Float FAQs

Float is able to suggest budgets, based on the historical data that has been synced. These suggestions can also be updated or changed at any point.

To get started, click into the cell where you would like the budget to be added, and select 'Create budget'. Next to the 'Budget value is' field, you will find a 'Suggest budget' option and this will display the various suggested budgets that are available. The budget suggestions are currently:

Last month's actual

Last 3 month's average

Last 6 month's average (if available)

Along with a list of the actuals, the suggestion is based on. Simply choose the suggestion you would like and this will be set as the budget value.

Budgets in Float are like placeholders for cash that might come into or leave the business, allowing you to build up a picture of how the future might look.

Your forecast is built with the budgets that you enter and each day Float updates itself and pulls in the latest transactions from your accounting software, which slowly fill up your budgets. Once an actual becomes larger than the budget, Float will use the actual amount instead. At the end of the current month, all actuals will be used instead of budgets, ensuring your forecast is as accurate as possible.

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One of the best parts about Float is how visual it is. You're able to see your cashflow at a glance rather than having to interpret numerical data all the time. There's a feature in Float that does this really well but is often overlooked:budget bars.

All you have to do to see them is click on the header of a month and they'll appear.

Click on last month to see how you performed against your budgets, click on this month to see how your cash is moving as the month goes on.

Budget bars show you how your actuals are performing against your budgets. A darker colour indicates a budget that's been surpassed while a paler shade indicates under budget. It's an easy way to check on all your categories and make sure the cash is moving the way you expected it to and if not, have time to fix it.

Writing notes in cells helps communicate information to your team and serves as a reminder as to what changes were made and why.

It's an easy way to indicate how you're breaking down a budget, explain why an invoice is being paid on an alternative date, or give a reason why you set a budget for a certain amount, etc..

To create a note, just click into any cell and click theNotessection (in the top right of the budget popover)

Then you'll see an area to write anything you'd like to make note of:

Cells with notes on them will also have a small triangle on the top right corner so you don't have to click into the modal to tell if a note exists:

When you scroll over the triangle, the note will appear:

To remove a note simply delete the text from the 'Notes' section and hit save.

You can use Float's Spreadsheet Input tool to easily copy and paste your forecast from elsewhere into Float. You can also use this to copy budgets from one scenario to another. While you can't upload directly from a spreadsheet, you can certainly copy your budgets right in.

You can also use Spreadsheet Input to move easily between cells and enter your budgets more quickly. And you can click and drag a cell to the right to copy it forward.

Spreadsheet Input is currently available in the 'Base' scenario but not on scenario layers

While the main cash flow table within Float is on a monthly basis, it is possible to enter budgets on a weekly basis.

To get started, click into the account where the budget should be added followed by selecting Create budget from the modal that is displayed.

In the budget occurs field you will be able to choose every week as an option, meaning that whatever budget value you enter will be shown occurring each week in the cash flow. If you want the budget to start from a certain week in the month, use the start date field to specify this.

Once you save the weekly budget, you will see something similar to the below.

Here you can see the weekly budgets impacting the cash flow, with the same weekly amount each week.

But what if you wanted to enter a budget where some weeks differed?

Using the budget weve just created as an example, click into any of the weekly budget entries that show in the modal and you will see the below screen.

Here you see every instance of the weekly budget that exists in the cash flow along with the associated dates and amount. Both the date field and amount field can be edited from here, so if the amount each week were not consistent you can change that by clicking into the amount field and adjusting, similar to below.

As you can see, the weekly amounts then change in the cash flow so you can edit these as much or as little as needed.

When setting a budget to occur every 2 weeks, one of the most important things is to ensure this is impacting the cash flow on the right 2 weeks within the month.

To begin within, click into the account the budget should be added to followed by Create budget.

In budget occurs, select Every 2 weeks and using the start date set the date when the first budget for the series should occur. When you save this budget, the first budget will appear on the start date and then each subsequent budget will appear 2 weeks after that.

Depending on how the budgets fall across months, you may notice that a budget occurs too early or late within the month. To correct this, click back into the cell where the budget exists and click into the budget.

As shown above, when clicking into a budget you will then see each occurrence of the budget from the cash flow and from here you can easily update the dates when the budget occurs. So you will always be able to have the budget impacting on the day you want within the cash flow. You can also edit the amounts of the budgets from the budget edit screen.

