Category: Product Education

We’re feeling a little sentimental today thinking about all of our incredible customers across Canada that have trusted Float with their business spend.

Our team started Float with one thing in mind – to simplify business spending for Canadian companies and teams. From our fast (and friendly) support team to smart software that automates even the most complex Canadian tax codes, we know what unique challenges Canadian businesses are facing – and we’re committed to tackling them.

Let’s delve into what sets Float apart and why it’s the ideal choice for Canadian finance teams.

Friendly. Fast. Canadian. 

At Float, we know that quick and effective support is crucial for the success of Canadian businesses, especially when it comes to money movements. That’s why our dedicated Support and Success teams are based in Canada, allowing them to understand and address the unique challenges faced by Canadian businesses. 

While officially located in Toronto, ON, the Float team spans coast to coast with members from St. John’s, NL to Victoria, BC. Our team is known for our willingness to go the extra mile and understanding the intricacies of Canadian finance. And unlike the big banks, our response times are fast and satisfaction scores high – just ask any Float customer.

We know our PSTs from our GSTs

Float’s business spend software has been built from the ground-up with Canadian business needs in mind. Not only do we work closely with trusted Canadian banking partners, we also have a deep understanding of the complexities of Canada’s banking infrastructure. 

That means our features are tailored to simplify Canadian team spending, from complicated multi-part provincial tax codes to access to hassle-free USD cards. 

Float’s cutting-edge OCR technology enables your company’s cardholders to effortlessly scan and upload receipts as soon as a purchase is made. Even better? Float’s intelligent software accurately reads tax and tip information and parses the data back to Float. With accounting automations, you can automate tax codes and parse tax amounts directly to your accounting software according to the specific provincial tax regulations. This ensures compliance with local tax regulations, and more importantly, that your company isn’t leaving any GST refunds on the table. 

A lot of Canadian businesses are also holding USD funds but aren’t able to spend them. Big banks make it difficult to get access to USD Cards without having a US entity, and you often need a US address to make purchases.

With Float you can easily spend in the currency you get paid, with quick access to corporate cards in USD paired with business spend software tailored to Canadian businesses.

We Get Canadian Business Needs

Canada’s financial landscape is unique, and before Float, a lot of content, events, and training were focused south of the border. 

That’s why Float goes beyond offering a software solution, by providing resources and building a community designed specifically for Canadian finance teams.

With Float’s Retained Learnings Podcast, you can learn from Canada’s most interesting and innovative finance leaders. Or our Retained Learnings Magazine where we cover unique topics from the ultimate financial tech stacks for Canadian finance teams, to how to build a finance team from scratch in the Canadian landscape. 

If you sign up for Float (or request a demo), you’ll also get invited to exclusive dinners, events, and seminars so you can connect with other leaders in the field. 

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Float offers a truly Canadian approach to business spend management with tailored product features, local support teams, and a community of connected finance leaders. Interested in learning more? Reach out to our team – we’re here to help Canadian companies simplify their spend!

Today our team is introducing a new kind of corporate card to Canada’s financial landscape, and we’re here to make some noise about it.

For too long Canadian businesses have been stuck with legacy corporate card solutions with high fees, no proactive controls, and zero real-time oversight into spending. Because of this, finance teams have been limited in how to manage company spending – with the end result being manual controls in place that can restrict spending and create administrative headaches at month-end.

Our new generation of smart corporate cards offer a level of flexibility and control not seen in any other Canadian corporate card (in both CAD and USD!). With Float Cards 2.0, Canadian finance teams can finally enable team spending while retaining full financial control over card transactions. 

We’ve been busy reimagining corporate cards, working on a solution to give our customers more flexibility over how they manage team spending with intelligent card controls. With new features like Temporary limits, soon you will be able to easily top-up card balances as purchases need to be made, instead of handing out cards with high credit limits.

Here’s a snapshot of how Float Cards can help change the way your team manages spend, for the better.  

Worry-free employee spend cards

Many businesses limit who gets corporate cards because 1) they’re expensive and 2) there is limited control in place preventing employees from spending on things they shouldn’t. 

With Float, you can issue Float Cards (for free) with $0 balance and only load funds when you need to with Recurring and Temporary balances. This allows your team to issue physical cards to employees with confidence, knowing that you can manage their spending as needed for things like travel advances or one-off purchases.

Imagine you need to send a team member to a conference. Instead of having them use their personal cards and submitting late expense reports for manual reconciliations, you can now issue the employee a physical Float Card with a Temporary limit for travel expenses which will increase the card’s balance until the limit expires or funds are spent. You can further control card transactions by applying Merchant Controls and monitoring spending in real-time with Float’s Reporting page.

