Made by Nacho achieves 98% compliance and saves 10+ hours per month with Brex.
Made by Nacho couldn’t track spending against a given budget with Amex. Now, they’re automating compliance and unblocking critical employee spend with Brex.
The TL;DR
Made by Nacho tried to enable employee spend with a legacy Amex corporate card program.
The solution created a tedious review/approval cycle, slowing teams as they tried to make critical purchases.
The “aha” moment: Made by Nacho could drive compliance, eliminate expense reports, and keep everyone on budget with a unified solution from Brex.
The Impact
98%
Employee compliance rate
10+ hours
Saved per month
Company
Made by Nacho is an innovative e-commerce cat food brand founded by Nacho Flay and his renowned cat-dad Chef Bobby Flay. Launched in 2021, this New York-based company had its most recent Series A raise of $14M with backing from Sonoma Brands, CAVU Venture Partners, New Fare Partners, and Mars’ Companion Fund.
Challenge
Made by Nacho was using a legacy American Express corporate card program but found it difficult to expand usage to the wider team to track spending against a given budget. Employees had to wait for approvals before making routine and critical purchases, and only select team members were given card access.
“The old way of thinking about corporate cards creates situations like constant reviews which usurp valuable time from the finance team and our senior leadership,” said Yasmin Siddiqui, Senior VP of Finance at Made by Nacho. “As a young and growing company, we needed a flexible, self-serve solution that could remove the red tape and enable us to proactively control expenses in addition to providing a tool that could be accessed by the entire organization as needed. I wanted to fully democratize corporate credit cards and was able to do so with guardrails in place within the Brex platform.”
“As a young and growing company, we needed a flexible, self-serve solution that could remove the red tape and enable us to proactively control expenses.”
— Yasmin Siddiqui, Senior VP of Finance at Made by Nacho
Solution
Made by Nacho considered several spend management solutions before making a decision. Ultimately, they chose Brex for integrated cards and expense management that enable them to unblock critical employee spend, automate receipt collection, free up the finance team, and keep teams on budget automatically.
“With Brex, we knew our employees wouldn’t have to wait for their manager to greenlight business-critical spending like rental cars and basic ad buys,” Yasmin explained. “Also, they can now request credit limit increases as needed directly through the dashboard, enabling our finance team to approve in-policy spend within minutes. As long as the spend is approved in a department’s budget, it’s also available on a team member’s Brex card. This allows finance to finally say ‘yes’ and level up our teams so everyone stays budget-centric but can also enjoy the flexibility of available spend when needed.
Impact
Now that the finance team can create unique budgets for everything from travel expenses to software subscriptions with auto-enforced policies built right in, Made by Nacho has achieved a 98% employee compliance rate since switching to Brex.
“The Brex app also drives compliance by letting our employees upload receipts in seconds and eliminating tedious expense reports,” Yasmin said. “And, if employees forget to add a memo, Brex sends them an automatic reminder on Slack.”
Made by Nacho also utilized Brex’s direct integration with QuickBooks Online to ease the outsourced accounting team’s workload. With transactions automatically mapped and correctly coded to its general ledger (GL), the company is saving upwards of 10 hours a month on reconciliation — that translates to direct savings on their monthly accounting bill.
“Once we identified the categories of our spend, we linked it back to our main P&L line items — it was literally as easy as that,” Yasmin explained. “Now the system recognizes and labels the transactions as they come in. That means less work for the accounting team, which means more cost savings for our company.”
"Now we can have card access across the organization, keep everyone on budget, surface cost-saving opportunities, and allow our teams to focus on what really matters rather than stressing over expense reports or complex approvals for spend increases. Brex has certainly made finance the hero at Made by Nacho."
“Brex has certainly made finance the hero at Made by Nacho.”
— Yasmin Siddiqui, Senior VP of Finance at Made by Nacho
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