Month: March 2025

The end of the month is drawing near. For small and medium-sized business owners handling month-end close of their books, that means one thing: crunch time. Lots of strong coffee and too many extra work hours.

Canadian business owners allocate 20% of their time to financial management, down from 30% in the past. Our own State of SMB report found that half of businesses are spending 10 to 40 hours a month on payments and reconciliation. These are hours that owners could be devoting to growing their businesses and staying ahead of competitors.

Closing the books accurately and efficiently is the key to maintaining accurate financial records, avoiding costly mistakes and giving owners the insights they need to make smart decisions.

These decisions matter to small business owners, who are still working to find solid ground after a challenging few years that left nearly a third of them struggling with managing cash flow and overall business spending. 

But let’s be honest: month-end closures in most businesses can feel like a full-out scramble. Whether dealing with manual reconciliations, tight deadlines or data inconsistencies, this guide will walk you through the most significant challenges and the best strategies to overcome them.

What is month-end close?

Month-end close is the process businesses use to wrap up their financials from the previous month. It’s all about ensuring you account for every transaction, correctly categorize every expense, and prepare accurate financial reports. Yep, you’re chasing receipts, random charges on cards and whatever that scrap of paper from your sales lead was supposed to mean.

For many businesses, this means reconciling accounts, reviewing bank statements and adjusting journal entries. You’ll be managing mileage reimbursements, expense reimbursements and per diem calculations when needed. It can be a tedious process, especially when done manually. You may need to coordinate with other people in the company or other teams to gather the necessary information. 

However, managing month-end close efficiently gives business owners the financial clarity they need to make informed decisions and comply with regulations.

Understanding the accounting month-end close process

Month-end close is an opportunity to wrap up numbers regularly throughout the year, but its impact goes beyond simple calculations. A structured process means fewer errors, smoother reporting and a clearer picture of your company’s financial health. 

The clarity gained from your month-end close ensures financial stability and clarity for your business. When done efficiently, it can save valuable time and allow you to make faster, more informed decisions. 

Without a solid month-end process, businesses risk inaccuracies, delays and missed opportunities to optimize their finances.

What are the steps for month-end close?

A smooth month-end closing process doesn’t happen by accident. Instead, it requires a clear, repeatable set of steps that keeps everything on track. Without structure, it’s easy to overlook key details, leading to delays, errors, and frustration for everyone involved. 

Understanding the steps in your month-end close procedures and why they matter can help you ensure accuracy. 

Here are the essential elements of a month-end close and what they entail:

1. Organize and prepare for the process

Set deadlines, assign responsibilities and gather all necessary financial data upfront.

2. Consolidate your financial data

Ensure you have complete revenue, expenses, payroll and accounts payable/receivable records.

3. Reconcile your accounts

Match transactions to statements to catch any discrepancies before they become more significant problems.

4. Adjust entries as needed

Account for items like accrued expenses, depreciation and prepaid costs to keep everything accurate.

5. Create and review financial statements

Generate your balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement to finalize the process.

6. Review for accuracy

Ensure you’ve captured all relevant information, double-check that your month-end close is clean and review statements before distributing them.

How long does month-end close typically take?

A few factors will impact how long it takes you to work through each month-end close: company size, complexity and whether you’re using manual or automated processes. Some businesses can wrap up in a few days, while others might take up to two weeks. 

💡Pro tip: Businesses using automation tools have reduced close time from days to a few hours. Sounds like magic, we know, but nope, it’s doable.

Speeding up the month-end close isn’t just about saving time. It directly impacts a business’s ability to make timely and informed decisions. A faster close means businesses can review performance sooner, identify trends earlier and make smarter choices before the next month is already halfway over.

Challenges faced during month-end close

Do your stress levels spike every time the end of the month approaches? If month-end close feels like a constant battle, you’re not alone. Many business owners struggle with data inconsistencies, tight deadlines and inefficient manual processes that make closing the books stressful and time-consuming. 

