7 ways to accelerate expense management with AI.

It's the last day of the month, and you're staring at a mountain of incomplete expense reports. Jen from marketing can't find her receipts from the L.A. conference, David from sales hasn’t responded to any documentation requests, and your AP team is fielding angry calls from a caterer who says they haven’t received payment for last month’s client event, even though the invoice was marked “paid.” Meanwhile, your CFO is asking why expenses are 15% over budget when you're still trying to figure out what half of these charges even are.

Sound familiar? You're not alone.

According to recent industry research, 73% of CFOs say their expense processes are too manual, with one in three companies still relying on spreadsheets and paper. The cost is significant: Manual expense reports take an average of 20 minutes to complete and cost $58 each, and nearly 20% contain errors requiring additional fixes. Even things like manual data entry and reconciliation come at a cost, with 75% of companies agreeing that manual expense tracking increases fraud risk.

The numbers tell a clear story: manual expense and accounting work are costing your business. And with 44% of employees now handling expenses, it’s likely more than you know. Manual expense work drains productivity, creates frustration, and limits financial visibility, all of which can severely hamper growth. The good news is, AI is taking the manual work out of expense management and in a meaningful way.

AI-powered expense management eliminates these pain points by automating receipt capture, flagging policy violations in real-time, and providing instant spend visibility. This article shows you exactly how AI improves expense management, which features to prioritize, and the long-term benefits you can expect from expense automation.

The hidden costs of manual expense management.

The real cost of manual expense management goes far beyond the $58 per report. Here's what it’s actually costing companies:

• Lost productivity: Employees waste time collecting receipts, submitting reports, and following up on approvals instead of focusing on their actual work.
• Delayed reimbursements: Slow processing creates financial stress for employees and delays your ability to track spend.
• Limited visibility: Finance teams lack real-time insights, making it harder to spot waste, trends, or fraud.
• Error-prone processes: Manual entry leads to mistakes that require rework and can negatively impact compliance.
• Administrative burden: Accounting teams spend hours on low-value tasks like chasing receipts and reconciling spreadsheets.

Teddy Collins, VP of Corporate Finance at SeatGeek, shares just how much manual expenses management cost his business: “Our process before required the accounting team to download receipts that are submitted and manually try to match them with expense line items in another system. At one point, expense card close consumed nearly three full working days — reconciling 15 shared department cards, tracking down receipts, and manually coding transactions. Our accounting team was drowning in manual work.”

Valarie Zometa, Accountant at First Responder Health, says manual card and expense management processes revealed cracks in companywide spend controls: “Managing our Amex card program was a nightmare. We had no control over who was spending on what, and we kept getting charged for subscriptions nobody knew we had. Plus, we were chasing people for receipts at the end of every month.”

The best expense management solution is one your employees never have to think about — and your finance team can automate. Here’s what to look for in a modern expense management solution to help you stop chasing receipts and start driving business growth.

7 ways AI accelerates expense management.

A modern expense management platform eliminates finance busywork, which has an exponential ripple effect across your business. Here are seven key benefits of AI-powered expense solutions like Brex:

1. Automated receipt capture and data extraction

One of the most immediate benefits of AI-powered expense management is the significant time savings for employees at all levels. By eliminating manual receipt capture and automating expense reporting, employees can spend time on more valuable activities.

Aaron Wilkins, EVP of Finance, People (HR), Accounting, Compliance, and Engagement at Human-IT, shares: “With Brex, I don't ever have to do an expense report again. This is a huge time saver and so easy.” Nishant Karandikar, Strategy and Operations Lead at Limelight Steel, adds: "With Brex, we're saving around 30 hours per month on expense reports and reviews alone."

For some organizations, the efficiency gains are even more dramatic. Lindsay Bodeman, VP of Finance and Accounting at Dude Wipes, notes: “Of all the solutions we considered, Brex is by far the easiest to use. We can issue virtual cards in a single click, unlock higher capital and rewards, and automate expense reconciliation, saving us 40 hours a week. Brex isn't just a credit card; they're a true financial partner ready to scale with us."

With Brex’s AI-powered expense management, 75% of expenses are prepared entirely with automations so you can:

• Achieve an average 94% compliance rate
• Save 300+ hours a year on expense and accounting tasks
• Complete expense reviews up to 8x faster*

2. Real-time spend visibility and monitoring

Sixty percent of finance execs admit a lack of visibility into organizational expenses. Modern expense management solutions provide unprecedented visibility into company spending, and real-time dashboards allow finance teams to monitor expenses as they happen, rather than waiting until month-end.

This visibility translates directly into better financial control, as Jerome Barley, Head of Global Travel & Expense at DoorDash, explains: “The transparency into spend that Brex provides our team is unparalleled. Our finance partners are ecstatic to be able to see how spend is trending at any point in time. We don't get that with our legacy systems.”

With real-time visibility, finance teams can:

• Monitor spending activity as transactions occur
• Track individual employee and team spending in real time
• Receive instant alerts when spending limits are approached
• Forecast cash flow with greater accuracy

3. Intelligent policy enforcement and compliance

Manual expense processes make policy enforcement reactive — finance teams can only address violations after the money has been spent. Modern, AI-powered solutions enable proactive policy enforcement through automated controls and reminders.

