Plaid cuts expense time by 30% and gains total spend control with Brex.

Too many spend tools, not enough control or visibility

Plaid relied on five different tools for travel expenses and corporate cards for US and international spend. Employees navigated a maze of logins, approval flows, and policies that varied by region and expense type.

With only a handful of corporate cards issued to employees, employees had to wait weeks to get their reimbursements. With limited controls and visibility, finance had to chase employees every month just to close the books.

“There was a lot of chasing receipts, rubber stamping approvals, and no consistent process,” said Sophie Chiang, lead accounting manager at Plaid. “Finance lost time asking the same questions every month. It was frustrating for our AP lead and for employees, too.”

Plaid sought a single, integrated solution to control spend, automate routine financial processes, and improve the employee experience.

One platform to control spend and automate expense workflows

Plaid selected Brex over competitive solutions because Brex was the only fully integrated, global finance platform. Plaid can efficiently manage corporate cards, reimbursements, business travel, and expense reporting in one place.

Employees no longer have to juggle multiple tools to book travel, track and submit expenses, and request virtual cards. Plaid’s TechOps team uses Brex cards to manage software and hardware purchases, while finance accelerates the month-end close through Brex’s NetSuite integration.

“The big driver was Brex’s consolidated platform,” Sophie said. “Our employees get a single login for travel and expenses, and finance can automate away much of the expense busywork.”

“Each month-end close gets better because Brex eliminated the last-minute work that used to slow us down.”

— Sophie Chiang, Lead Accounting Manager, Plaid

Over $50K in rewards, 30% less time on expenses, and a faster close

With travel, expenses, reimbursements, and vendor spend centralized on Brex, Plaid gained the visibility and efficiency they were looking for. Employees now spend 30% less time submitting expenses thanks to features like auto-generated receipts, AI-suggested categories, and attendee auto-fill from calendar meetings. They also have a single place to request virtual cards, book travel, and get reimbursed in days instead of weeks.

For finance, Brex helped cut 12 hours from every month-end close by automating accruals and expense reconciliations through the NetSuite integration. Spend limits are standardized across the company, including weekly stipends for incidentals, and reconciliation is far less manual.

"With Brex, budgets are managed before spend happens and not after, which eliminates rogue expense reimbursements,” Sophie said. “Each month-end close gets better because Brex eliminated the last-minute work that used to slow us down.”

Sophie said Brex’s visibility has been the differentiator: “Our prior setup didn't give us full visibility into expense details. With Brex, we can trace expenses to their spend limits, which gives us so much more transparency and control.”

Plaid now earns over $50K a year in card rebates, applied directly to their monthly statement, while Brex’s AI and automation tools continue to transform their workflows. “Like most companies, we're leaning into AI to gain new efficiencies,” Sophie said. “Brex has made a huge impact. The pre-filled memos, the auto-categorization, the AI suggestions — it all enables a more productive team. Their constant AI rollouts are helping us move faster.”

For Sandy Yang, Plaid’s head of accounting, Brex creates more space for Plaid to dream big. “Brex is a night-and-day change compared to what we had in the past,” she said. “Brex drives efficiency across the board: employees save time on day-to-day tasks, and our finance team can redirect energy from administration to more value-adding work.”