Marketing Expense Policy: How Float Helps Marketing Teams Spend Smarter

In today’s fast-paced business world, marketing teams need to be agile and responsive. However, managing marketing expenses can often slow things down. A well-crafted marketing expense policy is crucial for balancing financial control with the flexibility marketers need. Let’s explore how Float, a leading expense management solution, can help Canadian marketing teams optimize their spending while adhering to company policies.

The Importance of a Marketing Expense Policy

A marketing expense policy is a set of guidelines that outline how marketing teams can spend company funds. It typically covers:

  • Approved categories of marketing expenses
  • Spending limits for different activities
  • Approval processes for various expense types
  • Documentation requirements for reimbursement

Having a clear marketing expense policy helps:

  1. Control costs
  2. Ensure compliance with company and legal standards
  3. Streamline the approval process
  4. Provide transparency in marketing spending

Common Challenges in Marketing Expense Management

Marketing teams often face unique expense management challenges:

  • Frequent small purchases for digital ads
  • Varied expenses for events and campaigns
  • Need for quick approvals on time-sensitive opportunities
  • Difficulty tracking ROI on marketing spend

How Float Revolutionizes Marketing Expense Policies

Float’s innovative expense management platform addresses these challenges head-on, helping marketing teams implement and adhere to their expense policies more effectively.

1. Easily request cards for marketing spend  🙌🏻

Your marketing team needs to be able to make strategic decisions fast, without any bottlenecks. Our Expense Policy features enable Finance Admins to give marketing team leaders the authority to set spending limits on cards and quickly approve spend requests from their staff.


You can log into Float at any time and easily request a single use virtual card for purchases like swag orders, props for shoots or photography equipment. For advertising and software subscriptions, you can request a recurring virtual card. Virtual cards are issued instantly and accepted everywhere VISA and Mastercard are – all you have to do is simply copy and paste the card details into the vendor’s billing details page.

2. Instantly create a virtual card by vendor 💳

Create a virtual card by vendor to easily categorize the types of recurring online spend your marketing team is making. A virtual card for every vendor gives you the option to create daily, weekly or even monthly recurring cards with assigned budgets. For example, if you know that your Facebook ad spend is $40K/month, you can create a recurring monthly card with that limit.

A virtual card by vendor allows you to:

💵 Set monthly budgets for specific marketing activities
👀 Easily track and control spending over the month
☑️ Set limits to every card to ensure spend isn’t exceeded
✋🏽 Ensure vendors don’t overcharge the card without your authorization
💳 Avoid disrupting other subscriptions or payments when you pause or cancel a card

3. Use physical cards for real world expenses 💳

The finance team can issue a physical card to each marketing team member who has on-the-go expenses for travel, conferences, or client meetings. Float offers unlimited physical cards to Professional plan members, and with the ability to set card limits and apply automated expense policies, there’s no reason to hold out.

Cardholders are automatically reminded to easily send Float receipts and assign pre-defined GL codes as soon as the purchase is made, eliminating month end expense reports and reconciliations.

4. Track spending in real time without any guesswork ✅

Managing corporate spending closely is on everyone’s minds right now. If your finance team doesn’t have a smart solution in place, it’s likely taking over their 9-5. 🤯 Using Float, marketing leaders can log into the platform at any time and monitor their team’s spending in real time. Expenses like Google ads, travel costs and even miscellaneous expenses like morning coffee and lunch are all visible and categorized by vendors too! Gone are the days of asking for budget updates over Slack and tracking spend through a spreadsheet. Float makes everything available for you right on the dashboard. No guesswork, no errors and no stress! 👍🏼

Managers can also assign auto-tags to clearly define each employee’s role and spending authority. As for the finance team, Float grants them full visibility over what every department is spending, what they’re purchasing and whether their budgets need to be increased.

5. Collect and manage receipts in a flash – literally. 📸

With so many transactions being made, marketing teams typically generate a ton of receipts. Float makes it easy to stay on top of those receipts through our SMS receipt upload and email receipt feature. Spenders can simply snap a picture of their receipt and upload it into the platform immediately after a transaction! And if they don’t, managers have the option to send out automated reminders until a receipt is submitted. No more chasing employees down! 🏃🏻‍♂️ Float also provides the option to tag expenses by vendor or category and add additional notes to every receipt submission so that managers know exactly what the purchase was for. 