Control large vendor spending

It’s common for companies to use “catch-all” credit cards, owned by a handful of leads with many software subscriptions and advertising accounts attached to them. The problem with these catch-all corporate card processes is that they not only increase the risk of fraud and overspending, but also the headaches involved with having to swap card information with hundreds of vendors if a card is compromised.

With Float, you can create virtual cards for each large vendor with recurring spend and assign it to the person accountable for the spending. By creating Recurring limits for your billing cycles you get more control over budgets and decreased risk of fraud. By applying Temporary limits for one-off billing or budget increases, you can mitigate overspending. 

For example, you can assign a Marketing Manager a virtual card for their ad spending on a specific channel. You can assign a Recurring limit for their monthly budget, and create or approve a Temporary limit for things like short-term marketing campaigns or implementation fees. 

Limit risk with single-use virtual cards

In our personal lives we’re used to those pesky streaming services and gym memberships that just won’t let you cancel your subscription. But did you know that these types of subscriptions could also be costing your business? 

With Float you can issue virtual cards for one-off purchases like short-term subscriptions that auto-delete after temporary limits expire.

Single-use virtual cards are also great for purchases that only require a one-time payment or for new merchants. Instead of giving them a catch-all company credit card, you can create a virtual card with a one-time-use limit. This way the risk of fraudulent activity is limited to that one purchase only.

What’s New in Float Cards 2.0?

Watch our video below for a quick look at what makes Float Canada’s smartest corporate card, best practices for using Float Cards to manage spending, and how to create, request, and edit cards.

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Float’s next generation of smart corporate cards give Canadian finance teams flexibility and control at scale, so they can let teams spend on the things they need to grow the business without worrying about compliance (and saving time in the process). 

Existing Float Cards will continue to work as expected, but you can edit them at any time with these new features. Try it out and see the difference it makes in your company’s spending! Log in today or book a demo with our team to learn more.

As your business grows, managing your software subscriptions becomes increasingly challenging. Extra seats and duplicate subscriptions across teams can add-up quickly without anyone noticing, and it’s costing businesses. 

Software subscriptions tend to take up a large chunk of budgets. Whether it’s Zoom, Google Workspace, or Amazon Web Services, Canadian companies have become increasingly cloud-based with remote teams. 

In fact, we spoke to businesses across Canada about their spending and where they’re actively trying to reduce costs, and software continues to be the top expenditure finance teams want to tackle.

That’s why our team is excited to release Savings Insights, the latest feature in Float’s real-time Reporting page designed to help you spend less.

What are Savings Insights?

Savings Insights is a powerful new tool that gives you monthly suggestions on how to save money on your company’s software spending. Our intelligent software scans for Increased Spend, Duplicate Subscriptions, and Similar Subscriptions, and provides you with valuable insights to reduce your costs.

Spot Significant Increases in Spend

Increased Spend Insights is designed to notify you of any unexpected billing increases, large jumps in tool usage, or potential double-charges. If your monthly spend on a particular software tool suddenly increases by a significant amount, Float will flag it as an Increased Spend Insight so you can investigate and take action if necessary to keep your costs low.

Find Savings Across Teams

Duplicate Subscriptions identifies any software subscriptions that are duplicated across two or more employees. Duplicate subscriptions can often be consolidated into one account with a larger discount, or can be eliminated altogether to save costs. 

Eliminate Waste and Streamline Subscriptions

Similar Subscriptions identifies software tools that provide overlapping features. If you have two or more software subscriptions that perform similar functions, Float will flag them as Similar Subscriptions giving you the opportunity to cancel one or more of these subscriptions altogether, which can lead to significant cost savings over time.

Float’s Savings Insights feature is designed to help businesses optimize their software spending by identifying potential cost-saving opportunities. By providing actionable insights into your company’s software expenses, Float can help you save money, streamline your subscriptions, and increase your overall efficiency.

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Already a Professional Float customer? Log in today and start saving by going to the Reporting page. You can mark an Insight as actioned for that month only to continue to get updates on that merchant in subsequent months, or mute an Insight forever if you’re comfortable with the spending and don’t want to receive future alerts. Savings Insights are automatically enabled for all Professional Plan customers and are located at the bottom of the Reporting page – learn more about Savings Insights at our Help Centre here. 

Not a Float customer (yet)? To  improve the way you manage your company’s subscriptions, book a demo with us today! Our team is happy to walk you through our smart corporate cards and spend management software.