Teddy Collins at SeatGeek notes the substantial impact Brex has on finance operations for the online ticket platform. “Brex helps us achieve a 99% employee compliance rate with its built-in automations and reminders.” Candice Chow-Gamboa, Chief of Staff at Heirloom, adds: “I personally love how easy it is to close out expenses by Slack or text. We’ve seen the employee compliance rate skyrocket to 96% with Brex.”

Key compliance benefits include:

• Customizable spending limits by employee, department, or category
• Automated policy checks before purchases are approved
• Digital receipt capture and storage for audit purposes
• Consistent application of spending policies across the organization

4. Automated expense categorization

Modern expense management solutions use AI to automatically categorize and code expenses, eliminating the tedious manual work of sorting transactions into the right accounts and categories.

Heirloom’s Candice Chow-Gamboa says Brex helps the climate technology company categorize expenses automatically: “By creating a budget for each spending purpose, and allowing employees to use one card, we don't need to continually recategorize spend. It just automatically goes to the right budget in Brex. That automatic tracking is huge.”

AI-powered automation ensures that:

• Expenses are automatically sorted into the correct categories
• GL codes are assigned without manual intervention
• Tax classifications are applied consistently
• Recurring vendors are recognized and coded seamlessly

5. Increased employee productivity and compliance

Traditional expense reporting is consistently ranked among employees' most disliked administrative tasks. Modern expense management solutions automate so much of the tedious work that employees are more likely to adopt and use them.

Ty Barton, Senior Manager of International Accounting at Signifyd, shares how this impacts employee satisfaction: "We've made a lot of friends in marketing and sales because we've made their lives so much easier. Now, when they're traveling for trade shows, they can focus on prospects and clients instead of tracking all these receipts in their back pocket.” Teddy Collins of SeatGeek adds: “With Brex, we’re able to strike a balance, preventing unauthorized spending while maintaining a positive experience. People are very delighted with Brex, and finance has gotten props for bringing transparency to the budgeting process.”

The improved expense experience delivers multiple benefits:

• More time for employees to focus on core job functions
• Faster reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses
• Mobile capabilities for on-the-go expense management
• Less friction between finance and other departments

6. Faster month-end close processes

For finance teams, the month-end close process is often delayed by outstanding expense reports and reconciliation challenges. Modern expense management solutions can actually automate accounting and accelerate the month-end close.

Pramand’s finance team is saving up to three days every month with Brex accounting automation, which accelerated its month-end close by 70%. Controller Jessica Ray says Brex’s multi-entity accounting capabilities are especially impressive: “Brex makes it extremely easy to separate and manage multiple entities under one parent company. It scales with our company, which makes it such a powerful solution.”

Cindy Nunez, Senior Accounting Manager at DoorDash, says: “Brex accruals helped us shorten our close because we were doing a lot of manual accruals. Sometimes it would take us a whole day. With Brex, we can get our accruals done with the push of a button. It helps us move so much faster.”

With automated categorization, real-time visibility, and robust accounting integrations:

• Close the month-end books 3x faster*
• Decrease manual journal entries related to expenses
• Minimize accruals for outstanding expense reports
• Produce more timely and accurate financial statements

7. Strategic cost optimization through AI analytics

Perhaps the most valuable long-term benefit of modern expense management is the strategic insights that clean, up-to-date data provides. With comprehensive spending data captured in a single dashboard, finance leaders can identify patterns and opportunities for optimization.

Empire Portfolio Group uses Brex to optimize costs for its Orangetheory Fitness studios and raise the bar on financial efficiency. “Because we’re able to see spending at such a granular level, we’re now able to benchmark our studio locations against one another and truly understand the cost of running the most efficient studio,” said Tiffany Miller, Director of Accounts Payable. “We’ve seen a huge shift in accounts payable from being a back-office data entry function to a powerhouse of information.”

With better insights, finance leaders like you can:

• Benchmark spending across teams and locations
• Negotiate better terms with frequently used vendors
• Identify subscription redundancies across departments
• Make data-driven decisions about budget allocations

These benefits of AI-powered expense management are too important to ignore, but how do you find the right solution for your business? Here’s what to look for in a modern expense management solution to help companies of all sizes stop chasing receipts and start driving business growth.

Top features of AI-powered expense management solutions.

Expense management automation eliminates the manual work that's draining your team's productivity. Here are the must-have features that separate leading platforms from basic expense tools:

Automatic receipts and memos

Smartphones enable employees to instantly capture receipts and upload them to an expense management app. The moment a purchase is made, just snap a photo and it’s automatically matched with the corresponding transaction. Leading solutions auto-populate an expense record with amount, category, vendor, memo, and even attendees when link to your calendar. With automated receipts, you no longer have to manually organize and manage business receipts. Digital receipt storage for record-keeping and compliance happens automatically.