Float is Canada’s only all-in-one corporate cards, reimbursements, and bill pay platform that helps customers:

  • Earn cashback on all categories and save on FX
  • Generate 4% interest on funds held with Float
  • Eliminate expense reports and receipt chasing
  • Close the books 5x faster at the month-end

Want to learn how companies like Clutch, Neo, Knix, and 1,000s of other Canadian businesses on average save 7% of their monthly spend with Float? Get started with Float today by clicking the button below!

Want to learn more before singing up? Book a demo today to learn more about the product from our team!

Float’s New Smart Corporate Cards Are Here!

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

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

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

💆🏼‍♀️  Monthly employee benefits

🍩  Snacks for the office 

☕️  Monday morning coffee runs 

🤩  And so much more!

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

Corporate credit cards on another level ⚡️

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

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

Physical vs. virtual smart corporate cards 💳

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

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

Smart corporate cards are for everyone 🤝

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

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

Use your Float card anytime, anywhere 🌍 

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

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

New Survey Reveals Pain Points in Spend Management

Today we released new data that shows companies are struggling with managing corporate spend, particularly with the shift to a remote or hybrid workforce. The survey, conducted among business decision makers on the Angus Reid Forum, reveals the negative impacts of inefficient spend management on company security, workforce productivity and employee happiness — which are of increasing concern as businesses navigate the uncertain economic climate.

Key survey highlights include:

  • 61 per cent of businesses who have most or all employees working remotely express that expense reporting is one of the most tedious jobs in their organization
  • More than half (51%) at these companies agree that time spent reporting expenses negatively impacts their ability to accomplish work
  • 49 per cent of businesses where most or all employees work remotely share company credit card across multiple employees, and among this group, 63 per cent share card details over Slack or email, more than three times the proportion of businesses with only some employees working remotely (18%)
  • Seven-in-ten (71%) businesses report that their employees incur company expenses on personal credit cards, increasing to 80 per cent for businesses with remote employees

Shift to remote work has created new pain points for employees and HR leaders

The pandemic was an unexpected push to remote work that created operational challenges as businesses moved quickly to adapt. Even in a post-COVID world, the strain on employees and HR leaders lingers as companies settle permanently into hybrid and flexible working arrangements. Four-in-five (80%) businesses with remote employees have staff who incur company expenses on their personal credit cards, and 45 per cent report that employees are incurring more company expenses personally for reimbursement since shifting to remote work. With inflation and the cost of living rising, this is a significant financial burden for many Canadians. 

For HR leaders, maintaining existing benefits such as team building activities and socials, as well as managing new employee benefits brought on by remote work arrangements, has resulted in difficulties with expense tracking. Over half (54%) of businesses working primarily remotely report an increase in funds or stipends distributed to employees, and half (51%) of businesses who had most or all of their employees shift to remote work said that it has made receipt tracking more complicated. On both ends, more than half (53%) at these companies agree that expense reporting is a major pain point for employees, and 51 per cent agree that time spent reporting expenses negatively impacts their ability to accomplish work. As remote or hybrid work becomes the norm, these challenges will only become more prevalent unless businesses adapt new processes and technology to streamline spend management.

Concerns for corporate spend management in a tough economic climate

As recession fears grow in Canada, business leaders are increasingly focused on maximizing productivity and finding cost-saving opportunities. The survey found an operational bottleneck amongst many Canadian businesses to be their manual expense tracking, which directly impacts productivity. 82 per cent of businesses spend at least a day to close their books at month-end, and among businesses whose workforce shifted to remote work during the pandemic, two-in-five spend at least four days on the task. This is significant as almost three-in-four (74%) businesses agree that they could spend less time closing their books at month’s end.