Once a budget has been created, this is not set in stone and can be easily edited. To get started, click into the account the budget exists in followed by clicking into the budget itself to show the following screen.

From here there are a number of options for editing individual budgets.

The date field can be changed, either within the same month or to a totally different month

The amount can be adjusted

The eye symbol, allows you to exclude that budget occurrence from the cash flow, or re-include it if it has previously been excluded.

The cross symbol allows you to delete that single budget occurrence

The plus symbol, below the budget tile, allows you to quickly add in a new budget for that monthIf you would like to edit multiple budgets using a batch action, find out how here.

Similar to the individual edit actions, the actions for editing multiple budgets at once are accessed by clicking into the budget cell and clicking into the budget to be edited.

These actions allow editing of all budget occurrences in a single action.

Ignore all budget payments, will exclude all the budget occurrences from the cash flow. These will remain in Float but not impact the cash flow

Include all budget payments, will reverse the ignoring and add the budgets back into the cash flow

Delete all budget payments, will remove every occurrence of the budget from the cash flow

Update budget payments will show the following screen

This is where you can edit the basic details of the budget, the frequency and the budget value. The start/end dates in this instance, set the date range for the changes to be applied. The example below shows changing the amount of the budget for all budget occurrences.

For editing the date of the budgets, the date range will control this. For example, if there were a monthly budget to occur on the 15th of each month and it was to be changed to the 26th. Setting the date range to start on the 26th of the first budget month would make the budgets within the date range move to the 26th of each month. The only other thing to do would be to delete any budgets outside of the range, e.g. the budget on the 15th in the first month.

The name of the budget can also be changed from the edit budget screen.

If a payment is going to be delayed, and the budget has to be moved to another month this can easily be achieved.

Firstly, click into the account where the budget exists and click into the budget. On the budget edit screen simply click the date of the budget needing changed and adjust to the relevant date. This will shift the budget there and then to the new date, and if moving months it will show in the new month.

Not all budgets are a single occurrence or ongoing, some will only be needed for 3, 6 months etc.

When creating a budget, using the start/end dates will allow a budget to be applied to a specific period of time easily. Within Float, there are some preset time periods, but the start/end dates can be set to whatever is required.

The below example shows setting a monthly budget for a period of 6 months.

Ignoring a budget will remove the budgets impact from the cash flow. When removing a budget, this can be done on a budget occurrence level or budget as a whole level.

To ignore a single budget occurrence, first click into the cell where the budget exists and then click into the budget itself.

From here, click the eye symbol against the relevant budget and this will ignore the budget from the cash flow. Be sure to save this change so it takes effect. Clicking the eye symbol again will include the budget back into the cash flow.

If the budget is to be fully removed, rather than just excluded, select the red x symbol and this will delete that occurrence of the budget.

If the full budget is to be ignored or deleted, this can be access from the options within the 'Batch update'.

Budgets in Float are like placeholders for cash that might come into or leave the business, allowing you to build up a picture of how the future might look.

Your forecast is built with the budgets that you enter and each day Float updates itself and pulls in the latest transactions from your accounting software, which slowly fill up your budgets. Once an actual becomes larger than the budget, Float will use the actual amount instead. At the end of the current month, all actuals will be used instead of budgets, ensuring your forecast is as accurate as possible.

The following steps show how to create a budget within Float.

First, click into a cash flow cell for the account you would like to budget against, selecting the Create budget option from the modal that displays.

Clicking Create budget will bring up the options for setting the budget. Here you will set:

A budget name

The frequency with which the budget occurs

Budget start and end date

Budget amount

In the budget occurs field there are the following options:Once

Every week

Every 2 weeks

Every month

Every quarter

Every year

If choosing Once the budget will occur one time in the cash flow, on the date specified. However, each of the other options will repeat on the chosen frequency between the start and end date.

The start and end date will allow you to customise when the budget impacts the cash flow, for example, if a budget were to only run for 6 months this can be achieved through setting the start and end date.

The amount entered should be the amount to be shown as each budget, e.g. entering a weekly budget of 200 for every week will result in 200 showing in the cash flow for every week in the month.