AI-powered expense categorization

With automatic expense categorization, employees never have to classify an expense again. Most machine learning technology categorizes expenses using merchant information, spending patterns, and receipt data with 95% accuracy. The best part? The technology learns over time, becoming increasingly accurate with each transaction. This eliminates manual categorization while ensuring consistent application of your accounting rules.

Automated approvals and reviews

Streamlined approval workflows replace the traditional email chains, Slack threads, and paper forms. Customizable rules automatically route expenses to the appropriate approvers based on amount, category, or department. Mobile notifications and one-click expense approval processes keep things moving, while automatic policy checks flag potential issues before they reach managers' desks.

AI expense assistant

AI-powered expense assistants give employees conversational interfaces that can handle complex expense tasks automatically. Instead of categorizing transactions or writing memos, employees can simply tell their AI assistant to “assign all DoorDash charges to my WFH stipend” or "add the memo 'September ad campaign' to all my Google Ads expenses." Such assistants can also provide instant answers to policy questions 24/7, freeing employees to focus on their work while reducing finance team interruptions.

Real-time policy enforcement

You can’t be everywhere, but your expense policy could be. Embedded policies take the guesswork out of employees’ hands and enforce spending rules at swipe. Customizable spending limits, category restrictions, and approval thresholds create guardrails that prevent policy violations before they occur. This approach ensures consistent enforcement and eliminates awkward conversations about out-of-policy spending.

Integrated corporate cards

The best platforms combine expense management with corporate credit cards that typically offer higher spending limits than traditional cards like Amex or Chase. Those cards also don’t come with built-in expense management, so you typically have to invest in separate expense management software, which hinders automation and creates delays in visibility. Integrated cards also eliminate the need for reimbursements and provide more upfront spending controls.

Seamless ERP integrations

Get the most accurate view of data you can trust with finance ERP integration. Seamless connectivity with popular accounting systems and ERPs eliminates manual data entry and ensures financial systems remain synchronized. These connections create a continuous flow of accurate expense data that helps automate accounting and deliver timely financial reporting.

Real-time expense tracking and reporting

No more waiting until month-end to understand who spent what and how you’re tracking to your budgets. Modern expense management platforms make transactions instantly visible in the dashboard, which can be customized to display spending by department, category, vendor, or project. The best business expense tracking software provides instant visibility into financial performance and can use trend analysis to identify unusual spending patterns and streamline financial reporting.

Global interoperability

For organizations with worldwide operations, modern expense solutions provide support for multiple currencies, legal entities, and international tax and compliance requirements. Automatic currency conversion, entity-specific approval workflows, and VAT tracking ensure global finance operations run smoothly while maintaining compliance with local regulations.

What’s the ROI of AI-powered expense management?

Organizations implementing modern expense management solutions typically report significant returns on their investment. Some key metrics observed by Brex customers include:

• Time savings: 15-30 hours per month for finance teams
• Process efficiency: 70%-90% reduction in time spent on expense processing
• Cost reduction: 20%-30% decrease in travel and expense spending through better visibility and control
• Compliance improvements: Nearly 100% receipt compliance and policy adherence
• Faster reimbursements: 80% reduction in reimbursement cycle time
• Accelerated close: 3x faster month-end accounting close

Brex AI has had a substantial impact on finance operations for online ticket platform SeatGeek:

• 99% employee compliance rate
• 10x acceleration of documentation processes
• 95% reduction in finance overhead for expense management
• 50% reduction in T&E costs

SeatGeek’s Teddy Collins sums up the value of AI nicely: “AI-powered solutions like Brex help employees spend their time better,” he says. “With Brex, employees don’t have to fill out expense reports, and there’s more accurate data for the finance team. Even a single-digit percentage increase in productivity delivers high ROI. Brex is helping us control expenses while being more efficient with our number one resource — our employees.”

The best expense management solutions are AI-powered platforms.

Modern expense management solutions deliver transformative capabilities that save time, improve visibility, enhance control, and create a better experience for everyone involved in the expense process.

For today’s finance leaders, AI is already delivering. Early adopters in our 2025 CFO survey noted the tangible impact of AI-powered spend management:

• 50% of finance leaders cited improved accuracy in reporting and forecasting
• 46% pointed to increased speed in decision-making and processing.
• 43% highlighted gains in cash flow visibility and management

Mike Duffy, Senior Director, Assistant Controller at Lemonade, loves that Brex’s global card and expense offerings provide one worldwide view for business spend: “Consolidating onto Brex for our teams around the world allows us to see and analyze spend across our entities in one dashboard — all while operating in local currencies.”

As Lindsay Bodeman of Dude Wipes states above, the best expense management solutions are more than just tools — they're comprehensive financial platforms that scale with your business. By embracing AI-led spend management now, organizations position themselves to operate more efficiently, control costs more effectively, and make smarter financial decisions based on real-time data.

Ready to eliminate the manual expense work for good? Sign up for Brex today and join 30,000+ businesses that have already transformed their finance operations with AI.

* Based on internal metrics from December 2024. Past performance does not guarantee future results, which may vary.