Our team is excited to release Merchant Controls, the latest feature in Float’s lineup of intelligent card controls designed to help finance teams save on company spending. Merchant Controls give the ability to restrict transactions on Float cards to approved merchant categories, ensuring that funds are being used for the intended purposes only.

What are merchant categories?

Merchant categories are a way of categorizing businesses according to the type of goods or services they provide. They are typically used by credit card companies to track and categorize the types of purchases made on credit cards and to determine how to classify those transactions for rewards programs and spending reports. Some common merchant categories include:

• Alcohol and bars
• Airlines
• Gas and charging
• Restaurants
• Lodging

What are Float’s Merchant Controls?

With Merchant Controls, finance teams can limit card transactions to specific merchant categories, such as advertising, airlines, or gas. This ensures that employees’ corporate card purchases align with the company’s spending policies and reduces the risk of fraudulent or unauthorized spending.

Merchant Controls are easy to set up and can be customized for each Float Card. When creating a new Float Card, finance admins can simply add the merchant categories to include or exclude from the card’s transactions. For existing cards, click “Edit Card” to add or edit merchant categories. 

If a Spender attempts to make a purchase from an unapproved merchant category, Float will decline the transaction and inform the cardholder. 

Learn more about setting up Merchant Controls in our video below, or check out our Help Centre’s step-by-step guide here. 

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At Float, we understand the importance of managing corporate spending and the challenges that finance teams face in keeping track of expenses. That’s why we developed Merchant Controls to give finance teams the control they need to manage and monitor spending effectively directly with Float Cards.

If you’re interested in learning more about Float’s Merchant Controls, or any of our other features, get in touch today or book a demo. We’re here to help you simplify your company and team’s spending.

Float has been built from the ground-up with financial control at the centre of everything we do.  Float’s real-time spend management control lets you see financial transactions as they happen, and allows finance teams to: 

• Issue physical or virtual cards by employee or vendor with spend limits and the ability to pause or cancel cards at any time
• Apply card controls like Merchant Controls to limit transactions to specific merchant categories
• Route and audit spend requests with multi-level approvals 

On top of Float’s spend management controls, our Risk team works hard to keep your account and cards safe by monitoring for suspicious activity and working with our customers to implement best practices. Your team can help keep business spend secure with Float with these 5 tips: 

Enhance account security and enable MFA or SSO

Protecting login details and having strong passwords are important steps to keeping your team’s accounts secure.

With Float, your team can enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) or single-sign on (SSO) for improved account security. Both MFA and SSO help prevent someone from accessing your account if they get hold of your username and password. 

✅ Learn more about MFA and SSO

Review company transactions as they happen 

Review transactions made on Float cards in real-time via the web-app, and ensure cardholders have notifications turned on for automated expense notifications and receipt capture. That way, cardholders are notified immediately when transactions are made and can be alerted to suspicious activity.

✅ Turn on transaction notifications on your Float cards

If you notice a suspicious transaction or a Float card is lost or stolen, immediately notify the Primary Admin or our Support team at support@floatcard.com for help. 

Cancel inactive cards

Regularly review your company’s Float cards to look for unused or inactive cards. Go to the “Cards” page and filter by Spender, Merchant, or Pause status to find cards to edit or delete. Our team can help bulk delete cards, just contact our Support team.

✅ Terminate inactive or dormant cards 

Also be sure to regularly review card limits and ensure recurring limits are still relevant. With Float’s Audit Logs, you can export a history of recurring cards and limit increases from the “Cards” page. 

✅ Exporting Float Audit Logs

Review access to company information

Fund transfers to Float are completed via secure electronic pre-authorized debit agreements. All Admins have access to transfer funds to Float and can view transfer histories. Ensure access to your bank account is given only to those who need access. 

Primary Admins will get notified of fund transfers. If you notice an unauthorized transfer to your Float account, please contact support@floatcard.com and we will immediately review the activity. 

Keep cardholders and users up-to-date

Remember to remove users and cardholders who no longer need access to Float or a Float card as soon as possible. Float can help remove users in bulk if you request as well! 

Remember, it’s best practice to delete and create a new card instead of re-assigning a card if possible. If you have SSO set up, you should still remove the user’s associated card from Float. 

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If you have any questions on how to enable MFA, terminate cards, re-assign cards or remove a User, please check our help center or reach out to support@floatcard.com. We’re here to help!