Once youre happy with the options, select save and the budget will be added to the cash flow.

You can find out how to edit budgets here: Edit single budget Edit multiple budgets

Budgets in Float are like placeholders for cash that might come into or leave the business, allowing you to build up a picture of how the future might look.

Your forecast is built with the budgets that you enter and each day Float updates itself and pulls in the latest transactions from your accounting software, which slowly fill up your budgets. Once an actual becomes larger than the budget, Float will use the actual amount instead. At the end of the current month, all actuals will be used instead of budgets, ensuring your forecast is as accurate as possible.

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Budgets in Float are like place holders for cash that might come out. Where the core lies is in pulling in all the transactions, bills and invoices in from your accounting platform, so your cash flowis always up-to-date. If you do this in a spreadsheet you won't have visibility on what your cash is likely to do.

With Float you'll be able to get a good handle on where your cash is likely to be, and compare the actual cash in and invoices due against the placeholder budget.

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Once a scenario layer has been created, the next thing to do is sort out some budgets.

The first thing you will notice, is that the cash flow cells in the new scenario contain the values from the base layer. The reason being, the scenario layer is on top of another budget scenario, so any budgets entered into the new scenario will 'stack' on top of the existing budgets..

If you click into a budget cell you will see the same modal. The only difference is that the budget section will be split into base scenario budgets and new scenario budgets.

If you then create a new budget, this amount will add to the existing budgets.

In the main cash flow table you would see the total of all the budgets, from both scenarios

The cell will also be highlighted to reflect that this change relates to the scenario layer you are on.

When you update budgets in the scenario layer you will also notice that the graph adjusts to display two balance lines.

You'll see that one line reflects the balance of your original base while the other takes into account the changes made in the scenario layer. This allows you to easily see the impact of the changes you are making.

Should you wish to remove any of the base budgets from appearing in the layer, simply click into the budget and untick the 'include this budget in scenario' option.

This will remove the base budget from the scenario layer but it will remain in base as normal.

You can also easily remove any budget entered into the scenario by clicking into the budget and selecting the trash can symbol shown in the bottom left corner. A budget can only be deleted from the scenario it was added to, i.e. a base budget could only be fully deleted when on the base scenario.

If you ever need to remove an entire scenario layer find out how here.

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For a lot of businesses sales forecasting can be quite unpredictable. As a result you might want to create a few different situations to cover all bases when planning for the future. To help with this you can create multiple scenarios in Float, acommon model is to have a pessimistic, expected and optimistic. Let's set one up now.

Above the bank account panel you'll see a scenario dropdown, give it a click

Click 'Add Scenario Layer'

Name your scenario 'Optimistic Sales', choose a colour and hit 'Add scenario layer'

You'll now see that the figures from the other scenario are still showing, so these are safe. What you're now going to do is enter some budget figures on the new layer.

Any budgets that you add into a scenario will 'stack' on top of the base budgets and add to these. So if you were to click into a revenue account and wanted to forecast for higher sales you could enter a new budget that would then add to the existing budget

The budgets entered in the scenario will leave the base budgets untouched and will only display in the scenario layer

Back in the main cash flow you'll now see that the graph has 2 lines, one reflecting your originalbudget and one reflecting the new optimistic budget so it's easy to see the effect the change has had

If you fancy giving this a more in-depthtest go ahead and start entering more budget figures. You'll see that all budget figures entered on the new scenario are shaded with the scenario colour so it's easy to pick these out.

That's the basics! Still feeling a little unsure of anything? Feel free to fire us a message and we'll be happy to help :)

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Set up your base and looking to test out some what-if situations, scenario layers can help with that. When creating a new scenario layer this will be layered on top of your base scenario allowing you to see what impact changes have on the cash flow.

To get started hit the scenario dropdown shown just above the graph followed by 'New Scenario'. This will generate the following popover.

QuickBooks

Give the scenario layer a nameand colour (to differentiate it from other layers). In the 'Scenario base layer' you can choose which scenario this layer will be on top of, this will display the 'Float Base Scenario' (Base) and should you have budgets in your accounting platform these will also be displayed as options to layer on top of*. If you're looking to layer on 'Base' go ahead and choose 'Float Base Scenario' and hit 'Add scenario layer'. Now that you've set up the new scenario let's get to grips with scenario layer budgets.

