Avenue One drives automation and data accuracy with Brex Empower and NetSuite.
The TL;DR
Avenue One's finance team struggled with manual, time-consuming reconciliation as their corporate card wasn’t able to deeply integrate with their NetSuite ERP.
Avenue One needed a unified spend platform that could automate the flow of financial data to drive both speed and accuracy.
With Brex and NetSuite fully synced, the finance team has regained capacity to focus on strategy for continued growth.
The Impact
10-15 hours
Saved on reconciliation per month
Company
Avenue One is an innovative prop-tech scale-up that provides a full-suite Single Family Rental (SFR) service platform to institutional investors. With nearly 200 employees in the US and Canada, Avenue One deploys billions of dollars for their clients across the world’s largest asset class.
Challenge
Avenue One’s corporate card wasn’t able to deeply integrate with their NetSuite ERP, and their finance team was slowed down by reviews and manual work as a result.
“We had to download the card detail, review every purchase, manually tag our NetSuite GL accounts, and import that file to NetSuite every month,” said Avenue One Assistant Controller Katherine Spillane. “That wasn’t sustainable — especially with our FX workload.”
Avenue One needed a user-friendly expense management solution that could fully integrate with NetSuite to drive automation and efficiency and free up the finance team.
“We’re not just automating — we’re driving company-wide accuracy.”
— Katherine Spillane, Assistant Controller, Avenue One
Solution
Avenue One chose Brex Empower to enable global employee spend with built-in controls that make expense management easier for managers and the finance team. Even better, they synced their Brex solution with their NetSuite ERP in minutes.
With the direct integration, Avenue One mapped their GL account tree directly into Brex, automating the flow of data for speed and accuracy. “Thanks to the deep integration, there’s no risk of having something in NetSuite that’s not in Brex, or vice versa,” Katherine says. “We’re not just automating — we’re driving company-wide accuracy.”
The finance team can customize categories and automatically map every charge to their chart of accounts when they run monthly reports, drastically increasing their efficiency.
Impact
With Brex Empower and NetSuite fully synced, the finance team automates much of its manual work. “Everything is automatically mapped to NetSuite and rarely requires manual interaction from controllers. We’re saving 10-15 hours on reconciliation every month,” says Katherine.
“We save 10-15 hours on reconciliation every month with Brex Empower and NetSuite.”
— Katherine Spillane, Assistant Controller, Avenue One
This frees up the finance team to be more strategic. Katherine says, “With transactions automatically synced across systems, the finance team has the bandwidth to focus on outcomes and strategy for continued growth.“
Avenue One also has more control and visibility over purchases across departments, teams, and borders. “Brex Empower makes it easy to serve non-US employees with budgets and expenses shown in local currency and USD,” said Katherine.
Avenue One used Empower to create a budget for employee expenses and then enabled managers to create nested budgets for their team-specific expenses. For example, field employees have a pre-approved budget for fuel and light car maintenance expenses. In turn, managers only have to review expenses by exception, shaving off 10 hours of unnecessary reviews per month.
The employee experience has also been improved by the top-rated Brex app. “With the Brex app, our employees add receipts, check spend limits, and manage reimbursements on their own — on the go, from anywhere in the world,” Katherine said. “Plus, with virtual cards accepted in 100+ countries, employees can tap, point, and pay anywhere.”
“Employees and managers rarely need the finance team’s help, because they have an easy self-service solution at their fingertips. We’re effectively pre-authorizing expenses before they happen and enforcing those policies through the card itself. NetSuite has always been indispensable, but it’s even better with Brex Empower,” Katherine concludes.
“We’re effectively pre-authorizing expenses before they happen and enforcing those policies through the card itself. NetSuite has always been indispensable, but it’s even better with Brex Empower.”
— Katherine Spillane, Assistant Controller, Avenue One
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