The word “audit” can set many of us in a tailspin. It’s a heavy lift and can take up to weeks to complete and sift through financial records – especially if you don’t have the right tools in place. However, internal and external audits are a customary part of business operations and help to assess and verify the accuracy of your financial records – which means they’re here to stay.

Thankfully, Float has a solution that helps your auditing process run smoother than butter. 🧈 Our smart spend software and corporate cards give finance teams automated spend controls and quick access to audit trails for company spending. With better control and greater access to your financial records, audits are no longer something to dread. 👍🏼 Here’s why.

Get accurate information with real-time reporting 🕑

Audits are great for looking at historical snapshots of company spending, but wouldn’t it be great if you knew everything in real time? Float enables a real time overview of company spending so finance teams can ensure the books are always up to date with the right information. If your team is using Float cards for business purchases, then you’ll always know who is spending what as soon as a purchase is made. Float’s automatic SMS and Inbox receipt forwarding ensure that spenders submit their receipts on time, while automated receipt matching eliminates the need for manual expense reports and reconciliations. With Float there’s no waiting on employees to submit expense reports or tracking down receipts in the middle of an audit! 🧾

Set automated controls so everything runs smoothly 😌

Approval Policies ✅
Float allows finance managers to put financial controls in place to give teams the freedom to spend, while still having oversight and control on their end. This unique feature also offers proactive approvals for spend rather than reactive approvals. When you set up “Teams” in Float, you can ensure that approval requests are automatically sent to the right people every time an employee requests a corporate card or a spend increase. You can even set up multiple approval layers based on spend amounts and types.

Submission Policies 📩
Float also allows you to implement your company’s expense policies through our Submission Policies feature. Finance managers can set up submission policies for different expense categories and require employees to submit receipts and transaction details for purchases over a specific dollar amount or for all transactions. Float can also autopause cards for non-compliant transactions.

Seamlessly integrate with your existing accounting software👨‍💻

Float integrates directly into accounting software like QBO, Xero, and Netsuite to export transactions that are already coded and embedded with receipts for you. We also take the stress away through our Transaction Rules, which are designed to automatically code transactions from recurring merchants. So when an auditor is reviewing your books, you can rest easy knowing that all your transactions made on Float cards will have been exported with the correct GL codes, tax codes, and receipts too. ☑️

Stay organized and in-the-know with Audit Logs 🔎

Float offers Audit Logs for cards created on our platform and for spend requests and approvals too! 🤩 This allows finance teams to quickly access audit trails for specific time periods, ensuring their spend approval and card creation controls are being adhered to. The best part: Float provides a quick and easy way to submit documentation when it comes time for an audit. 💨 No loose paperwork or piles of receipts to gather. Our Audit Logs feature enables admins to export a history of creation, changes, pauses, expiration, and deletion for all their Float cards to date. You can also review a history of the creations, approvals, and declines of spend requests from your employees too.

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Every finance team needs a set of controls in place to ensure business spending meets company policies – and that their financial records are as accurate as can be.👌🏼 Float’s smart spend software and corporate cards empower finance teams to easily automate their financial controls and have clear oversight of their corporate spending all year long. Finance teams can also use our real-time reporting tools and conveniently review records of audit trails for Float cards and spend requests so they’re fully prepared for an audit.

Ready to get started with Float? Book a demo or connect with us today and we’d be happy to show you all of the incredible features we have for you.

Every business in any industry knows the struggle of creating and managing expense reports – whether it’s for travel, marketing, or even simple daily business purchases. This dreaded process is far too tedious and difficult to keep track of, especially if your team is rapidly growing.

At Float, we consider this the old way of doing things. It goes a little something like this. ⬇️

💳 An employee makes a purchase
👨‍💻 Employee fills out an excel spreadsheet
🧾 Employee scans and emails their receipts (if they still have them)
⏳ Employee waits to be reimbursed

But now, we’re introducing a new way: The Float way 🤩

With Float, you can wave goodbye to submitting expense reports altogether. Our software makes it quick and easy for employees to record transaction details of business purchases in real time. We’ve eliminated all the paperwork, long waits for reimbursements, and the back and forth required between employees and the finance team. You’re welcome in advance! 🎉

Along with our software, Float’s smart corporate cards give employees the option to submit their receipts easily and effortlessly! 👍🏼 No spreadsheets to manage and no reports to file! 

Every time an employee makes a purchase on their Float card, they’ll be automatically prompted to submit a receipt – that’s it! 💪🏼 There’s no need to log into Float or download another app. Once your receipt is submitted, we’ll automatically match it to the transaction on your card and voila! 🤌🏼

Float allows spenders to submit their receipts in three simple ways:

1. Upload receipt via Float’s quick link 📤

After making a purchase on a Float card, we’ll text or email spenders a custom quick link to upload their receipt. From this link, they may also be asked to provide purchase details like expense categories and a description – depending on the company’s specific expense policies.

