A historically difficult part of doing business for companies big and small is staying on top of how money is spent. Even as new technologies reshape other business practices, the management of expenses, payments, and reimbursements has changed little over the years. Processes have become increasingly disjointed and diffused—leading to inefficiencies that drain resources and hinder growth. “Companies become what they spend their money on,” says Pedro Franceschi, cofounder and CEO of financial services and technology firm Brex, “What dictates the success of a company is the quality of the decisions it makes on spending.”

Now, a first-of-its-kind platform from the San Francisco–based company is changing the way those decisions are being made. It provides businesses with a modern spend management solution—including corporate cards, banking, bill pay, and travel-and-expense software—that provides real-time visibility across all of a company’s spend. Brex uses AI to automate time-consuming manual processes, from simplifying invoicing and expense approval to the game-changing ability to proactively control spending before it happens.

Brex’s solutions are proving invaluable to global companies with employees outside the U.S., including DoorDash, Coinbase, and Lemonade. More than 50% of Brex customers have international operations that leverage Brex’s multi-currency and multi-entity capabilities, auto-enforcing guardrails for policy compliance, and automating receipts and reconciliation. “We’re delivering an experience where both money movement and spend controls are managed within the same platform, which allows businesses to more easily monitor spending and shift resources to the initiatives with the highest returns,” Franceschi says.

For transforming how businesses manage their spending while empowering employees to make smarter financial decisions, Brex has earned a spot on Fast Company’s list of Most Innovative Companies for 2024.

SMARTER SPENDING WITH AI

Brex recognizes that today’s finance leaders are too bogged down in busywork with not enough time to focus on being strategic and driving growth. “If you asked the CFO of a company what the finance team is spending time on,” Franceschi says, “they’d likely tell you all sorts of things that are tactical, not strategic, like reconciling accounts, chasing receipts, and figuring out approval rules. Software alone won’t solve this problem.” Brex is uniquely positioned to solve the problem by combining two separate workflows: the global movement of money through financial services and the control of spending through software. By bringing together software and financial services, Brex is helping finance teams by providing a holistic, clear financial picture.

Together, new possibilities are unlocked and transformed even further with AI. By automating activities that once meant resource-draining busywork—such as filing expense reports and basic accounting tasks while supporting risk mitigation—the platform boosts productivity and compliance. Companies have saved thousands of hours with Brex by discarding manual processes—valuable time that can instead be used to focus on strategic initiatives that move the business forward.

A FOCUSED APPROACH

These days, Brex has chosen to focus its innovation efforts more narrowly. “In the past, we’d have one team working toward five initiatives,” Franceschi says. Now, we have five teams working toward one.”

With this new approach, Brex is dedicated to building fewer things better, focusing only on investments that will deliver step-function changes to the customer experience. Says Franceschi, “We’ve seen these really big breakthroughs because we’re doing fewer things really well across the entire company,” Franceschi says. “And that drives outcomes that we think are transformational for customers.”

Brex is helping customers make every dollar count. So far, these game-changing outcomes include keeping Brex customers’ $51B+ of spend on budget in policy, automating 11 million hours of busywork while earning $350M+ in financial income, and $650M+ in rewards to accelerate growth. And the new Brex is just getting started.

Totals are based on data from January 2018 to May 2024. Rewards total based on rewards earned, most commonly utilized redemption rate, and other promotional credits provided. Yield is earned by customers through money market funds available through Brex Business Accounts. Automation savings based on estimated time savings from using Brex’s accounting integrations, reimbursements, expense management, bill payments, human resources information system (HRIS) integrations, and AI features. In-policy spend is as of May 2024 and based on card payments that are automatically approved because they comply with the limits and policies communicated to Brex. Past performance does not guarantee future results, which will vary.