Manage custom fields, accounting fields, and user fields

Overview

New for Spring

You can create, configure, and manage fields from the centralized Fields library in your dashboard.

We use accounting fields to capture additional expense details on your transactions prior to exporting to your ERP. You can control which fields your employees will see after submitting an expense.

There are three types of accounting fields within Brex—custom fields, user fields, and accounting fields —which you can manage from Accounting > Fields library.

Custom fields

Custom fields let you manage your expense codification needs in Brex. While custom fields do not directly sync to your ERP, we include them on CSV exports of your transactions. For example, custom fields could be used for capturing an expense’s project codes. Step 1: In your dashboard, go to Accounting > Fields library and click + next to the search bar.

Step 2: Click New custom field and choose which type of custom field you want to create:

• List: Allows users to select a value from a dropdown list you provide.
• Checkbox: Allows users to provide simple yes or no answers. Example: “Sale closed.”
• Freeform: Allows users to enter up to 1,000 characters.

Step 3: Customize your field visibility options. Configure field visibility lets you limit what field values employees can see when they submit expenses. Step 4: Click Create field. Your new field will now be available to categorize expenses across Brex. These fields will be grouped in the fields library under Custom fields. To edit them, click on them and choose Configure field.

Accounting fields

Accounting fields can be imported from your ERP system for use within Brex. They’ll have an ERP icon next to the field name in the Fields & library page, and will be grouped under your ERP name. Below you can see an example using the NetSuite ERP.

Accounting fields will appear here once the integration with your ERP is complete. For more details, check out our article on ERPs here. Note: Fields synced from your ERP are managed within your ERP system and are not directly editable within the Brex platform. Changes made there will then sync to Brex. You cannot directly add, delete, or modify values for these ERP-synced fields within Brex. If you don’t see some of your Accounting fields in Brex, please reach out to Support.

User fields

New for Spring

User fields are used to group and categorize users in Brex. Cost center, Department, Location, and Title are standard Brex fields and will appear here by default. If you opt to connect an HRIS system, you will be given the option to import custom user fields. They’ll be grouped under the User fields section:

Custom user fields will appear here once the integration with your HRIS is complete and your custom field mappings have been set. For more details, check out our article on HRIS here.

If a custom user field is disabled, your data will be kept but no longer visible on the Team page. All associated value, automation, and policy rules will be paused until the field is re-enabled, and the disabled field will no longer be available for selection in these workflows.

Configure field visibility

You can configure field visibility on a per-field basis to support different workflows. Step 1: In the Fields library page, select the field that you want to configure and click on Configure field.

Step 2: Click the pencil icon next to Field visibility.

Step 3: Select which types of transactions your field will show.

Step 4: Select whether this field will be visible to accounting users only or available to all employees.

Create value rules

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You can use value rules to control what field values your employees can see based on another field value. For example, you may want to limit employees from the Sales department to only have access to GL Accounts 6001 - Client meals and 6005 - Client gifts when coding their expenses. Step 1: In Fields library, click the field that you want to configure and click Configure field.

Step 2: Click Configure rules next to Value visibility.

Step 3: Set the specific conditions for which certain values will be visible to employees. Click Save changes when you’re done.

After creating a rule, you can return to the value rules section to delete, duplicate, or edit the existing rules.

Note: Multiple rules may interact with each other. The rules will be evaluated from top to bottom where only the first matching rule will be applied.

Set up dependencies

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You can use dependencies to control field values by the value selected in another field and determine which values are shown in another field. Note: Since dependencies aren’t supported for User Fields, you can’t control or filter values based on User Field selections. For example, if you want to track spend at the project-level, and you have the following fields and values that you need employees to select from during codification.

Without dependencies, each phase and task would be available for selection for each project and employees could select a task that may not be applicable to a given project. However, you can set up a dependency between the three fields so that phase and Task only show valid options based on the selected project.

With this setup, the available field values an employee would see for Phase and Task depends on their selection first on Project, so when coding an expense, only these fields show up in sequence. Note: Please reach out to Brex Support to enable this feature for your account. Step 1: In the Fields library page, select the field that you want to configure and click Configure field.

Step 2: Under Dependencies, click Create dependency.

Step 3: Download and complete the CSV template. When you are ready, upload the completed template and click Review. Follow the steps to set up your dependencies.

Completing the CSV template

The CSV template is split into four sections:

• Instructions: Explains how to fill out the template.
• Recipient Email: Emails included in this section will receive an email notification regarding the status of the dependencies import.
• Field ID Mapping: Provides a mapping of your field names on Brex to their corresponding field IDs. When defining dependencies in the “Dependent lists” section, we require you use the Field ID instead of the Field name to ensure accuracy.
• Dependent Lists: Include all desired permutations of dependencies you want to create or delete. The first row of this section should include the relevant Field IDs for the set of dependent lists you intend to manage on Brex. In addition, the right-most column will be a “Delete (Y)” column that can be used to delete an existing dependent list permutation.

Here is an example of what a completed template may look like:

Adding new dependent lists

You can add new lists by entering new rows in the CSV template.

Deleting dependent lists

Mark the Delete (Y) column to remove a dependent list combination.

Updating dependent lists

To update, delete the old list and add the new one in the same template.

Automatic ERP field syncing

Automatic ERP Field Syncing refreshes daily to update your ERP fields automatically, minimizing the need for manual updates. By default, this feature is disabled, but an admin can activate it by following the steps below: Step 1: In your Accounting dashboard, click [Your ERP] settings. Step 2: Under Integration management, toggle on Auto-refresh. You can toggle this off later if you want to disable auto-refresh. Once enabled, a progress bar will track data export or import progress for you. You’ll also receive notifications on success or failure. Note: If an error occurs during auto-refresh, the system will halt further refresh attempts until the issue is resolved.