Can I plan a team event with Brex travel?

Brex Plus The group events feature lets account, card, and travel admins plan travel for groups of employees and see costs incurred against a budget as bookings are made. Event organizers can take the actions detailed below.

Note: If your team doesn't have access to Brex travel, an account or card admin can go to Company settings > Plan and billing in the dashboard. From here, you can click on Enable travel, or Schedule a call to learn more.

Create a group travel event

Step 1: From your Brex dashboard, go to Travel > Events.

Step 2: Click Create event.

Step 3: Enter your event name, destination, start date, end dates, and (optional) a link to the agenda.

You can restrict booking types by disabling options to book flights, lodging, or car rentals. These will show up as restricted or pre-booked in the RSVP form for users. By default, these options are enabled.

Step 4: If you need to book hotel room blocks for multiple guests, set the Lodging to Pre-booked. You’ll fill out more info about your pre-booked rooms later on.

Step 5: After filling out this information, click Create event.

Create a guest list

Step 1: After you’ve created your group event, click Build guest list under manage attendees. You’ll have several options:

• Add manually: Search the names of attendees and click Add to guest list. This is better suited for smaller events.

• Add via CSV: Upload a CSV of names and email addresses and click Add to guest list.

• Add by direct reports: Search for a manage. You’ll see a hierarchy icon on their name that you can click to add all of their direct reports.

Step 2: After creating a guest list, the names of the guest list will populate on the bottom of the screen with a status of Not invited.

Manage your hotel room blocks

A hotel room block is a series of hotel rooms that you’ve already booked outside of Brex, which you can communicate to your attendees when they make their travel arrangements. If you indicated that you already had pre-booked lodging when you created your group travel event, you can provide more info on that here. Otherwise, skip this section.

Step 1: After filling out all your other event details, click Manage hotel room blocks on the right.

Step 2: Click Download attendee list and open the CSV.

Step 3: Fill out columns A through L, adding a line item for every room you have booked. Save the file once complete. Make sure to keep the file in CSV format.

Step 4: Back in your Brex dashboard, upload the file and click Review. If everything looks correct, click Upload.

If you need to make changes in the future, you can edit the CSV and reupload it.

Set up a budget

Step 1: Under Manage budget, click Set up a budget. You’ll have two options to attach your budget:

Step 2a: Request a budget by filling in the budget purpose, entering the budget limit to request, choosing the budget owner(s), and clicking Add budget to event.

Step 2b: Use an existing group travel budget by choosing the budget you want to use and clicking Add budget to event.

Invite your guests

Step 1: From your created guest list, click Manage attendees > Send invites.

Step 2: Guests will be asked the following:

• To confirm their attendance

• Whether or not they need to book travel or accommodation

• For any dietary or accessibility requirements

Step 3: When invites are sent, the guests’ Attendance status under attendee list will switch from Not invited to Awaiting response.

Note: Guests cannot book travel without a budget. You can set this up later and everyone in your guest list will be notified.

Send event reminders

There are two options to send reminders to guests who have neither responded to the invitation nor have fully completed their bookings.

Option 1: Send a manual reminder by going to Manage guests > Send reminders > Send reminder (under Manual reminders).

Option 2: Set up an automatic reminder by going to Manage guests > Send reminders. Under Automatic reminders, toggle the button on.

Accept an invitation

When an employee is invited to a group event, they’ll receive both an email and a push notification via their mobile device that allows them to RSVP. The notification can be found in Inbox > Tasks in your Brex dashboard. The mobile notification can be found under Inbox at the bottom of your Brex app.

Step 1: Click RSVP.

Step 2: Choose from the following:

• I’m attending and I need to book.

• I’m attending but do not need to book.

• I cannot attend this event.

Step 3: Depending on the option selected above, confirm whether you need to book a flight, hotel, or rental car.

Step 4: Input any dietary restrictions and accessibility requirements. You can make modifications to these elections at any time.

Once you confirm the type of bookings you need, the trip that you were invited to will show up in the Trips tab. To get started booking your trip that you were invited to, click Book trip.