ability to approve spend requests and can analyze everything on a daily basis to ensure their team isn’t abusing their spending power. It gives them more accountability and shows that we trust them –  it’s a win-win.

About Properly

Combining top talent, innovation and technology, Properly transforms the real estate experience for Canadians. From dreaming about buying a new home to closing the sale and everything in between, Properly delivers a stress-free, full-service and modern way to buy and sell your home. 

If you’re looking for a smarter way to track and manage your corporate spending, book a demo with our team to learn more!