How ONEflight International saves 4 hours a day on wire payments using Brex

Manual wire processes consuming entire days during peak season

As a charter broker processing prepayments to aircraft operators, ONEflight's finance team faced a crushing daily workload. The company sends approximately 30 wire transfers every single day to operators before flights can take place. At $30 per wire with their previous bank, First Bank, the costs alone were adding up fast.

But the bigger problem was time. CFO Hanno Uys and his team had to manually set up each wire using First Bank's wire templates, entering amounts individually, saving, exiting, then going back to initiate and approve each one separately. "It's like double work," Hanno explains. The process consumed 2 to 3 hours of Hanno's day alone, not counting his controller's time setting them up.

During peak season in December, the manual process became unsustainable. "My controller and I were working until 2 AM, both of us, setting up the wires to get them done, so we could start sending them first thing in the morning," Hanno recalls.

After a few too many late nights, Hanno decided it was time to find a banking partner and bill payment platform that could better handle their volume and velocity. They needed a platform that could process high-value transactions (averaging $20,000 per charter), handle their prepayment business model seamlessly, and eliminate the manual overhead that was consuming their finance team's time.

Bill pay automation, bulk approvals, and a seamless QuickBooks integration

ONEflight chose Brex to consolidate both banking and bill pay into one platform. The company initially came to Brex for a corporate card, receiving a $1 million credit limit immediately. "To get a million dollars off the bat was a big selling point," Hanno notes.

After experiencing Brex's platform and service, Hanno recommended Brex banking to his CEO when they wanted to switch from First Bank. "The Brex bank account was approved overnight, and we were immediately able to receive wires and make payments out of it," he says.

But the transformation really centered around Brex's bill pay capabilities. ONEflight's flight coordinators could now email approved quotes and invoices directly to Brex. The platform then automatically captures the invoice details through OCR, and populates the payment information. Hanno's controller then just has to review the populated bills in minutes rather than manually entering each wire template.

The bulk approval feature was also game-changing. "I have the list under pending approval, and I can go through and tick all the ones that are relevant, and approve," Hanno explains. No more going into each wire individually to initiate and approve.

Brex also integrated seamlessly with QuickBooks. "It was like plug-and-play. I connected it, and it was immediately there," Hanno says. "I did not have to go through setup or any kind of weird process." Hanno was able to connect Brex to QuickBooks in about 30 minutes, then immediately auto-posted all wire payments.

“The support I receive from Brex is top class. There’s always someone available to help. It’s above and beyond anything I've ever experienced in my career.”

— Hanno Uys, CFO, ONEflight International

4 hours saved daily with automation and $27,000 in monthly wire fees eliminated

Brex has helped ONEflight scale financial operations with ease - with both time and effort saved. Hanno and his controller each save approximately 4 hours daily, half a workday, on wire processing. The automated workflow eliminated the 2 AM nights during peak season. Flight coordinators email invoices to Brex, the controller reviews and sets up payments in minutes, and Hanno bulk approves them all at once. The double work of entering, saving, exiting, then initiating and approving each wire individually is gone.

Cost savings are equally substantial. At 30 wires per day and $30 per wire with First Bank, ONEflight was spending roughly $27,000 per month. "We send about 30 wires a day with Brex for free. It’s a significant amount of time and money saved," Hanno notes.

The platform's intelligence has also prevented costly errors. Brex automatically flags duplicate invoices when flight coordinators accidentally submit quotes and invoices twice. "A lot of times the flight coordinators will send us a quote and then they will send a quote and an invoice, so Brex identifies when there are duplicates, so we can easily make sure we don't pay something twice," Hanno explains.

Most importantly, the scalability has been critical - from client payments, to operator payments, to seamless QuickBooks reconciliation. "The way we've grown in the last two years, I definitely do not think I would have coped with the same system I had before," Hanno reflects. "Brex has been a lifesaver."

Even ONEflight's investors have noticed. Hanno stated, "One of my investors who has seen Brex in action thinks it’s so cool. It's super easy to navigate. Brex is just better than anything else out there, I have to be honest."

Ready to see how Brex can streamline your financial operations? Sign up for Brex today and discover how our integrated platform can eliminate the complexity of managing multiple financial tools while delivering measurable time and cost savings.