*If you're looking to import the budget from your accounting platform and layer on that check out how to do this for Xero and .

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You can view our pricing in your currency here: https://floatapp.com/pricing-for-accountants-and-bookkeepers/

To claim this pricing with a 30 day free trial, just join our partner program at https://my.floatapp.com/sign_up/partners.

If you already have an account with Float, you can switch to a partner account at https://my.floatapp.com/partner_organization/new. Please ensure you're logged into Float before doing this.

Wondering how Float works? Check out our demo video!

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Float will automatically pull through the entire chart of Accounts from your Accounting software which will be displayed alphabetically in the cash flow table.

We realise that this might not be the ideal layout for everyone, so you can now customise the order of the accounts in the table to match your accounting software.

To do this, click on the 'Manage table layout' button (above the cash flow table, top left)

Creating a group

From here, simply click, drag and drop individual lines from within cash in or cash out into place.If you would like to find out how to change an account to cash in or cash out, please click here.Bundling multiple accounts together into a group can also help to tidy up the cash flow table, read how here..

Spreadsheet Input

You can also copy and paste a forecast from a spreadsheet into Float by using our Spreadsheet Input feature, explained in the video above.

Three Month Average

Float can automatically calculate an average of the last 3 months as a starting point which you can then update later. To do that, click on the calculator icon in the budget pop up:

Three Month Average

The average calculation is only available when creating a budget in the current month, this can then be pushed forward to future months.

Spreadsheet Input is available in the 'Base' but not in scenario layers.

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Unfortunately it's not yet possible to import a budget from excel, however you can use Spreadsheet Input to cut and paste data from your spreadsheet into Float.

Using the scenario layer option it is possible to import the Overall Budget from Xero into Float and display this in the cash flow. However, we always recommend you start budgeting from scratch in Float by clicking into individual cells, or using Quick Budget Edit.

Select the scenario dropdown followed by 'Add scenario layer' which will generate the following popover.

scenario layer budgets

In the 'Scenario base layer' dropdown you will find the option to use the Float Base scenario (Base) along with the option for the Overall Budget from Xero.

By selecting 'Xero Overall Budget' the budget from Xero will be imported into the cash flow as the base scenario of the layer.The changes you make to the layer won't impact the budget figures that have been imported from Xero and these will remain unchanged on the base layer. It's not possible to change the Xero budget figures directly in Float, these would need to be updated in Xero. It's also not possible to export the budget from Float directly into Xero.

Now that you've set up the new scenario let's get to grips with .

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When exporting as a pdf Float will use the date range that has been set up in the cash flow as the date range to export. So before exporting be sure to use the navigation shown above the graph to set up the relevant date range. Once done, hit the export button shown just above the graph and choose to export as a pdf.

here

This will generate a pdf copy that includes both the graph and cash flow table along with an overall summary showing the top line figures of cash in, cash out and net cash movement. For each cell in the table the pdf will show the higher of the budget and actual figure.

The other option is to export to .csv which you can check out .

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Modelling different expected dates for bills and invoices in Float can be done on both an individual basis and abulk basis. Here we'll go through the options for doing this to individual invoices and bills. You can check out the bulk options here.

For setting an individual expected date first thing to do is click into the invoice you would like to update. You can either do this via the main cash flow by clicking into the relevant cell, selecting the 'Due' section from the budget popover and then clicking into the invoice/bill.

The other option is to locate the invoice/bill in the 'Invoices Due'/'Bills to Pay' section. Once selected the invoice popover will display all invoice details including the expected date. Initially this will default to the due date or expected date that has been set in the accounting platform.

here

To update this simply click into the date field which will generate a calendar date picker and a new expected date can be set. Once set click 'Save' at the bottom of the popover and this change will be reflected in the cash flow. The 'Add new payment' option allows you to split the invoice down into multiple payments and you can check out the steps around this .

If there is a certain invoice/bill that you would like to exclude from the cash flow forecast you can do this from the main cash flow or the 'Invoices Due' and 'Bills to Pay' sections.

In the main cash flow click into the relevant cash flow cell to generate the budgetpopover. On the top of the popover click into the 'Due' section which will display all the invoices/bills that impact that cell.

