Diligent automates expense reports and reconciles p-card spend 8x faster with Brex.

Manual expense management and p-card reconciliations

Diligent had been using different US banking services for global travel and entertainment (T&E) and procurement card (p-card) spend, along with a separate expense management tool. This disjointed approach created an unsustainable flow of manual work, high fees, and employee frustration.

“Our employees had to manually enter their credit card expenses into the expense management system we were using, which took several hours for some because there were so many fields to fill out,” said Will James, Senior Travel and Expense Analyst at Diligent. “Card support was equally cumbersome, even for basic requests. One of the banks that we used is a huge conglomerate. Even the smallest asks had to go through four different teams plus Legal. It could take 3 days to get something fixed.”

On the accounts payable side, p-card spend was tracked by department, which meant manual, time-consuming reconciliations. “Before Brex, I was spending 8 hours a month reconciling p-card spend,” said Edda Morris, Senior Accounts Payable Specialist at Diligent. “We had to figure out who bought what, chase down receipts, and go back and forth with people to find the right codes. 

The Diligent team sought a single global card solution with auto-generated receipts, automated expense management, and premium support.

One global card program with expense automation built in

Diligent came to Brex for a global card program but quickly expanded to a full spend management overhaul after seeing Brex’s capabilities. Diligent replaced its banking providers and expense management system with Brex’s global card and expense management platform, which powers expenses and reimbursements across the US, Canada, Europe, and Singapore. The team also rolled out Brex’s Uber for Business integration to automate rideshare receipts and billing.

Brex delivered the global scale Diligent sought, setting a new standard with automated expense coding, receipt capture, reconciliation, and seamless NetSuite integration. “Brex provided one credit limit that could support our global needs,” Will says. “All of our T&E and p-card spend now runs through Brex.”

“Brex provided one credit limit that could support our global needs. All of our T&E and p-card spend now runs through Brex.”

— Will James, Senior Travel and Expense Analyst, Diligent

$22K saved, 90% faster reconciliation, and thousands of hours back to employees

employees spend less time on expenses. “The Brex team was phenomenal,” Will said. “Implementation went smoothly, and once we had one region live, expansion across the globe was fast and seamless.” And the impact compounded quickly.

“Brex saves managers 5 hours a month on approvals, and employees get back 2-3 hours on expense work,” Will said. ”Across 2,800 employees, that’s an enormous savings.” Edda reports a nearly 90% acceleration in AP processes thanks to AI-powered automation and a clean NetSuite sync. “AP reconciliation and reporting that took 8 hours now takes less than 1 hour thanks to Brex,” Edda says. “We can focus on bigger projects and team training with that time.”

Brex proved during the pilot phase that fast, high-quality support is a choice. “Anything we needed, Brex just did it,” Will notes. Switching to Brex also eliminated $12,000 in annual late fees and $10,000 in annual costs. Perhaps most importantly, employees enjoy a smoother day-to-day with fewer expense headaches and global acceptance. “Everything just works better and faster globally with Brex,” Will said.

With no negative employee feedback and faster month-end close and FP&A reporting, Will says Brex has helped raise the bar for finance at Diligent. “We can deliver faster SLAs, and Brex ensures we continuously meet and exceed the expectations of our business partners.”