Inaccurate financial data or rushed reconciliations can lead to reporting errors that impact decision-making. Understanding these challenges is the first step in overcoming them and making month-end close smoother and more predictable—and getting a solid night’s sleep.

Let’s look at some common challenges and barriers to a streamlined month-end close:

Data accuracy and consistency

Nobody wants to scramble at the last minute to fix errors. But without a solid process, inaccuracies creep in. Manual data entry, missing transaction details and last-minute adjustments can throw everything off, leading to delays and frustration.

Time constraints

Anyone handling month end books operates under tight deadlines. Company owners need accurate financials promptly to make business decisions. Without automation, it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of reviewing, adjusting and chasing down missing information, making it hard to close the books on time.

Manual entry and reconciliation

Are you still relying on spreadsheets? That’s a recipe for long hours and potential mistakes. Manual reconciliations take up valuable time, and when details are missing, you or your bookkeeper have to track down employees for clarification. It’s inefficient and stressful.

Disconnects or lack of context 

An external bookkeeper may not have the context needed to reconcile every transaction. Guessing risks accuracy, but asking for details causes delays. Recurring expenses may take too much time, leaving fewer opportunities to find and examine more serious inconsistencies. 

Effective strategies to improve your processes

A chaotic month-end close can be frustrating and have real consequences for business operations. The good news is that you can streamline your workflows, reduce stress and improve accuracy with the right strategies. 

Let’s dial down the adrenaline a few levels. Leveraging automation and standardizing procedures allows you to spend less time on tedious tasks and more time driving financial insights that add real value to the business.

Automation

It could be time for an upgrade if you’re still doing most of your month-end close manually. Tools like Float bring corporate cards, expense management and bill payments into one system, making reconciliations automatic. With pre-set rules for transaction coding, businesses can drastically cut down on manual work, speeding up the close process.

Standardize financial procedures

A set process for tracking expenses, coding transactions and handling reconciliations makes a huge difference. A comprehensive expense policy that covers the most likely situations can also help reduce errors and murk. The more standardized your financial workflows are, the fewer surprises you’ll run into at month-end.

Schedule regular financial reviews

Catching errors early saves headaches later. Monthly reconciliations help prevent financial inconsistencies from snowballing, making your books cleaner and more accurate over time.

Close sub-ledgers periodically

Waiting until the last minute to reconcile everything? That’s a surefire way to make month-end more stressful. Instead, closing sub-ledgers throughout the month keeps everything in check and prevents a backlog of work at the end.

Collaborate and communicate

Finance isn’t an island. Expense reports, approvals and coding all depend on other teams. The better your communication with employees, the easier it is to keep things running smoothly.

Set realistic deadlines

Reverse-engineering your timeline can help you close on time. Start with your final reporting date and work backward, setting clear deadlines for each step of the process. This keeps everything on track and prevents last-minute chaos.

Month-end checklists

A well-organized checklist can shift your month-end closing process from a stressful scramble into a smooth, predictable process. A structured approach helps businesses reduce errors, maintain compliance and ensure financial clarity. 

Having a clear list of financial records to gather and key tasks to complete makes it easier to stay on track and avoid last-minute surprises. 

Here’s what you’ll need in two handy month-end checklists.

Key financial records:

✅ Revenue and sales data

✅ Accounts receivable and payable reports

✅ Expense receipts and supplier invoices

✅ Bank statements and reconciliations

✅ Payroll data

✅ Inventory totals (if applicable)

✅ Balance sheets

✅ Income and expense accounts

✅ General ledger and sub-ledger reports

Key tasks to complete:

✅ Enter all invoices and transactions into the accounting system

✅ Reconcile all bank accounts and financial records

✅ Review and adjust journal entries as needed

✅ Generate and review financial statements

✅ Close the period in the financial system

✅ Distribute reports to key stakeholders

How Float can help simplify your month-end process

The end of the month doesn’t have to be a headache. You can eliminate the complexity of closing your books by automating transaction categorization, reconciliation, and reporting. 