Clicking into the invoice will show the invoice popover and in the top right you will see an 'Include in cash flow' option that shows ticked when included.

updated in bulk

Simply move the toggle to off, save the change and the invoice will be excluded from the cash flow.

The action of excluding an invoice/bill can also be carried out in bulk from 'Invoices Due' and 'Bills to Pay'. Just select the invoices you want and go to Batch Actions > Exclude.

It's easy to locate excluded invoices/bills in the'Invoices Due' and 'Bills to Pay' sections as these will display an excluded tag.

Any excluded invoices/billscan be re-added from the'Invoices Due' and 'Bills to Pay' section at any point by switching the toggle back on.

If multiple invoices/bills need to be included or excluded these can be .

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Float imports all your open bills and invoices and shows you how your bank balance will change when they are paid.

To view a list of all your invoices and bills, simply click on Invoices Due or Bills to Pay in the main navigation.

Here you will see when each item was generated, when they are (or were) due for payment and when the cash is expected to move. You are easily able to filter and edit your bills and invoicesusing the check boxes to the left and the batch actions above.

By default, Float predicts that bills and invoices will be paid on the due date (if the due date is in the future) or, if the due date is in the past (i.e. the bills or invoice is overdue), Float will predict that the payment will be made on todays date.

For an accurate cash flow forecast, edit your expected dates to make sure that your expected payment dates are realistic.

How To See Bills & Invoices in the Cash Flow Table

You can also see bills and invoices in the main cash flow table. You can click on any cell to reveal the contents. If a cell contains invoices or bills these will show in the Due and Paid sections of the left side of the window.

When either is clicked on you will be able to see the individual invoices.

Invoices and bills play a huge part in the cash flow and making sure that the due dates are accurate plays an important role in this.

Select 'Invoices Due', here you'll find a list of all invoices that have been imported (these are sorted by expected date)

Click into an invoice that shows as overdue

You'll see a field for 'Expected on', go ahead and set this for a few weeks from now and once it saves, close the popover

You'll see that the invoice now shows as upcoming and is no longer red. This movement will also be reflected in the main cash flow table and graph

If you have an invoice that you know isn't going to be paid, click into it andswitch the toggle to exclude the invoice - this doesn't change any data in your accounting software

You'll see that this invoice now appears with a line through it and this means it is no longer included in the cash flow

If you have quite a few invoices to sort through take a few minutes to make sure you're happy with the invoice dates. You can also do the same with bills, simply go to the 'Bills to Pay' section and carry out the same steps (the layout is very similar to 'Invoices Due').

Now that the invoices and bills are set up, let's add insome additional cash flow rows.

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If you have overdue invoices or bills in Float, they will show as payable today. So you'll need to update their expected payment dates.

In your Invoices Due and Bills to Pay tabs in Float, you can see a list of your upcoming bills and invoices. You will see an 'Original Due Date' and an 'Expected Date' for each item, like this:

The original due date comes from your accounting software, but you can change your expected payment date on any bill or invoice.

To do that, select the items you'd like to update, and then click 'Batch actions' in the top left:

You can choose a set date, or a number of days from the due date.

Once you have updated your expected dates, these will move forward in your cash flow forecast.

The Accounts in Float arederived from the chart of accounts in your accounting package. As a result it's not possible to update the name or classification of the categories directly in Float, however you can update how these show in the cash flow.

If you click an account in 'Manage table layout' above the cash flow table on the Cash Flow tab, you will see the following modal.

here

Here you can update whether the account appears under cash in or cash out, and also whether it appears as part of a group (for creating groups click here ).

The other option that exists is the option to remove the account from the cash flow. If a account is empty and contains no actual value from your accounting platform it can be removed from the cash flow. However if there is actual value associated to the account it can't be removed. On the right side of each category you will either see a trash can or a padlock, similar to below.

In the above example, 'Accounts Receivable' has value and is locked so can't be removed while 'Audit & Accountancy fees' has no value and can be removed by clicking the trash can.

If you want to add a previously removed account back into the cash flow or add a completely new category click .

All the accounts shown in Float are pulled directly from the Chart of Accounts in your accounting software. At the moment It's not possible to manually add accounts directly into Float.

When Float first imports data from your accounting platform, all the individual chart of accounts with value are automatically added into the cash flow table.

