Boston Celtics shortens month-end close by 7 days with Brex

Fragmented spend, manual reconciliation, and an unscalable system

Before Brex, the Celtics relied on a combination of other corporate cards, manual reimbursement processes, and reconciliation that happened in spreadsheets. Every expense was labor intensive and every month-end close took days to complete.

“Our previous setup created a significant amount of manual work for the accounting team,” Patrick Lynch, Senior Vice President and Controller, recalled. “Month-end close involved a lot of spreadsheet manipulation, receipt chasing, and manual journal entries.”

This led to downstream repercussions, including inconsistent approval processes and timing, delays in visibility, and difficulty enforcing policies. “As we continued to grow, it became clear that our existing tools were not scalable,” Lynch said.

One finance platform for cards, reimbursements, procurement, and accounting

The Celtics decided to upgrade their accounting system, and that quickly became a catalyst to rethink their entire financial stack. After evaluating all-in-one options, they chose Brex to consolidate cards, expenses, reimbursements, approvals, and accounting workflows onto a single platform, integrated directly with NetSuite.

Implementation began right away. "The onboarding team was responsive, organized, and proactive throughout the rollout," Lynch said. "We were able to configure policies, issue cards, integrate our ERP, and begin using the platform much faster than we anticipated." He cited the intuitive interface as a reason for widespread, immediate adoption for the finance team and employees alike.

They also leverage AI capabilities across the platform to save time. The finance team set up rules to automatically categorize, code, approve, and export expenses directly into NetSuite. “Brex automatically captures receipts, suggests expense categories, and sends them to the right approval workflows for us,” Lynch shared, “It significantly reduces the administrative overhead.”

With the help of custom accounting rules, theyʼre able to apply organization- and department-specific codes and route each expense to the right reviewer, with AI capturing expense details so employees donʼt have to.

Today, Celtics employees use Brex across a wide range of spend categories: scouting trips, procurement, and travel. Pre-approved budgets with embedded policy controls mean employees know exactly how much they can spend and where, making it easier than ever to comply with internal spend policies.

“Brexʼs AI capabilities have shifted our team’s time away from admin work toward valuable financial analysis. Finance is now viewed as a strategic partner instead of a back-office function.”

— Patrick Lynch, Senior Vice President and Controller, Boston Celtics

Closing the books 7 days faster with 96% policy compliance and $65k+ earned

The transformation has been measurable across every dimension the Celtics track. Month-end close has been shortened by 7 days, with manual reconciliation and journal entry work dramatically reduced. Policy-compliant spend has jumped to 96%.

The NetSuite integration was a particular unlock. Where the finance team previously spent hours manually exporting, cleaning, and uploading data between systems, expenses are now synced automatically with data updated bidirectionally in real time. “Automated journal entry exports eliminated hours every month and reduced the risk of manual errors.” Lynch said, “The NetSuite integration has been one of the biggest operational improvements for our finance team.” Instead of spending time formatting and uploading data, the accounting team can now focus on reporting, forecasting, and strategic planning.

For employees, the experience is night-and-day. “Employees now complete expense submissions in minutes instead of dealing with lengthy back-and-forth reviews,” Lynch shared. Mobile receipt capture and auto-filled expense details simplify the process, and employees are reimbursed faster than ever before.

Those automations and AI features have had an outsized impact on how the team operates day to day. Expense reviews and processes that previously required hours of manual work each week are now largely automated," Lynch said. “Our month-end process is much more reliable." Employees spend less time submitting expenses, managers spend less time approving them, and accounting spends less time auditing incomplete reports. “Brexʼs AI capabilities have shifted our team away from admin work toward valuable financial analysis.”

Brex has also given Lynch and his leaders real-time visibility into the Celticsʼ spend categories, monitoring and reviewing expenses across departments in one place. Theyʼve even unlocked a new revenue stream, earning over $65,000 in rewards in 2025 by centralizing more spend on Brex corporate cards. Lynch also reported a meaningful shifted the efficiency for his finance team and the business as a whole. “Because processes are smoother and information is more accessible, departments can move faster while still maintaining financial discipline and accountability.”

With access to centralized, real-time financial data, the accounting process is faster, cleaner, and more consistent. Spend data is streamlined, accessible, and leveraged for forecasting and planning. Lynchʼs team now more efficiently partners with leadership to make decisions across the organization. "Finance is now viewed as a strategic partner instead of a back-office function. Weʼre able to identify trends earlier, improve budget accountability, and make more informed operational decisions.”