The ripple effect of heavy manual expense tracking is that it leaves businesses unable to scale up without increasing overhead. Currently, the most time-consuming expense reporting tasks for companies that have shifted to remote work are: ensuring expenses are accurate (64%), fixing human errors (56%), tracking down employees for receipts (56%) and manually reconciling and entering data (55%). These are pain points that will become larger as a company grows, limiting Canadian businesses’ ability to shift as needed during a volatile economic period.

Additional findings include:

  • Almost half (48%) of businesses with most or all employees shifting to remote work are seeing increased paperwork from expense reporting
  • 30 per cent of businesses who have most or all of their employees working remotely use 6 or more different finance software and tools for accounting-related work 
  • More than two-in-five (44%) businesses with primarily remote employees plan to purchase new software for finance and accounting-related work in the coming year

Methodology: These are the findings of a survey conducted by Float from May 26-30, 2022 among a nationally representative sample of 427 Canadian finance decision makers at companies with 15-300 employees. All respondents were members of the online Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would yield a margin or error of +/- 4.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The survey was offered in both English and French.

Five Easy Ways to Achieve Business Savings with a Corporate Card

In today’s competitive business landscape, finding ways to cut costs without sacrificing quality is crucial. One often overlooked tool for business savings is a corporate card solution. Let’s explore five easy ways your company can leverage this financial tool to boost your bottom line.

1. Streamline Expense Management for Significant Business Savings

Traditional expense management can be a drain on resources. A corporate card solution automates this process, leading to substantial business savings:

  • Reduce time spent on manual expense reports
  • Minimize errors in expense tracking
  • Lower administrative costs associated with reimbursements

By streamlining expense management, businesses can save up to 55% on processing costs per expense report, according to a study by PayStream Advisors.

2. Capitalize on Cashback and Rewards Programs

Many corporate card solutions offer cashback or rewards programs, providing an easy way to generate business savings:

  • Earn cashback on everyday business expenses
  • Accumulate travel points for business trips
  • Redeem rewards for office supplies or equipment

For example, if your business spends $10,000 monthly on a card offering 1.5% cashback, you could save $1,800 annually – a significant boost to your business savings.

3. Leverage Spending Controls for Better Budgeting

Corporate cards allow you to set spending limits and restrictions, helping to enforce your budget and increase business savings:

  • Set monthly spending caps for different departments
  • Restrict purchases to specific merchant categories
  • Prevent unauthorized expenses

These controls can lead to a 10-15% reduction in overall company spend, according to a report by the Aberdeen Group.

4. Gain Visibility for Strategic Business Savings

Corporate card solutions provide real-time spending data, allowing for more informed financial decisions:

  • Identify areas of overspending quickly
  • Negotiate better rates with frequently used vendors
  • Adjust budgets based on actual spending patterns

This increased visibility can help businesses save up to 23% on travel and entertainment expenses alone, as reported by American Express.

5. Eliminate Foreign Transaction Fees for International Business Savings

For companies doing business globally, a corporate card solution can offer significant savings on international transactions:

  • Avoid foreign transaction fees, which can be up to 3% per transaction
  • Get better exchange rates compared to local currency conversions
  • Simplify reconciliation of international expenses

These savings can add up quickly for businesses with frequent international transactions, contributing to overall business savings.

Maximizing Your Business Savings with the Right Corporate Card Solution

To fully realize these business savings, consider the following when choosing a corporate card solution:

  1. Look for High Rewards Rates: Choose a card that offers competitive cashback or points on your most common expenses.
  2. Evaluate Fee Structures: Opt for cards with low or no annual fees to maximize your business savings.
  3. Consider Integration Capabilities: Select a solution that integrates with your existing accounting software for seamless expense management.
  4. Assess Spending Control Features: Ensure the card offers robust controls to help enforce your expense policies.
  5. Check International Benefits: If you do business abroad, prioritize cards with favorable international transaction terms.

Here are five ways Float can help your business save money

1️⃣ No surprise fees 

When you spend with Float, you won’t have any surprises – there are no foreign transaction fees, and no hidden monthly fees. Additionally, you can issue unlimited virtual cards as needed… without additional charges. What does this mean? The only charges you’ll see each month are the expenses incurred by your business – no additional fees, and no surprises.