2. Text a photo of the receipt 🤳

Spenders can simply respond to Float’s SMS transaction confirmation with a photo of their receipt! To set this up, they must add their mobile number to their Float profile on the “Settings” page. Notifications must also have been enabled for the company by an admin.  

3. Forward your email receipt 📨

All receipts delivered to the spender’s inbox can be forwarded directly to Float by using a personalized receipt forwarding address. Companies can also set up Float’s auto-forwarding feature to automatically send receipts from subscriptions or advertising platforms that get delivered via email. Check out this Float article for instructions on how to find your personalized receipt forwarding address and set up the auto-forwarding function.

Float matches receipts to transactions so you don’t have to 🧾

Once your receipt is submitted, we’ll automatically match it to the transaction for you. There’s no need to log into Float or for the Finance team to manually reconcile hundreds of transactions at month-end.

While we always recommend sending in your receipt as soon as a transaction is made, Float is able to automatically match receipts to transactions even if they’re submitted weeks after a purchase is made. Spenders and managers can also log into Float at their own convenience to view their Receipts Inbox and match receipts to transactions manually. And, if there happens to be a receipt that we can’t match to a transaction, you can easily view them in the “Not Matched” tab. 

It’s time to wave goodbye to expense reports and submit your receipts effortlessly with Float. 👋🏼 

With growth comes great responsibility. Whether it’s new hires, introducing more efficient internal processes, or finding innovative solutions to everyday tasks. For finance teams, it’s all of the above and more. 

As exciting as growth is, the change isn’t always easy and can take some getting used to. When it comes to your accounting software, you’ll want to act fast in the face of growth… or else. 

It’s time to move on from your accounting software 😥

Breaking up with your long-time software is never easy. You’ve been together for years and have been through it all. But now something that better meets your needs has come along – cue Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). 👀

ERP is a cloud-based platform that provides visibility into every aspect of your business. While accounting software is designed to manage one area of your business, ERP can integrate across multiple departments. For example, it helps you manage sales, financial reporting, and inventory to name a few. 

Here are some tell-tale signs it’s time to cut the cord and start your relationship with ERP! 

You’re wasting time ⌚

Time is $$$! Your typical accounting software requires manual data entry, which can be incredibly time-consuming with a higher risk of errors. Once you hit a runway of growth and your transactions and expenses increase, an ERP solution will remove the administrative burden that comes with this and drive efficiency like never before. 🤩 The time previously spent on repetitive, manual input can now be invested in other areas, giving you more time to focus on improving the overall business. When you let technology take care of all the tedious work, the burden of data entry will no longer weigh on you. ERP will also track, store, and disseminate information to the entire company and give everyone the information needed to make better spending decisions. 👍

Your system is no longer compatible with the times 🙅

There’s no question that our economy operates with tech at the helm of everything we do. 👨‍💻 That said, your team has probably started to outgrown the basic accounting software currently running in your company. Nowadays, employees need user-friendly, convenient tools that allow them to complete their daily tasks in a reliable and efficient way. It’s important for organizations to use smart systems that save time, money, and stress – and ERP does just that. It empowers employees to take on more responsibility by freeing up their time from redundant tasks and is also fully functional on a laptop, desktop, or mobile device, allowing employees to work remotely with ease.

Lack of visibility across the company 👀

Growth equals more customers, products, brands, revenue streams – and the list goes on! But the bigger your company gets, the more insights there are to keep track of. Traditional accounting software will store information in spreadsheets, which requires manual updates and increases your margin of error. 

On the other hand, ERP gives you the capability to maintain a running tally of all costs and adjustments in real time. Employees can also access reports from the past to conduct long-term analyses that are beneficial to your business in the long-run. If employees need to know what their current budget is, they can simply visit the ERP system for a snapshot of funds that are coming in and out – bringing your company in a more profitable direction. 💸

While ERPs are more expensive to implement, they are proven to optimize several areas of a business. The good news is that Float now integrates with Netsuite to grow with companies as they transition from their old accounting software to ERP. 🙌 We also have native two-way sync with QBO and Xero so you can easily implement your past spreadsheets and financials into your new ERP. 

Here at Float, our team is committed to helping you step into a brighter and smarter future with innovative features that support your ongoing growth. Book a demo with us today.