The Ultimate Guide to Business Banking for Canadian Companies

What it costs to keep cash at a traditional bank instead

The benefits of a high-yield account above are an appeal on its own. But the flip side is the cost of keeping money in a traditional bank. That cost is often invisible, lost in the interest you’re not earning while cash sits there. 

Let’s paint the picture of a typical low-fee business chequing account at a traditional bank. You'll have your modest monthly fees and unlimited ATM transactions. But you also face fees for transactions done at the branch, a cap on free Interac e-Transfers before each send costs you, and a fee on cash deposits. The account itself pays no interest, or very little. Banks typically pair their low-fee business chequing accounts with a separate high-interest savings account. Your money now lives in two different places and moving money between them is on you. 

Higher-tier plans increase the monthly fee in exchange for more transactions or e-Transfers. The monthly fee can be waived if you maintain a set balance in your account, but that fee is often tens of thousands of dollars. You’re immobilizing a large amount of capital to avoid a few hundred dollars in annual fees.

Across traditional banks, the trade-off is typically the same: everyday business accounts charge fees but pay little or no interest, while earning interest requires moving cash into a separate savings product. Compare the full cost, including transaction fees and minimum-balance requirements, not just the monthly account fee.

Corporate cards without a personal guarantee

A personal guarantee is a promise between a cardholder and the provider that if the company can’t pay the card bill, you will. It’s how a great deal of Canadian business credit gets underwritten, and it’s easy to sign without fully understanding what’s at stake.

What a personal guarantee puts at risk

Guaranteeing your company’s card ties your personal finances to company spending, making you personally liable for the balance. If the business fails, the financial obligation follows you.

For an owner-operator whose house and savings make up the family’s entire balance sheet, that’s a large amount of downside attached to buying software and plane tickets.

What the bank cards require instead

Many traditional business credit cards assess the owner's personal finances as part of the approval process. Depending on the provider, you may need to meet a minimum personal income threshold, have a Canadian credit file or qualify based on household income or personal assets. Some card agreements also make the cardholder personally liable for unpaid balances.

None of that makes these bad business credit cards. But it does mean the limit you get reflects your personal financial position, which is why a profitable company with a young owner often gets a smaller limit than its cash flow deserves.

Float underwrites the business instead. Float Charge extends unsecured credit with no personal guarantee and no collateral, which shifts the exposure onto the company’s balance sheet instead of the owner’s.

Float Charge: credit that doesn’t run through your personal finances

Float Charge provides  Canadian businesses with up to $3M+ in interest-free unsecured credit on 15-day or 30-day payment cycles. Float doesn’t ask for a personal guarantee or collateral, and doesn’t require a personal credit check. Limits start at $10,000.

Since this is a charge product, the balance has to be repaid in full at the end of each term. In exchange, businesses get interest-free credit with no annual fee or personal guarantee.

To qualify, a business must be a Canadian company, have at least $50K in cash or equivalents such as GICs or money market funds, held consistently, and have 12+ months of operating cash or be consistently profitable.

The real cost of cross-border spending

Paying US vendors from a Canadian company costs money in three different places, and which one hurts depends on how you pay.

1. If you spend in US dollars on a Canadian dollar card, you pay a conversion fee on transactions.
2. If you hold no US dollars, you convert in bulk through your bank and pay the spread.
3. If you want a US dollar account at a Canadian bank, that’s usually a separate product with its own fees.

The Float solution

Float FX converts between CAD and USD within the platform at an all-in rate of 0.25%, without requiring a separate US bank account. Converted US dollars then fund USD cards, ACH payments, wires to US vendors and reimbursements to US-based employees.

The effect shows up fastest for companies with recurring US costs. Blue J, a Toronto legal technology company, pays about $100,000 a month in US-dollar vendor invoices. It moved its US vendors to US-dollar cards, saving the team thousands of dollars a month in FX fees.

