Accounting tab guide
Overview
Account admins and bookkeepers can automate accounting workflows so that Brex expenses are exported directly to their ERP or can be downloaded as a CSV file.
Getting started as a first time-user
To set up your accounting tab for the first time, please follow our guidelines below. Step 1: In your dashboard, go to Accounting > Get started > Continue. Step 2: Select your integration from the list of options and press Continue. If you don’t see your integration, select I don’t use any of these to use Custom Accounting. Step 3: Follow the prompts on the screen and click Continue to move forward when complete. After enabling token authentication and reviewing your connection, you’ll be redirected to the Integrations page in your dashboard, where you’ll confirm that your integration has been successfully connected. Step 4: Navigate back to Accounting, and confirm that your fields were successfully imported. Once the importing is complete, you’ll see a green banner at the top of the page:
Step 5: Set up your GL mappings by clicking Get started at the top of the screen. Step 6: Follow the prompts and select the key GL accounts that will inform Brex how you would want Brex to post your transactions. You can set key accounts such as Accounts Payable, Card collections, or Rewards credit. Once you’ve set these, click Continue. Step 7: [Optional] Create mappings to help you auto-categorize your transactions, and click Continue. You can always set these later in Accounting > Manage Accounting Fields.
Note: To refresh your integration at any point and sync over any changes made in your ERP, go to Accounting > Manage [integration]. On the Integration Management section, click on Refresh.
Accounting fields
To view fields brought in by your ERP integration or edit any existing custom accounting fields created in Brex, navigate to Accounting > Manage accounting fields > Fields & mappings.
Employee visibility
If you’re using QuickBooks Online or NetSuite, admins can selectively enable or disable specific integration fields on a per-field basis.
Accounting journal
As an admin or controller, you have access and can delegate access to the Brex accounting journal, where you’ll find tools to help you close the books. When you click Accounting from your dashboard, you’ll get a high-level overview of where your transactions are in the close process.
Two-step process of creating journal entries
The accounting journal was optimized for accounts payable (AP) teams with two roles in mind: a preparer and an exporter. For some companies, this may be the same person, but the two-step process can still be beneficial for ensuring transactions are coded correctly.
Transactions to prepare
Accounting teams can use this table to prepare transactions for their general ledger by categorizing their accounting fields. To prepare transactions, go to Accounting > Transactions to prepare. In this page, you can take action on each transaction:
- Update GL accounts, department, location, class, and other accounting fields.
- Search and filter transactions.
- Comment to the expense owner by clicking on each transaction.
- Access an audit log that shows transaction editing history.
Marking transactions as prepared
Mark transactions as prepared by either selecting an individual transaction or selecting a date range and the box next to all transactions. Once transactions have been selected, mark them as ready by clicking Mark as prepared. They will then be moved to Ready for export.
Bulk actions on transactions
You can also bulk edit your transactions on the Transactions to prepare page. To do so: Step 1: Select all transactions you’d like to edit. Note that you can click Select all [#] if you want to select all of the transactions on a given page of the accounting journal beyond the visible ones.
Step 2: Perform the action you’d want to take on all transactions. You can either mark all selected transactions as prepared, export them, download them, or edit a field.
Ready for export
Once transactions have been marked as prepared, they’ll show up on the Ready for export page. These transactions are ready for a final review before exporting. Go to Accounting > Ready for export to view all transactions that have been prepared for review and export. Note: On this page, you’ll have the same filters and searching functions as those from the Transactions to prepare page, but you will not be able to edit any fields for any transactions. Here, you can either export or send transactions back to review. To export transactions, select a date range and all transactions, or select individual transactions and click Export. If you find something that needs to be re-categorized, select a transaction and click Send back to prepare. After a transaction is sent back to prepare, it will be flagged on the Transactions to prepare page. You can filter these using the Sent back for review option in the status filter.
Download transactions before export
If your company uses QuickBooks Online or NetSuite, admins can easily download transactions from the accounting journal as a .csv, .xlsx or .txt file. To do so: Step 1: Go to Accounting > Transactions to prepare, or Accounting > Ready for export to view all transactions that have been prepared for review and export. Step 2: Select the set of transactions you want to download. Step 3: Click the download icon next to Mark as prepared, choose the format that you want, and click Download.
Exported transactions
You can view all transactions that have been successfully exported from Brex. If your company uses QuickBooks Online or NetSuite and you find that a transaction is missing, follow these steps: Step 1: Go to Accounting > Exported transactions. Step 2: Choose either View by export or View by transaction to see which transactions were successfully exported.
View by export
With this view, each row in the table represents one export attempt. You’ll be able to see five types of export statuses here:
- Processing: the export batch is currently being processed. Please wait a few minutes until the export is resolved.
- Exported: the export batch has been successfully exported, this means all of the transactions exported were successfully posted to your ERP. You can click on an Exported row and drill down to see the specific transactions that were exported as part of this export.
- Failed: the export batch failed to export. You can click on a Failed row to understand the details of the export attempt and the error that caused the export to fail. To view the transactions that failed to export, click View non-exported transactions.
- Partial export: part of the export has been successfully exported, and part of the batch failed to export. This means some of the transactions were successfully posted to your ERP. You can click on a Partial Export row to find out which transactions were successfully exported, and which failed to export.
- Sent back from export: the export batch has been successfully exported, but was sent back to Transactions to prepare for re-preparation and re-export.
View by transaction
With this view, each row in the table represents one exported transaction. You can use search and filtering functionality to reconcile what has been exported from Brex with what’s been posted to your ERP.
Sending back an export to Transactions to prepare
If you made a mistake and want to re-export transactions that were previously exported, please note that Brex will not delete exported entries from your ERP. To send exported transactions back to Transactions to Prepare: Step 1: Navigate to Accounting > View by export, and click on an export row with a green Exported status that you want to re-categorize and re-export. Step 2: Click on the three dots, and select Send back to transactions to prepare. Note that only account admin users can perform this action. Step 3: Carefully read the warning sign and click Send back to prepare. The transactions that comprised this export will now appear on the Transactions to prepare page.
Step 4: The transactions you sent back will have a Previously exported tag. This ensures your team knows these transactions have been previously exported, to reduce the risk of posting duplicate entries on your ERP.