By integrating corporate cards, expense management, and bill payments, Float helps businesses eliminate manual tasks and speed up financial workflows.

With Float, you can:

• Automate transaction coding, which means no more manual expense categorization
• Gain real-time visibility to track spending and reconcile transactions instantly
• Save time on reconciliation and reduce close times from days to hours
• Lower bookkeeping costs by automating processes and reducing reliance on external accountants

If you want to reclaim valuable time and improve accuracy, Float is the smart choice for making month-end close easier and more efficient.

Tracking business expenses shouldn’t feel like a never-ending paper trail. Yet for many Canadian companies, managing spending still involves manual processes, scattered receipts and reactive budgeting. The result is wasted time, financial blind spots and compliance headaches that slow down growth and frustrate staff—but thankfully, modern expense management solutions are here to stay. 

By digitizing and automating how your business tracks, categorizes and reports expenses, you can save time, reduce risk and optimize budgets, all while making it simpler for your team to spend like they need to.

In this guide, we’re breaking it all down so you can learn:

• What is expense management? 
• Why modernize expense management?
• How does expense management work?
• Expense management vs. spend management
• Types of common business expenses and examples 
• The benefits of an expense management system
• How to track business expenses 
• Best expense management software

Let’s dive in. 

What is expense management? 

Expense management is the process businesses use to track, categorize, approve and report company spending. It ensures that all employee purchases and expense reimbursements are accounted for and aligned with company policies.

Traditionally, expense management involved paper receipts, spreadsheets and manual approvals, making it slow, error-prone and frustrating for both employees and finance teams. Lost receipts, delayed reimbursements and lack of real-time visibility meant businesses often struggled to keep spending under control. Many businesses still operate this way today. 

Modern expense management solutions eliminate these inefficiencies by automating the entire process. With features like real-time transaction tracking, digital receipt uploads, automated approvals and integrated reporting, businesses can gain full visibility and control over their expenses, without the administrative burden.

Get Your Free Expense Policy Template 

A clear expense policy is the foundation of good expense management. Not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered. 

This free template will help you: 

• Save time with a ready-to-use policy framework
• Customize it to fit your company’s needs
• Stay compliant with clear expense guidelines

Download your free Expense Policy Template for Notion or Google Docs and take the guesswork out of managing employee expenses. 

Why modernize expense management? 

Outdated expense management processes waste time, increase errors and limit financial visibility. According to a Float study, 66% of Canadian SMBs say their team spends too much time on manual data entry, and 50% spend 10 to 40 hours a month on payments and reconciliation. These inefficiencies add up, draining resources and slowing down growth.

Instead, here’s what modern expense management can do:

• Eliminate manual inefficiencies – Paper receipts and spreadsheets lead to delays, errors and unnecessary admin work. Automation removes these bottlenecks. 
• Improve accuracy and compliance – Automated approvals and real-time tracking ensure expenses are tracked correctly and follow company policies, reducing the risk of non-compliance.
• Enhance financial visibility – Businesses get real-time insights into spending trends, making it easier to track budgets, control costs and make informed financial decisions.
• Speed up reimbursements – Employees no longer wait weeks for expense approvals and payments, improving cash flow and reducing frustration. Faster processing also means fewer payroll headaches for finance teams.
• Reduce fraud and errors – Digital tracking flags duplicate transactions, unauthorized expenses, and out-of-policy spending before they become costly mistakes. 

How does expense management work?

Modern expense management systems streamline spending by automating the entire process—from capturing expenses to reporting and analysis.

It starts with capturing expenses. No more lost paperwork or digging through inboxes, because employees can snap a photo of a paper receipt, upload a PDF or forward a digital copy via email to a receipt inbox. Their transactions are then categorized automatically, ensuring business expenses—whether for travel, meals or office supplies—are tracked in the right place.

Once submitted, expenses go through approvals and policy enforcement, following company guidelines to prevent unauthorized spending. Employees then receive faster reimbursements, eliminating long wait times and reducing frustration.