2️⃣ 1% Cashback & 4% Interest on Deposits

It’s true! For each purchase you make with your Float physical and virtual corporate cards, you’ll get one percent cash back. Depending on your team’s monthly spend, this adds up to significant savings. Some Float customers regularly receive tens of thousands of dollars in cash back – with no strings attached – deposited into your Float account monthly. 

3️⃣ Spend controls that are easy to implement

While Float allows you to issue unlimited physical and virtual corporate cards, you’re able to limit the spend on each individual card – providing you a level of proactive control over your organization’s spend that traditional corporate cards don’t offer.

4️⃣ Track real-time spend by vendor 

Tracking vendor spending is a tedious process of waiting for invoices, processing payments, and logging the transactions. It’s asynchronous, and doesn’t offer a real-time view into what your suppliers are spending. 

Since you control the spend limit on each card, you can set up your vendors with a virtual corporate card with a spend limit in line with their typical monthly spend. This also allows you to track their spending, and increase or decrease their spend limits in real time as needed. This not only ensures that vendor payments are happening on time and on budget – meaning you won’t be overcharged – saving you time and money.

5️⃣ Set approval structures

Still need peace of mind? Float customers are able to set up multiple expense approval processes to ensure that even if a vendor or employee needs a credit top-up, spend is still monitored, and can be approved on the fly… even via Slack.

💰 Bonus! Earn up to $150k in special offers from Float partners

Becoming a Float customer is simple. Applications take just five minutes online, and you can be approved in a few days. Compared to a traditional approval timeline of four to six weeks for traditional credit cards, it’s not just a financial savings – it’s a time savings. Plus, Float’s perks program provides some pretty sweet bonuses… adding up to $150k in additional savings for your company. 

Here are just a few:

  • Intercom offers a FREE first year, a 50% discount in your second year, and an ongoing 20% discount as long – a value of $61k USD
  • Amazon Web Services provides $25k USD in AWS Activate Credits along with a year of AWS Business Support – a value of $5k USD
  • Hubspot is offering 30% off a subscription for the first year, and 15% each subsequent year – a savings of up to $35k USD

With this many opportunities to save, what’s stopping you from booking a demo?

Conclusion: Boost Your Business Savings with Smart Corporate Card Use

Implementing a corporate card solution can be a game-changer for your business savings strategy. By streamlining processes, capitalizing on rewards, enforcing budgets, gaining spending insights, and reducing international fees, you can significantly cut costs and improve your financial health.

Remember, the key to maximizing business savings with a corporate card is choosing the right solution for your specific needs and using it strategically. With the right approach, your corporate card can become a powerful tool in your arsenal for financial optimization and business growth.

Float is Canada’s only all-in-one corporate cards, reimbursements, and bill pay platform that helps customers:

  • Earn cashback on all categories and save on FX
  • Generate 4% interest on funds held with Float
  • Eliminate expense reports and receipt chasing
  • Close the books 5x faster at the month-end

Want to learn how companies like Clutch, Neo, Knix, and 1,000s of other Canadian businesses on average save 7% of their monthly spend with Float? Get started with Float today by clicking the button below!

Want to learn more before singing up? Book a demo today to learn more about the product from our team!

A Guide to Setting Up Teams and Multi-level Approvals

Ready to scale your business and ditch the growing pains? Axe your overly complex approval processes and make company spending easier with Float’s Team Management feature.

We saw the need for an efficient feature that helped startups and SMEs decentralize the expense management process, distribute responsibility across teams and give employees greater autonomy to spend. At the same time, we also know how critical it is for finance teams to maintain oversight or control over corporate spending. So, we created Team Management to tackle it all! 👊🏼

Team Management — a feature available through our Professional Plan — enables users to set up “teams” within the platform that are structured to align with their approval policies. It helps you formalize your spend approval structure and fully automates the approval process by team, spend type and amount. You can easily set up teams in Float based on departments such as Marketing, Sales and IT, or by geographic location. For instance, this is helpful if you have a Toronto-based office and a Vancouver-based office, or multiple office addresses in one city.