Any accounts thatdon'thave values (empty), are stored in the 'Manage table layout' option, where they can be manually added into your main cash flow table.

These 'empty' accounts can easily be added by using the 'Add account' option shown within 'Manage table layout'.

Clicking this option will generate the following modal with the options for adding a new account.

Select the account you want to add, the type (cash in or cash out) and if it should be a part of a group. If you haven't set up any groups, you can check out how to here. Once added, the account can be budgeted against in the same way as any other account.

Note:If an 'empty' account hasn't yet been added to the cash flow and value is assigned to it in the accounting platform, then the account will automatically be added and the value displayed in the cash flow on the next sync.

If you would like to remove an account find out how here

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If there are lines you don't want to see in the main cash flow? No problem, you can bundle multiple accounts together into a group to tidy up the cash flow table.

First things first, let's create the group. In 'Manage table layout' you'll find an option for creating groups shown towards the top of the section.

Clicking 'Create group' will generate the following modal displaying the group options.

As you can see, you are able to give the group a name, along with a type, which allows you to designate the group as 'cash in' or 'cash out' (it's not possible for a single group to contain both cash in and cash out accounts). Once you're happy, hit 'Add group' and Float will create the new group.

Now let's add some accounts to the group.

Once you have a group set up, you can start adding accounts to it. To do this, click the row you would like to assign to a group (in the 'Manage table layout') to get the following modal.

From the example above, you'll see that there is an option for assigning the account to a group and the dropdown will contain all groups that you have created. If you have selected a 'cash in' account only 'cash in' groups will be displayed and vice versa. Once you update the account it will show as part of a group in 'Manage table layout', similar to below.

Also in the main cash flow table.

The group can be expanded to show the contained accounts by simply clicking on the row in the cash flow table.

If you would like to edit the group, find out how here.

When Float imports data from your accounting platform any accounts that contain transactions will automatically be added into the cash flow table.

Any accounts thatdon'thave values (empty) are stored within the 'Manage table layout' option, where they can be manually added into the main cash flow table.

If an accountisn'tin the cash flow and has a new transaction assigned to it in your accounting platform, it will automatically be added into the cash flow on the next sync.

To manually add in one of these accounts, simply select 'Manage table layout (shown above the left side of the cashflow table) and hit the Add account option. Here you will be shown a list of all the available accounts from your accounting platform that can be added to the cash flow. Once added, the new account can be assigned to a group and budgeted against in the same way as an account with a value.

This is a relatively new section of Float and we hope to add more functionality as we go.Currently within this tab, you will be able to: Compare scenarios View Overall cash in v's cash out View budget variance Highlight under budget accounts to watch Highlight over budget accounts Give detail on budget v's actual for a single account.

This insight allows you to see a detailed, budget v's actual view for a single Account, which can help to explain why you might be over, or under budget.Was it a late paying customer? A big bill that wasnt forecasted? Either way, youll have the knowledge to make informed decisions about the future

You have the option to view the previous month, or last three months:

This insight will highlight the cash in accounts where you are most significantly under budget, without having to dig to find it.

You can select the previous month, or the last three months to view:

This insight will highlight the cash out accounts where you are most significantly over budget, without having to dig to find it.

You can select the previous month, or the last three months to view:

This insight will allow you to quickly scan your chart of accounts and see at a glance where you are over or under budget.

By understanding how accurate your forecasting has been, you'll be able to forecast the future with more confidence, thereby reducing the chances of hitting an unexpected cash crunch.

You can choose to view figures for the last month, or the last 3 months (cumulative)

If after viewing the data you want to edit an existing budget or create a new one, this can be done quickly by clicking on the account line. This will take you to a page showing a detailed account view. The budget can be changed from here:

Here you will find a budget progress graph, showing the comparison of budget v's actual

Hovering over the bars will bring up a popover, displaying the breakdown.

The graph can be exported to PNG and pasted into a report.

Here you will find a cash flow graph, where you can choose to compare multiple scenarios or even show a single scenario. Right now, you can set your date range in the top right corner, with some quick selection options:

The graph can be viewed in days, weeks or months with multiple scenarios layered over one another, which can be exported to PNG and pasted into a report:

If your video looks at all blurry, just increase your quality using the gear icon at the bottom right of the video.

