What if accruals could book, reverse, and reconcile themselves?

Ask any accountant their least-favorite part of the month-end close, and chances are you'll hear accruals. Why? Accruals usually involve spreadsheets full of estimates, scattered data, and endless follow-ups with other teams, all under tight deadlines.

But the process doesn't have to be so manual. With Brex, accountants can use AI and automation to handle card and reimbursement accruals end to end, from identifying incomplete expenses to auto-reversing journal entries that sync with your ERP.

Enterprise customers like DoorDash, Carbon Health, and Coinbase already rely on Brex’s automated accruals to close faster with less effort.

Here's how it works, and read on for why it matters.

Why accruals have been so painful — until now.

Accruals are entries that record expenses in the period they actually occur, even when supporting documentation isn't yet available. This keeps your financial statements accurate, but the traditional process is slow, manual, and fragmented.

Accountants have to piece together data from emails, procurement systems, and conversations with budget owners. They chase departments for estimates, track calculations in spreadsheets outside the ERP, and manually book and reverse journal entries.

The result: hours of tedious work, versioning errors, limited visibility, and reconciliation headaches that compound as transaction volume grows.

Brex’s accounting automation solution was built to eliminate this kind of inefficiency.

5 ways Brex makes accruals intelligent and automatic.

Engineering Director Antoine Azar sums up our accounting philosophy nicely: Brex was built to accelerate accounting, not just automate it. We've reimagined accruals from the ground up and embedded AI-native intelligence directly into the workflow, so the system does the heavy lifting, not your team. It starts with establishing a single source of truth.

1. Centralized data for a single source of truth

Most spend platforms force accountants to patch together spreadsheets or custom ERP rules to manage accruals. Brex integrates card and reimbursement accruals directly into the Accounting Journal, centralizing pending, approved, and processed accruals in one place. Controllers and accounting managers get full visibility and control without logging into multiple systems.

2. One-click accruals with auto-reversal

Instead of manually creating journal entries and remembering to reverse them later, Brex intelligently generates both the accrual and the reversing entry. The reversal happens automatically at the start of the next period. There is no double-counting, no forgotten entries. As transaction volume grows, the system scales with you, keeping the close process fast without adding headcount.

3. Direct integrations with your ERP

Brex accruals work with NetSuite, Intacct, QuickBooks, Workday, Oracle Fusion, Puzzle, and many other ERPs, supporting both card and reimbursement expenses across multiple entities. Brex automatically exports accruals as clean, structured journal entries with the right GL accounts, departments, locations, and classes. Everything lands in your ERP exactly where it belongs. Brex customers tell us that our auto-reversals with NetSuite save them hours of manual cleanup each month.

4. AI-native workflows that track down info for you

Accruals often depend on input from teams outside of finance. Brex acts as an agent on your behalf by sending automated reminders, surfacing approvals, and maintaining comment threads tied to each expense. Even if transactions aren't fully compliant yet, they can still be accrued. Once documentation or coding is updated, Brex detects the changes and incorporates them automatically. You are freed from any manual tracking or receipt chasing.

5. Real-time visibility into global expenses

With Brex, card and reimbursement accruals aren't a black box. Accounting teams can filter directly for accrued expenses in the Accounting Journal and download for analysis. For teams running global, multi-entity environments, accrual liability accounts can be set up by entity, keeping data clean and audit-ready.

Brex accruals in action.

Here are a few scenarios where Brex's automation keeps your month-end close on track and your financials accurate.

Missing receipts. An employee charges $15,000 to a Brex card on Sept. 29 for software, but the receipt is missing. Instead of delaying the close, Brex automatically accrues the spend in September. Once the receipt is uploaded, the system reverses and rebooks the entry cleanly. No manual chasing or retroactive adjustments.

Uncertain coding. A $5,000 card transaction posts on Sept. 30, but it's unclear whether it belongs to R&D or IT. Brex accrues the spend using the best available GL and department code. When the right coding is confirmed in October, the entry auto-reverses and rebooks — no misclassification, no messy cleanup.

Reimbursements submitted late. An employee spends $4,500 out-of-pocket on a September trip but doesn't submit the reimbursement until Oct. 10. Brex still accrues the expense in September when the activity occurred. When the reimbursement is processed in October, the accrual reverses automatically. September reflects the true cost of business, without distorting October's cash flow.

DoorDash saves nearly a full day on accruals with Brex.

DoorDash's accounting team used to spend a full day each month on manual expense accruals. With Brex, that work now takes a few clicks. Brex automatically generates and reverses journal entries, integrates directly with DoorDash's ERP, and provides a centralized dashboard so nothing slips through the cracks.

"Brex accruals have helped us shorten our close because we were doing a lot of them manually," said Cindy Nuñez, Senior Accounting Manager at DoorDash. "It used to take us a whole day. With Brex, we can get our accruals done with the push of a button. The accruals functionality works seamlessly and helps us move so much faster."

Take the manual work out of accruals today.

Brex's intelligent accruals automation helps thousands of global businesses close their books faster, with fewer errors and far less manual effort. When AI handles the busywork — generating entries, syncing with your ERP, chasing down documentation — your team gets time back for higher-value work.

Want to learn more? Explore our guide to AI in accounting for practical tips to automate more of your close.