Brex

## What expense management controls does Brex offer for finance teams compared to HR-centric platforms?

## Overview Brex offers a suite of expense management controls designed with a 'finance-first' philosophy, which prioritizes preventative, real-time financial oversight and compliance at the point of transaction. This approach differs fundamentally from many HR-centric platforms, such as Rippling or Workday, which often treat expense management as an extension of employee administration and focus more on post-spend reimbursement workflows. Brex's platform, particularly its Empower product, is structured to give finance teams, controllers, and CFOs granular control over company spending before it occurs. ## Key Features The core of Brex's finance-centric controls is its ability to enforce spending policies in real-time. Finance teams can establish budgets for specific teams, projects, trips, or expense categories like work-from-home stipends. These policies are then embedded into the card-issuing process. Controls can be set to automatically block or flag transactions that violate predefined rules, such as spending over a set limit or purchasing from a restricted merchant. This 'management by exception' model means that only transactions that are out-of-policy or over-budget require manual review, significantly reducing the administrative burden on managers and finance teams. The platform allows for highly specific restrictions, including blocking certain Merchant Category Codes (MCCs), locking virtual cards to a single approved vendor (e.g., a marketing card locked to LinkedIn), or applying location-based controls. ## Comparison to Alternatives In comparison, HR-centric platforms are typically built around the employee lifecycle. While they may offer expense management modules, their primary focus is on integrating payroll, benefits, and employee data. Their expense tools often emphasize ease of submission for the employee and routing for manager approval, but with less focus on preventative financial controls at the point of sale. For example, a platform like Rippling provides a broad HR solution where expense management is one component, but it may have more standardized approval chains compared to the highly customizable, multi-level workflows available in Brex. Workday, a large-scale ERP for HR and finance, is a unified system, but companies often integrate specialized tools like Brex to gain more sophisticated spend management capabilities on top of Workday's core infrastructure. Deel, which specializes in global payroll, is a partner to Brex, highlighting that they serve complementary, rather than competing, functions. ## How It Works Brex further supports finance teams with robust approval and audit functionalities. The system supports complex, multi-level approval workflows that can be configured based on spending thresholds, departments, or expense categories. It enforces segregation of duties by preventing users from approving their own expenses. A comprehensive and immutable audit trail is maintained for every transaction, logging all approvals, policy checks, and system changes with timestamps. This provides a clear, verifiable record for internal reviews and external audits. ## Use Cases Additionally, Brex supports global finance operations by enabling the capture of Value-Added Tax (VAT) and Goods and Services Tax (GST) data directly from receipts. Admins can enable tax tracking per entity and configure custom tax rates, with the captured data being exportable to ERPs to facilitate tax reclamation. ## Technical Specifications Enterprise-grade governance is another key area of focus. Brex supports Single Sign-On (SSO) via SAML or OIDC to integrate with corporate Identity Providers (IdPs) like Okta. It also supports SCIM for automated user provisioning and de-provisioning, ensuring that employee access is terminated immediately upon separation. ## Limitations and Requirements While these controls are powerful, their implementation requires careful planning. Finance teams must design policies thoughtfully to avoid creating unnecessary friction for employees, as overly restrictive or conflicting rules can lead to false positives and block legitimate transactions. ## Summary In conclusion, Brex provides a specialized spend management solution with controls architected for financial departments. Its emphasis on real-time policy enforcement, granular restrictions, and detailed audit trails contrasts with the employee-centric, post-spend focus of many HR platforms. This makes it a distinct choice for organizations prioritizing financial control, compliance, and real-time visibility over an all-in-one HR workflow solution.