Expense management and month-end close

Close is time-consuming when key transaction data is captured too late or requires manual follow-up. The easiest time to capture the purchase context, receipt and tax information is when the purchase happens. Instead, finance often ends up weeks later trying to track down a receipt, figure out what the purchase was for, and fill in the missing details before the books can be closed.

From receipt to reconciled books

Card spend arrives with a receipt attached when the card and the software are the same system. Float’s expense management prompts the spender when a receipt is missing, matches receipts to transactions with OCR and applies rules for recurring purchases so the same vendor codes the same way every month. Transactions then sync to QuickBooks Online or Xero, and to NetSuite on the Professional and Enterprise plans, with the accounting fields already mapped.

On the Professional plan, Float’s transaction coding agent assigns GL and tax codes to spend that no rule covers. Float measured 95% precision across a beta of 350+ Canadian businesses, and 90% precision on a benchmark of 5,000 real Canadian transactions compared to 62% for a leading general-purpose LLM. When the agent isn’t confident, it routes to a human.

Wahi used to spend 15-20 days processing 200+ expense transactions across realtors and staff at month-end close. With Float, they do the same work in less than 5 days, with 95% of receipts arriving on time with the right GL codes.

Bill payment automation

Bill pay is one of those finance jobs that can turn into a lot of small, repetitive tasks: collecting invoices, entering the details, chasing approvals, sending payments and then making sure everything makes it into the books.

Float’s Bill Pay brings that process together in one place. Forward invoices to Float, upload them in bulk or sync bills from QuickBooks Online or Xero, and AI-powered OCR pulls out the key details so your team doesn’t have to enter them by hand.

From there, you can set up approval workflows and thresholds so the right people sign off before money goes out. Payments can be made by EFT, ACH or global wire, with $0-fee EFT and ACH, and you can see payment status in real time instead of digging through emails to figure out what’s been paid.

Once the bills are paid, Float syncs bills and payments with your accounting system, helping keep the books up to date and making month end close easier.

Invoices are also logged in English and French, so a bill from a Quebec supplier doesn’t have to be re-keyed by hand. 

Canadian rules that affect your choice

For Canadian businesses, it's especially important to look critically at business banking options. Beyond fees and features, you need to understand how providers handle Canadian tax requirements, protect your funds and support your business's day-to-day operations.

GST, HST, PST and QST: why one receipt carries two tax lines

Canadian businesses may need to account for different sales taxes depending on the transaction and applicable provincial requirements. For example, purchases in Ontario have a 13% HST, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island are 15% HST, and Nova Scotia is now 14%.

Look at a single receipt from Vancouver that carries two separate tax components: GST and PST.  They have to be recorded separately, because the GST, unlike PST,  is generally recoverable as an input tax credit. GST is calculated on the price before PST is applied. Because of this, the Canada Revenue Agency requires specific information to appear on invoices.

This is what multi-part tax codes are for. Float supports GST, HST, PST and QST as multi-part codes, extracts the tax from the receipt image and lets your finance team override the amount for exceptions that require a change.

What FINTRAC and payment-services registration mean

FINTRAC registration covers a provider’s obligations around anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist-financing rules. Registration with the Bank of Canada under the Retail Payment Activities Act brings payment service providers under federal oversight, including requirements for operational risk management and safeguarding customer funds.

Those registrations are worth checking on any provider you consider, because they establish who supervises the company and what it is allowed to do with your money. They are not deposit insurance, which is a separate mechanism.

Float is a business finance platform helping Canadian businesses save time and manage money more efficiently. Float is registered with the Bank of Canada as a payment service provider under the Retail Payment Activities Act, is a member of Payments Canada and is SOC 2 Type 2 certified.

How CDIC coverage works when your provider is not a bank

CDIC can insure deposits held in trust separately from other deposits, up to $100,000 per beneficiary. The trustee needs to provide the required beneficiary information to the financial institution for the protection to apply. If no beneficiary information is on record, CDIC coverage is limited to up to $100,000 in the trustee’s name in total. Coverage is free and automatic and applies per deposit insurance category.