How to set up teams within Float 👩🏽‍💻
1. Start by determining how you want to track and approve expenses based on your approval policies. For example, if every department manager is responsible for approving employee expenses, create your teams based on department.
2. Identify who in your organization will be assigned as a “Manager” in Float. Add them as a user and assign them the “Manager” role.
3. Continue to add other team members as “Spenders.”
4. Create a team whose expenses are routed directly to the assigned “Manager.”

Create a Team in Float

Each team can have a number of managers or members attached to it. Managers also have full visibility into the spending of the team and can participate in the approval process too. On the other hand, spenders only see their own transactions but always follow the approval process that is assigned to their team.

Add users to Float

Creating your own multi-level approval structure 💸
Once your team is added into Float, you can create a designated approval policy that’s specific to a team or your company as a whole.

Create your approval policy

Using our platform, you can set up approval policies to mimic your company’s existing expense policies and set automated approval flows by spend amount or spend type. You can also create multiple levels of approval for higher spend amounts, one-time purchase or recurring expenses. For example, you can permit a Marketing Manager to approve all expenses under $2,000 and for anything over that amount, you can create a second level of approval that goes through the Finance department. ✅

This feature gives managers more visibility over team spending with the power to set predefined budgets, distribute corporate cards and approve spend requests in seconds! Employees can also log into Float and easily submit spend requests from managers, who can be notified via Slack, email or text. Once approved, virtual cards can be instantly set up and employees can request top-ups if needed. 💳

It’s a win-win for everyone 🤩
Float allows for faster, smarter and more efficient spending all around! 🙏🏽 The ability to set up teams and multi-level approvals provides long-term value for the entire company:

Greater accuracy and control 👍🏼
Managers have a better view of where money is going, how it’s being spent and who is spending it, while the finance team still has control over corporate spending.

Adds speed and efficiency 🚀
A seamless spend approval process means easier and quicker expense management and happier employees who can make transactions in a flash.

Promotes a decentralized structure 💳
Managers gain greater authority to track and oversee team spending, while employees have the flexibility to make business purchases on demand without a lengthy chain of approvals.

Ready to give Float a try? Get started with us today!

How It Works: Float’s QBO Integration

Is month-end craziness bogging you down? Float offers a powerful two-way integration with QBO to make spend management a breeze!

Our QBO integration feature packs a punch, offering a range of benefits to make managing your finances easy as 🥧. You can look forward to 

✍🏽Improved transaction categorization 

✅ Better receipt management 

⏱ Time saved with less manual data entry

We designed this feature to sync seamlessly into your daily workflow. Our goal was to optimize the month-end process for your finance team so they could finally say goodbye to low-value tasks and guesswork. Our QBO integration feature makes it so that you no longer have to re-add and retype data with the reassurance of greater accuracy in your books – not just at month-end but on a daily basis! 🚀 

With Float’s QBO integration, you manage all card-linked transactions in Float, and then directly export into Quickbooks, with transactions automatically coded and reconciled for you. Once you try it, you’ll wonder how you lived without it!

See it for yourself in this quick product tour.

Currently using Quickbooks to manage your corporate finances? Here’s how Float levels up  your experience and your books:

3 ways to automate spend management using our QBO feature 🙌🏻

👩🏽‍💻  Auto-apply category transaction settings and pre-code cards by GL, Vendor, Tax or Tag

✅  Set up merchant-based rules to enable auto-categorization by merchant or vendor 

💳  Bulk update hundreds of transactions for purchases that have similar accounting settings

QBO manages your receipts better – with tax included 🧾

Float allows every employee to submit receipts via email, text or direct upload into the platform. Once a receipt enters the system, Float uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to pull the tax and tip off a receipt for easy and simple tracking. We know that some Canadian provinces have unique tax rules, and so we created this feature to accommodate multi-part tax codes and auto-recognize them every time a receipt is exported. 👍🏼

We know that so many SMEs and startups are using Quickbooks. That’s why our main goal is to easily integrate into every part of your work day so that managing your finances is a responsibility that’s easy, shared and simple to track. 

To learn more about Float’s QBO integration feature, book a demo with us today!