Float App Review: An App for Managing and Forecasting Cash Flow

Do you have these burning questions in your mind:

• How do I predict cash flow gaps?
• How much do I need to breakeven?
• Will I need to dip into my savings?
• How much can I pay myself?

If you don’t have clarity about these cash flow questions, then I have a simple solution for you.

I want to introduce to you an app called Float, that does the heavy lifting for you to have clear visibility of your cash flow.

I am not affiliated with the app and if you want you can check their website and I will add the link in the description below. They offer a 14-day trial. So you can try and decide if it is useful for you.

I am sharing a bit more about the app. I start with the backstory of the app, then dive into key features, and end with some fun facts about the app, to keep the Interest Quotient high.

All with an intent to help you to succeed in business. Let’s move on.

The Backstory | Why I Am Sharing About This App

To help my tribe better, In January 2020, I set out to interview 100 female entrepreneurs to find out their pain points and their biggest challenges so that I can actively help them.

While talking to 25 such entrepreneurs across geographies and niches over the past 11 months, I found that most female entrepreneurs do not have financial know-how and financial tech skills. It’s okay. No Judgement here. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I guess that’s what makes us human.

So, if you are in this group and hate spreadsheets to keep track of what’s going on, cash flow wise, this app can be a solution for you. Keep reading as I am going to share with you what it can do for you in more detail.

Let’s Learn More About Float App Together

Float Origin Story — What Is Float?

In 2010, Colin Hewitt, a digital agency owner, was struggling to maintain an accurate and usable cash flow forecast for his agency.

At that time he was pulling raw information from his accounting software, and manually managing these in Excel. He was struggling to keep this information updated.

With an unmanageable and complicated spreadsheet, Colin knew that he needed to create a solution for his own problems and also for countless other business owners and entrepreneurs.

And he did create a solution, that became Float.

Float has since evolved from being a complicated spreadsheet to a software that helps businesses across the world make informed decisions about their cash.

Over the past decade, Float has integrated with FreeAgent, Xero, and QuickBooks Online and received multiple awards, like Xero’s Emerging Add-On, and more such awards...

How Can You Use Float?

Using Float is simple.

If you use a spreadsheet to track your cash flow instead of accounting software, then you can just copy and paste your spreadsheet in Float to create a budget/forecast.

If you use accounting software, like QBO, Xero, or Freeagent, you can integrate with Float to create a budget based on previous period data.

Once you have allocated payments in and out to the current date, Float can prepare a cash flow forecast based on when you are expecting to receive payments as well as make payments based on default due dates.

You can update the expected payment dates when you get new information, and Float will populate and revise the cash flow forecast.

This way, you can automatically track the actuals when the period ends against your cash budgets.

I’ll add the link to their demo video in the description. It is around 35 mins long and will help you understand it better.

Float App Features: What Float Can Do for You?

Float app can help entrepreneurs on several counts. Here are some of those.

Visual Aspects

If you hate spreadsheets, then you will like this software, as it is visual and instead of getting bogged down the numbers, you can see them as nice graphs. I believe — creative female entrepreneurs will find it especially useful.

Easy to Use as a Business Owner

You don’t have to be a finance person to be able to use Float.

You can very well use it as a managing director or a CEO because it has a ‘for business’ version that is designed for use for business owners more than a finance person, the software is not techy and is very simple to use. So, if you are not tech-savvy, it’s okay. You can do this. And it will help you make crucial financial decisions like measure cash runaway, and build scenarios, about whether you can afford to do something or not.

Anytime, Anywhere Access

Because Float is online software, you have the convenience of using it from anytime, anywhere.

This is very handy for a fast-moving entrepreneur who is wearing multiple hats and needs to be in different places throughout the day and just wants to have clarity and control in their cash flow.

Saves time

Float syncs with your accounting software — QBO, Xero, and Freeagent, which will pull the data and help you to create a budget, forecast fast, and save lots of time, rather than manually updating in a spreadsheet, which is also prone to errors.

Helps in Decision Making

More than anything, it helps you to make crucial decisions in your business that are based on facts, not gut feeling.

You can get real-time information which is very helpful to make informed decisions based on current data. And it helps you to have control of your cash flow by spotting cash gaps and surpluses well in advance.

This is powerful because when you have control in cash flow, then you have control in your business.

Not only this, Float App you can plan cash flow scenarios for up to 3 years into the future. You can decide who can access the software within your team, and even provide access to third parties.

Inside Float, you can also generate cash flow reports in order to see where the money is coming in and where it’s going. You can compare Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow for multiple periods.

You can also use Float for simple cash flow analysis. You can track cash flow by checking your cash on hand at the beginning of each month and viewing each day incoming and outgoing funds.

Float App Pricing

The pricing for its base package called “Essential” starts from £39/month and it goes up to £165 /month for the Enterprise package.

If you are a small business owner then the Essential package will be sufficient for your needs. The primary difference between each package is the kind of support that is offered.

Middle tier customers also get staff training. And enterprise customers get a dedicated account manager.

Float App Alternatives

Float is among the leading cash flow apps.

But there are alternatives like Fluidly, Cash Flow Tool, Pulse, and Dryrun that you can check.

I made a video about top cash flow apps, where I gave a brief overview of all these apps. You can check it out here.

Four Things You Didn’t Know About Float

1/ Soon after starting, Float received £5k from Edinburgh University and since then it has raised a total of £2.5M in funding. (Source, Crunchbase)

2/ Float founder Colin Hewitt’s first company was called IfLooksCouldKill and he ran it for close to 10 years before selling it to focus on Float full time. (Source, RookieOven)

3/ To stay in black Colin tweaked his pricing often. He said in an interview getting the pricing right for Float wasn’t always easy.

Colin said in another interview on ProfitWell that pricing can be a delicate balancing act between keeping your product accessible to smaller customers while maintaining a clear upsell path for larger customers. (Source, ProfitWell)

4/ In 2020, Float started its first office in Australia using their latest seed round.

This is Float’s first office outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. (Source, Scotsman)

So that’s what I wanted to share with you about this app. Let me know if you’d like to know more.

—

If you got value from this article then don’t forget to clap for it.

If you like videos more than words, then I published a video with the same content, you might want to check it out below.