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.