Float Card – Review of The Small Business Virtual Credit Card
Do you need a credit card for your business but are worried about managing your spending or how your business will qualify? The Float card addresses these issues by making it easy to track spending, with no personal guarantees required. I’ve broken down everything you need to know below.
What is the Float card?
The Float card is a prepaid Mastercard or Visa for businesses offered by Float Financial, a Canadian start-up. They aim to make it easier for businesses to track and manage to spend, & make it easy to qualify for credit cards.
Float’s Spend Management Software
The thing that sets this credit card ahead of its competitors is its revolutionary spend management software. Float makes it easy for businesses to automate the tracking of business spending & eliminate expense reports.
Avoid spending time chasing down receipts & coding manual transactions. Once a purchase is made, add a photo of the receipt from your phone and export the information to your accounting software.
The Prepaid Model
It works like a prepaid credit card, with your credit card limit based on your corporate bank account (up to $500,000). This means no credit checks and a personal guarantee are not required. You can qualify in just one business day, while other business credit card applications can take weeks. That’s the benefit of the prepaid model.
The downside of Prepaid Credit Cards
Relying on a prepaid model means you have to have the cash available to make a purchase, and you are not taking on debt. If you need access to credit, you may not be able to make a necessary business purchase. However, it means your business will not take on debt it cannot pay back.
How does it work?
All you need to do is apply online for a Float card. The entire online application process will only take five minutes. Afterwards, you can be approved in as little as one business day. Click here to start the application process.
After completing the application, you will receive your corporate card within five days. While you are limited on the number of physical cards on the essentials plan, you can sign up for unlimited virtual cards on any Float plan.
Float’s personalized dashboard makes it easy to track and manage business spending worldwide. You can easily set spending limits for users, add new users or even lock cards to help you manage your business expenses.
To start using the card, you will need to link your company bank account, allowing you to add funds to your account. Once that step is completed, you can start using the float card.
Float Card Pricing
Float currently offers two plans:
The Essentials plan
The Essentials plan targets small to medium businesses with fewer team members making purchases and single approval layers. The essentials plan is offered at $0/month, making it easy to get started regardless of the size of your business.
You are limited to five physical corporate cards but have access to unlimited virtual cards. The essentials plan automates receipt capture and transaction matching for you while integrating with popular accounting software like Quickbooks and Xero.
Other key features include:
1% cash back on all purchases
Single-layer workflow approval policies
Default expense policy
MFA security
The Professionals Plan
The Professionals plan targets medium to large businesses with a large team making purchases and requiring multi-level workflows. This plan starts at $99/month, and Float offers a 60-day free trial.
There are no limits on the number of physical cards or virtual cards. The professionals plan automates receipt capture and matching while integrating with more accounting software than the Essential plan.
Other key features include:
1% cash back on all purchases
Team management software
multi-level workflow approval policies
Unlimited expense policies
MFA and SAML SSO security
The Features that set the Float card apart from others
The Float card has four main features that set it apart from other business & prepaid credit cards available today. Those four features are:
Control – Great financial controls for managing your business spending
Save – Time, Money & Stress
Spend – Create, Control & Track physical and virtual cards instantly
Automate – Automate approvals, spending & month end
Control
Empower your team by giving them autonomy to spend what they need to, within spending limits you control from anywhere in the world. Quickly set spending limits by the person or create virtual cards explicitly used for one kind of purchase (like Amazon).
Get real-time insights into your business spending. Gone are the days of waiting months for employees to submit expense reports that might not even have a copy of the receipt. You can quickly review expenses as they happen and force your team to upload receipts.
using virtual cards to track spending
You can use unlimited virtual cards for specific business purposes like advertising expenses and choose to pause the card to manage your expenses effectively. Or you can increase their limits when needed.
Save
Save time by approving spend before it happens. Adding receipts to all purchases will save your accounting and finance teams time chasing employees down for receipts. Because of the automated functionality & integration with popular accounting software, simplify and saves time reconciling transactions every month.
Spend
Manage your corporate spending by using Visa and Mastercards in both CAD and USD, making it great for Canadian businesses that operate in Canada and the USA. With Float, you also:
Avoid foreign transaction fees on USD business spending
Avoid expensive conversion fees by connecting directly with your USD or CAD bank account
Make sure you have the best business bank account with your Float card.
Automate
The intuitive spend management software offered by Float simplifies receipt collection and expense reconciliation. This allows your business to automate its month-end activities and increases job satisfaction for your accounting and finance teams.
No one wants to chase people down for receipts. With Float, users are prompted to submit receipts through text, email or slack immediately after purchase. Users can automatically code expenses to GL accounts and match totals to their receipts. This integrates directly with popular accounting software like Quickbooks and Xero.
The potential downside & risks of the Float Card
Your credit card limit is limited by your bank account. The float card is not a traditional credit card; it is only a prepaid credit card. As such, your business is not extended credit, and you may be unable to afford a necessary business purchase.
Lower cash back versus other business credit cards: A rewards structure of 1% on all purchases is lower than many traditional Visa and Mastercards. Here are the best credit cards available in Canada.
Essentials plan is limited to five physical cards: If you require more than five physical cards, you must opt for the more expensive professional plan from Float.
Some businesses do not accept prepaid credit cards: If this is the only credit card used by your business, you may be out of luck with some purchases. While prepaid credit cards are usually accepted anywhere, Mastercard and Visa are accepted, this is not always the case.
Overall, this card faces many of the same problems that come with prepaid credit cards. You will need to determine if the benefits of no credit check, no personal guarantee requirement and the ability to track and manage expenses are worth it.
Float Card Conclusion
The float card is a convenient and easy credit card solution for small to medium-sized businesses. For new businesses that have no credit and do not want to issue a personal guarantee, this is a great alternative. Additionally, their spend management software gives lots of control to business owners that need to manage corporate spending.
For larger businesses with strong procedures in place, this card will have fewer benefits. At $99/month, there are other business credit cards that offer higher cashback and other credit card benefits (such as rental protection).
If you enjoyed this article, check out my other posts on Personal Finance.
About the Author
Nick Robert is the founder and creator of Nickrobert.com. I created this website to educate Canadians about everything related to personal finance. As a Chartered Professional Accountant & Chartered Accountant, I have worked with many Canadians to achieve their personal finance goals.
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