If an expected date has been set in your accounting platform this will be imported across to Float and used to show where the invoice falls in the cash flow. You can update this expected date in Float, however ifa different expected date is added in your accounting platform this will overwrite the changes made in Float.

Similarly if an invoice doesn't have an expected date one can be added in Float. If an expected date is then added in the accounting platform this will overwrite the date added in Float.

On the flip side, changing expected dates in Floatdoes notchange the expected date in the accounting platform.

Making sure that your open bills and invoices have accurate expected dates is really important for maintaining a realistic cash flow forecast.

We recommend you update expected dates in Float at least once a week.

If your video looks at all blurry, just increase your quality using the gear icon at the bottom right of the video.

Do you have cash management processes in place?

If you are proactively managing your cash, then keeping Float up-to-date should be fairly straightforward.

As you gather information about when bills and invoices will be paid, you can add those expected dates either to your accounting software or to Float. This information will show the impact those payment dates will have on the businesss cash balance.

So when you introduce Float to your cash management workflow, you not only continue to control your cash in-flows and out-flows; you get the added benefit of being able to see how payment dates will affect future cash balances.

If you do not have cash management processes....

Any business advisor will tell you that its really important to be proactive about cash management in order to minimise stress and maximise business opportunity.

Also, the more proactive you are about cash management, the more accurate your Float cash flow forecast will be.

We highly recommend you speak to your accountant about best practice cash management processes. In the meantime, you can check out 10 tips for managing cash flow from the Guardian and this very practical article about how to set up a credit control system.

Benefits

Free subscription for your own practice (no monthly fee until you add a client)

Unlimited staff logins

Discounts for your clients as shownbelow

More functionality (10 users and 10 scenarios per license)

Training/webinars for your clients

Pricing:

As a partner, you get a free Float account for your practice. If you use Xero, you can add Xero's "Demo Company" to allow you to demo Float using test data. If you need help setting the demo company up in Float just send us a message. This will use up one of your licences.

We offer pricing plans for accountants and bookkeepers - click here to see our pricing.

The partner managed companies getthe equivalent of our Large plan, which gives your clients 10 users and 10 scenarios each.

Create a partner account or convert your account to a partner account:

If you're a Quickbooks Online, FreeAgent or a Xero partner, we have a Float Partner program you would be eligible to sign up for here, or alternatively you can convert your current Float account here.

Not all invoices and bills will be paid in a single payment, some will be split down into instalments, or a payment plan. Within Float you can split an invoice or bill into multiple expected payments.

The first thing to do is click into the invoice or bill you would like to split. Here you will find an option to 'Add new payment'.

Clicking this option will add in one new payment date at a time until you reach the desired number of expected payments. You have the option to split the invoice/bill by value or percentage:

Once everything is set up hit the 'Save' option at the bottom of the invoice/bill and this will update the cash flow to show the invoice/bill being expected as multiple payments.

If you ever need to remove a payment just hit the trash can symbol shown next to the payment and this will be removed.

Sometimes you may want to add a staff member from your practice to a client's account. You may want to restrict access to certain companies, which you can do. In order to do this, follow the steps below.

First of all, in order to not use up one of your 'user' permissions, you need to add staff as 'staff members', rather than users. Here's how to do that:

1. Go toyour Staff tab in your Float dashboard

2. Fill in the details of your staff member

3. Have your staff member verify their email address

4. Choose which clients you'd like your staff member to have access to

By default, your new staff member won't have access to any clients, so you need to choose which ones you'd like them to be able to see.

That's it!

If you use draft invoices in Xero and want to include them in Float, you can do so in a couple clicks.

1) Go to the Company Settings menu (Settings > Company Settings).Here youll find someoptions for setting up your cash flow:

here

2) Click Import Draft Invoices? on the left side

The button will turn red straightaway, indicatingyou'veallowed draft invoices to be imported to Float. You can stop importing them at any time by clicking the button again:

Once enabled run a sync with your accounting platform and the drafts should be imported and be visible in both the main cash flow and the 'Invoices due' section.

Invoices due:

Cash flow:

If youd like to create a draft invoice in Xero butaren'tsure how, you can read about it at the XeroBusiness Help Centre.