Category: Case Studies

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 sat down with Ben, the Finance Manager at Clutch, Canada’s first online car-buying and vehicle trade-in platform, to discuss the company’s experience with Float. In 2022, Clutch’s finance team is leading with a mantra to “simplify and automate” with a company-wide goal to service up to 90% of Canadians in 2023 – and Float is helping them do just that. Here’s what Ben had to share about Clutch’s experience with Float.

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

“When I first joined Clutch, our credit card reconciliation process was extremely frustrating and time consuming. Today with Float, we’re on a 5-day close schedule at month end and can report to our execs in just 5 business days.”

We’ve been using Float since June 2021. Before, our team was using software that lacked efficiency and never really gave us a strong receipt management tool to reconcile our books. We were also limited to only 15 credit cards across the company or otherwise would incur additional fees. One thing about accounting in the automotive industry is that it’s very labour-intensive. It comes with a lot of invoices, P.Os and manual data entries and transactions, and at the rate we’re growing, it can easily get out of hand. By choosing Float, we’re able to quickly issue an unlimited number of cards to our growing base of employees. Out of 200 employees, 120 were able to get Float cards – everyone who needs a card now has one. This has really helped our day-to-day operations as it’s given our employees greater autonomy to spend and make decisions.

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

“Float gave us the final source of truth to reconcile our accounting and it only takes 5 minutes – whereas before it took the whole day.”

From an accounting perspective, Float has made our lives a whole lot easier. Before, employees were uploading receipts in group chats and the accounting team would manually punch them in at month end. We had a 10%-to-15% margin of error and oftentimes didn’t even have the right receipts. Today with Float, we’re able to get a clear snapshot of all transactions made in real time and have seen a significant decrease in errors. Employees are also empowered to upload receipts all on their own and provide descriptions of transactions, while accounting is able to track everything and identify any discrepancies. 

“Being able to put accountability on spenders to attach receipts to specific transactions made our expense management a whole lot easier.”

A great thing about Float is that we can now keep up with our credit card transactions on a day-to-day basis. We’re able to download easily digestible reports with all the information we need and it’s all integrated within our external systems. Before, our accounting team would spend the entire day reconciling all of our credit cards. Just eight months ago, we were operating at a tenth of the scale that we’re operating now. If we were to continue under our old process, we would have to hire additional people to handle this. Obviously that’s not efficient and scalable – which is exactly why we turned to Float.

Q: What was the best part about working with Float?

Fast & easy onboarding

It only took a few days to familiarize ourselves with the software. After that, we were able to hit the ground running and get everyone set up with a Float card. It really didn’t feel like we lost a whole lot of time, and we quickly made up for the time spent on implementation just from the efficiency we gained.

Enhanced the platform based on our needs

Float took our feedback in stride and used it in their next product launch. There were a few unique things that we wanted to see in our credit card platform and they were on it right away. One thing we really wanted was a mass download receipt option so that we didn’t have to manually input 3,000 transactions a month. When Float added this simple button to the platform, it easily saved us 20 hours over the course of a month.

Q: How has Float helped your business scale and grow?

With our previous provider, we only had 15 credit cards, which wasn’t sustainable at the rate we were growing. Giving new employees access to a company credit card with no spending limit obviously subjected us to a lot of risk. Being able to issue Float cards to employees with specific limits and having the flexibility to adjust them, reduces our risk exposure significantly and allows us to better track how money is being spent in the company.

There’s so much movement in our production facilities every single day, we needed the agility of a credit card that the right people could access – which is exactly what Float provided. We would not have been able to keep up with the level of Clutch’s scale growth in 2021 without Float.

About Clutch

Clutch is on a mission to reinvent the way Canadians buy and sell cars. Founded in 2016, Clutch’s vertically-integrated business model is modernizing the auto market, giving customers a smarter and easier alternative – all through the click of a button. 

If you’re quickly scaling or looking to automate and improve the way your company spends, book a demo with our team to learn more!