Finally, finance teams can leverage real-time reporting and analysis to gain visibility into spending trends, optimize budgets, and identify cost-saving opportunities.

Expense management vs. spend management

Expense management and spend management serve distinct functions in your organization’s financial strategy.

Expense management focuses on tracking and processing employee expenses, such as travel, meals, office supplies and reimbursements. It ensures that individual spending follows the company expense policy and is properly recorded for accounting and compliance purposes.

Spend management takes a broader approach by overseeing all company expenditures—including vendor payments, procurement, software subscriptions and operational costs. It’s about controlling and optimizing how money flows through the business to improve cash flow, budgeting and cost efficiency.

Here’s a quick comparison:

Feature	Expense Management	Spend Management
Focus	Employee expenses: • Travel • Meals • Office supplies	All business spending: • Vendor payments • Procurement • Software • Operations
Objective	Streamline reimbursement and compliance	Optimize overall spending strategy
Scope	Individual transactions	Company-wide financial oversight
Benefits	• Faster reimbursements • Policy compliance • Accurate tracking	• Cost control • Better cash flow management • Improved vendor relationships

While expense management ensures that employee spending is efficient and compliant, spend management gives businesses a holistic view of all financial outflows, helping you control costs and plan smarter. For growing businesses, using both is key to financial stability.

Types of common business expenses and examples

Businesses spend money in a lot of different ways. Keeping those expenses organized by type makes it easier to track spending, enforce policies and stay on budget. Here are some of the most common expense categories: 

Operational expenses

OpEx are your everyday costs for running the business, like office supplies, utilities, software subscriptions and equipment maintenance. Keeping track of operational expenses helps you manage overhead effectively.

Travel and entertainment

This accounts for flights, hotels, meals and client entertainment when employees are on the road. Some businesses opt to reimburse individual receipts, while others use per diems—a daily fixed amount to cover travel-related costs.

💡Pro tip: If your business offers a per diem, make sure it aligns with per diem Canada rates set by the CRA. Following these guidelines helps ensure compliance while simplifying expense tracking for both employees and finance teams.

Employee reimbursements 

Employees often pay for work-related expenses out-of-pocket and submit claims for reimbursement. This can include mileage, meals or office supplies purchased for business purposes.

💡Pro tip: If your employees drive for work, use our free mileage calculator to maximize the benefits of the mileage reimbursement Canada offers. 

Corporate card expenses

Purchases made on company-issued corporate cards, such as team-wide software, client gifts, or office expenses. Unlike traditional credit cards, corporate cards offer built-in spend controls and automated approvals, making credit card expense management more efficient.

💡Pro tip: Using corporate cards with pre-set limits and real-time tracking helps businesses prevent unauthorized purchases and simplify credit card expense management, eliminating the need for manual reconciliation and chasing receipts.

Recurring vs. one-time expenses

Some expenses happen regularly, like subscription fees for software, memberships and service retainers, while others are one-time purchases like new office furniture or event tickets. Keeping these expenses organized helps businesses budget more effectively.

Of course, every business has unique spending needs, and these are just a few of the most common categories. A modern expense management system helps you track and organize all expenses in a way that makes sense for your business.

Benefits of an expense management system

Managing expenses manually is slow, tedious and error-prone. A modern expense management system automates the process—and that comes with its perks.

Save time

One of the biggest advantages is time savings. With a modern system in place, expenses are categorized instantly, approvals move faster, and reimbursements happen without delays. Your finance team no longer spends hours on tedious data entry, freeing them up for more strategic work and helping boost productivity.

Reduce risk

The right expense management system also reduces financial risk by providing real-time insight into company spending. With better tracking and dashboards, your business can prevent overspending, improve cash flow management and gain visibility into trends that impact profitability. Cost optimization improves, because you have the information readily available to make smarter spending decisions.

