Float Financial: How Does It Work?

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Marie-Ève Leclerc
Marie-Ève Leclerc Marie-Ève Leclerc
Marie-Ève, Web Director at Milesopedia, is an expert in budget travel and a slow travel enthusiast. Specializing in Aeroplan, Scene+, and Marriott Bonvoy programs, she spends nearly six months a year abroad, making travel her way of life. Constantly seeking the best waves to surf, excellent coffee, and strategies to extend her travels, she is often found in coworking spaces with fellow digital nomads or by the sea, watching the sunset.
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Float Financial
To the point Float Financial is a business finance platform that combines innovative financial solutions with intuitive software to help make expense management easier.

Keeping tabs on your expenses is easily one of the most critical aspects of success for any business, but it can also be one of the most complicated.

Float Financial has designed their products and systems to improve and streamline the way Canadian businesses manage their expenses, striving to make spending effortless for businesses and teams as a whole.

In this article, we go over what Float Financial offers and how you can use their products to save time and money.

What Is Float Financial?

Float Financial is a Canadian business finance platform that offers corporate credit cards and partnered software solutions to create a holistic expense management system.

They let you pay your expenses, reimburse your employees, organize your finances, and more, all while earning up to 4% on the money you hold in your account and 1% cash back on your business credit cards.

Float FInancial Logo

How Does Float Financial Work?

To get started with Float Financial, you can go to the Float Financial website and create a free account.

From there, you’re able to quickly get access to corporate credit cards and many of the main expense management features on offer, including vendor payment, employee reimbursement, expense tracking, CAD and USD currency exchange, and earning on a high yield account.

Once you’ve created an account with Float, you will then need to connect that account with one of your business bank accounts to load funds and enable spending.

From there you can integrate your Float account with your business accounting software (such as QuickBooks Online, Xero, or NetSuite), and track business and employee expenses and reimbursements easily using the corporate credit cards and system integration.

Float’s systems also let you set spending controls, keep tabs on what’s happening with reports and insights, and use features to automate tasks, saving you time and effort.

Float Financial Product images

What Does It Cost?

As a Float Financial customer, you can choose from three membership levels:

  • Essential – $0/month
  • Professional – Starting at $100/month ($10/month per user with a minimum of 10 users)
  • Enterprise – This is a bespoke level where the service package and price are determined after a conversation with the Float Financial team to assess your needs.

The Essential and Professional levels are the most popular, so let’s take a closer at what each of them offers.

Essential level

At the Essential level, you will get the following:

  • Up to 20 physical corporate credit cards and unlimited virtual cards with custom limits and controls
  • High interest yield account and cash back with the credit cards
  • 0.25% FX Rates
  • Mobile app, automated receipt collection, and matching
  • Employee reimbursements with mileage and CAD direct payouts
  • Bill payments via EFT, ACH, and Wire
  • Instant Interac e-Transfer and one-business-day Fast Funding
  • Accounting sync with QBO, Xero, or Custom Exports

Professional level

The Professional level includes all of the above from the Essential level, plus:

  • Unlimited physical and virtual cards with advanced controls
  • Team management with multi-level requests and approvals
  • Employee reimbursements with international reports and USD direct payouts
  • Post-sale manager transaction reviews
  • Priority live chat support
  • Advanced accounting integration with NetSuite

Keep in mind that you will also be charged transaction fees at both of the above levels, starting at $1 per transaction, for bill payments and reimbursements. You can find more details on this part of the pricing in Float Financial’s article on its fee schedules.

Float Financial Pricing

Float Financial's Products and Services

Float Financial started with its Canadian-dollar corporate credit card offerings back in 2021, and has now grown to offer a suite of products, services, and platform integrations to support finance teams and expense management in general.

Float’s five key products and services that integrate within its platform are:

  • Corporate credit cards
  • Bill payments
  • Reimbursements
  • High yield account
  • Foreign exchange (FX)

These five offerings can be used in tandem with the company’s additional system features and integration options to create an all-in-one expense management solution for your business.

Corporate credit card

Float Financial’s most well-known product is their corporate credit cards, offered in both CAD and USD as either a pre-funded card or a charge card.