This is a different mechanism from the direct membership a chartered bank holds. In practice, your protection depends on which member institution holds the funds and on the disclosure being accurate. If you hold well above $100,000, no single institution insures all of it: CDIC covers $100,000 per category at each member institution, so to go further, you need to spread the balance.

French-language support

Operating in Quebec means serving customers, employees and suppliers in French, so your business banking provider should be able to support your team in both official languages. French-language support can make it easier to resolve payment issues, manage invoices and keep month-end close on track without language becoming a barrier.

Float provides customer support in English and French on every plan, including the free plan. Its platform can also process invoices in both languages, helping Canadian businesses manage their finances across English- and French-speaking teams and suppliers.

Match your situation to one Canadian business bank account

There isn’t one right account for every business. Start with the situations that apply to you, then use those priorities to narrow down which accounts are worth a closer look.

• You are holding six figures of operating cash. The gap between a chequing account at 0% and one at 2.5% is worth more than any rewards rate in the table. Compare the current rate. Look at Float, and read the CDIC section carefully if the balance is large.
• You are adding staff who need cards. Compare the cost of issuing additional cards before the rewards. Free cards beat a charge-per-employee or charge-per-new-card model.
• You buy in US dollars. Look for a card with no foreign transaction fee if most of your spending happens on the card. If you need to hold US dollars and pay vendors or staff from that balance, look for an account that supports USD balances and payments.
• Your spending is travel-led. This is where travel rewards cards can justify their fees. Compare the value of points and insurance with the annual fee, earning limits, and any interest-free-period terms
• You want a limit that does not depend on your own credit. Look for a business charge product that underwrites the company rather than relying on a personal credit check or guarantee, and check its requirements for cash, revenue, profitability, or operating history.
• You need to carry a balance occasionally. Look for a business line of credit or card with a revolving balance, rather than a charge product that requires the full balance to be paid on each statement.
• You operate in Quebec. Check French support and QST handling on any shortlist before you check the rewards rate.

Finding the right fit for your business

Choosing a business banking setup takes more than comparing monthly fees or rewards rates. The right fit depends on how you use your account, how much cash you keep on hand, whether you need to pay in multiple currencies, and how much flexibility you need from your cards and credit.

If your cash is sitting somewhere that pays nothing, your card program is priced per employee, or your limit currently depends on your own credit file, Float is worth a look. Get started with Essentials for free, or book a demo to find out more.

Frequently asked questions

Is it safe to keep company money somewhere that is not a bank?

It depends on the structure, and you should ask. Look for whether funds are held in trust in segregated accounts at a CDIC member institution, whether the provider is registered with FINTRAC and the Bank of Canada under the Retail Payment Activities Act, and how much of your balance is actually covered by CDIC. Coverage of deposits held in trust is limited to $100,000 per beneficiary at each CDIC member institution holding the funds and depends on the trustee's compliance with CDIC's disclosure rules. Ask which institution holds your balance, and whether one or several do.

Can I get a business card in Canada without a personal guarantee?

Yes, though not from most banks. Float Charge extends unsecured credit with no personal guarantee and no credit check, underwriting the company’s cash position instead. The trade is that you’ve got to qualify on that cash position and clear the balance each term.

Do I need a US bank account to pay US vendors?

No. You can hold US dollars and pay by USD ACH or wire from a Canadian platform, or use a card that charges no foreign transaction fee. Both approaches avoid opening a separate US account, and they solve slightly different problems.

What does a business account cost at a Canadian bank?

Basic business chequing accounts typically cost $5 to $10 per month, though some have higher fees or transaction limits. More full-featured accounts can range from roughly $20 to $125 per month, with some banks waiving the fee if you maintain a minimum daily balance. Pay attention to how many transactions are included and what each additional transaction costs, since a low monthly fee can add up quickly if your business has a lot of activity.

Can I run my finances in French with Float?

Yes. Float’s support operates in English and French on every plan, and bill pay reads invoices in both languages. Confirm this on any provider you shortlist, because it isn’t a given on platforms built outside Canada.