Stay audit-ready

At the same time, compliance becomes simpler, because you can enforce spending policies, catch duplicate or non-compliant expenses, and keep your business audit-ready. With automated approvals and policy controls, it’s easier to ensure every expense follows both your internal guidelines and regulatory requirements.

At its core, a modern expense management system smooths friction, makes spending simpler for everyone in the business, and boosts employee morale. 

How to track business expenses

For employees, business expense management should be simple. A good expense management system makes it easy to submit purchases, get approvals and receive reimbursements without unnecessary back-and-forth.

In short, here’s what employees need to do:

1. Capture the expense – Snap a photo of the receipt, upload a PDF or forward a digital receipt via email.
2. Confirm the details – Review automatically categorized expenses to ensure accuracy.
3. Submit for approval – Expenses that follow company policy move forward quickly, while flagged items get reviewed.
4. Get reimbursed – Once approved, you’ll get reimbursed quickly. 

With the right system in place, it’s truly that simple! 

How to choose the right business expense management software

With so many tools available, you may be wondering what’s the best app for managing business expenses?

Not all tools are created equal. The right software for expense management should make tracking and managing expenses effortless while aligning with your business needs.

Here’s what to look for when choosing a solution:

Feature	Does the solution…
Ease of use	☑️ Allow employees to submit expenses easily via receipt photos, PDFs or email?
Automation	☑️ Categorize expenses, enforce policies and streamline approvals without manual work?
Real-time tracking	☑️ Provide live updates on spending so finance teams can monitor cash flow instantly?
Accounting integration	☑️ Sync with your existing financial systems to simplify reconciliation?
	☑️ Enforce company policies, flag unauthorized expenses and keep the business audit-ready?
	☑️ Ensure employees get reimbursed quickly without delays?
	☑️ Grow with your business without becoming clunky or outdated?

The right software for expense management will check off everything on this list and make your finance team look like the rockstars they are.

Best expense management software

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for business expense management. Many software options on the market act as point solutions, meaning they handle only one part of the full expense management equation—whether it’s receipt tracking, approvals, or reimbursements—requiring businesses to connect multiple tools to cover their needs.

The best expense management software for your business depends on factors like company size, spending habits, and integration needs. Some platforms are built for small teams looking for simple receipt tracking, while others cater to larger companies in need of advanced automation and compliance controls.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the top options in Canada:

Expensify: A global business expense management software with receipt scanning (vs automatic receipt capture via text or app), automated approvals and integrations with accounting software. A viable option for businesses that need international functionality. Cost is a factor here, with per user rates as high as $36 per user per month.

SAP Concur: A more robust enterprise-level solution with travel and expense management features, ideal for larger organizations with complex reporting needs. No corporate card or rewards available.

Emburse Certify: Offers automated expense reporting and reimbursement tools with policy enforcement and mobile-friendly receipt capture.

QuickBooks Online: A small business accounting system whose mobile app offers basic expense automation like receipt snapping and email inbox forwarding.

Float: (That’s us!) We’re a Canadian-built platform offering one central solution for smart corporate cards, automated expense tracking and real-time spending controls—eliminating the need to stitch together multiple tools.

Why Canadian businesses choose Float

Float gives companies complete control over their finances, all within one platform. Unlike traditional corporate cards and expense tools that encourage spending, Float expense management is designed to help businesses spend smarter, not more.

Key features that set Float apart

Finance leaders love how much time and effort Float saves. Just ask Zach Hill, Director of Finance at Athennian:

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

Zach Hill, Director of Finance at Athennian

Here are just a few reasons why:

• Corporate cards, built for control – Issue company cards with custom limits and automatic compliance controls, so there’s no risk of overspending.
• Real-time expense management – Employees submit receipts instantly, while finance teams track spending in one easy-to-use platform.
• Automated approvals – One-click approvals streamline spend requests, keeping purchases in check without back-and-forth emails.
• Integrated accounting – Direct integrations with QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite make reconciliation seamless and cut down month-end workloads.
• Cost-saving features – Earn 1% cashback, 4% interest on deposits and avoid FX fees with USD cards.