With Float’s Pre-funded CAD and USD cards, your card’s limit is equal to your bank account balance. Through their system, you can connect multiple business bank accounts (both CAD and USD) to fund your corporate spending. You can also set up automatic top-ups to make sure your funds are always available when you need them.

If you’d prefer, you can apply for the unsecured Float charge card, which offers up to $1,000,000 in card limits, with a 15- or 30-day credit term.

Both card types let you enjoy some helpful perks and benefits, such as:

  • 1% cashback on monthly card spend over $25k, in both CAD and USD;
  • unlimited physical and virtual cards for you and your employees;
  • the ability to avoid foreign transaction fees on your USD spend;
  • mobile app/text receipts to immediately track and validate expenses, so you don’t need to wait on expense reports later; and
  • the ability to issue single-use virtual credit cards for one-off purchases, so you don’t need to worry about getting a physical card into the right hands at the right time.

Float Financial Corporate card

Bill payments

Float Financial’s bill payment product gives you a new, more integrated way you manage your accounts payable process, including invoice intake, payment, and reconciliation.

Using their system, your invoices will be automatically tracked and filed, and you’re able to add additional automations to simplify the approvals process, payments, and more.

You can then pay your vendors directly from Float, with payments typically going through in one business day.

Float Financial Bill Payments

Reimbursements

With Float’s employee reimbursement system, you can quickly and easily pay back out-of-pocket expenses without employee’s having to enter each data point, and without having to collect a pile of paper receipts.

Employees can simply submit a photo of the receipt for the requested reimbursement, and Float’s system (with your input) will direct the request through the correct approval process. Once the expenses are approved, your finance team can review the information and send payments directly from your balance with Float to the correct employee.

Float Financial Reimbursements

High yield accounts

If you do your business banking with a traditional bank, there’s a good chance that your money is sitting in a low-yield chequing account. If you’d rather have your money do a bit more work for you, you can instead earn up to 4% on the funds you keep in your Float account (for balances between $25,000 and $1,000,000). If your balance is under $25,000, you will instead earn a 2.5% yield.

Pleasantly, these yield rates are good for CAD and USD funds, and there’s no need to lock your money in for a specific term – you’re welcome to move it around as you want, when you want.

Float Financial High yield accounts

Foreign exchange

For businesses that operate in both Canadian and US dollars, the ability to convert funds between the two currencies without spending a fortune on fees is tremendously valuable.

By using Float Financial to convert your Canadian and US dollars, you’ll enjoy FX rates below those offered by nearly every traditional bank, and there’s no need to maintain a USD account.

Not only that, but using this service, you can also pay in USD, issue USD credit cards, and send USD ACH payments and wires to vendors and to reimburse US-based employees all without having a USD account.

Float Financial FX

Bottom Line

Float Finacial’s corporate credit cards and expense management system can help you organize and streamline your finances, saving you both time and money.

If you run a business in Canada and are looking for an option beyond the traditional banks’ business credit cards, it’s worthwhile to explore Float’s products and services.

If Float’s products aren’t quite right for you, consider learning additional ways to earn rewards on your business expenses with our recommendations for best business credit cards, offering an array of different perks and benefits for business owners.

Also make sure to read our full review on Loop Financial, offering similar products and services for businesses.

FAQs

What is Float Financial?

Float Financial is a Canadian business finance platform that offers corporate credit cards and partnered software solutions to create a holistic expense management system.

They let you pay your expenses, reimburse your employees, organize your finances, and more, all while earning up to 4% on the money you hold in your account and 1% cash back on your business credit cards.

What is the Float credit card?

Float Financial offers both pre-funded corporate credit cards and charge cards to help you more easily manage your business expenses.

With either card type, you can enjoy unlimited physical and virtual cards to help you organize your expenses as you see fit.

Is Float Financial a bank?

No, Float Financial is not a bank; it is a money services business.

Its credit cards are issued by Peoples Trust Company and Threads Bank.

Come to discuss that topic in our Facebook Group!
Erin Partridge
Erin Partridge
Erin Partridge enjoys travelling slowly and taking her time to get to know each new place. 
She’s had the opportunity to live in Canada and South Korea, with shorter stints in Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain, and more.
All posts by Erin Partridge
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