# Expense reimbursements Get answers to all of your questions regarding Brex **URL Source:** https://www.brex.com/support/expense-reimbursements --- ## Overview We support comprehensive reimbursement capabilities for your global team. Even if employees happen to spend on their personal cards, you can still leverage the comprehensive approval, compliance, policy, automation, and accounting capabilities in Brex to capture their corporate spend. The reimbursement features let you: - Invite employees to submit reimbursement requests, even if they don't have a Brex card. - Ensure all submitted reimbursements are to policy and have necessary compliance information. - Approve a reimbursement in two clicks or less from your _Expenses_ tab. - Set up managers to approve reimbursements before they come to your finance team. - Set up payment settings per entity, with custom funding sources, payment cycles, and accounting. - Instantly reconcile reimbursements through our comprehensive accounting integrations. ## Enable reimbursements Account and card admins can set up reimbursements for their company by following the steps below. **Note: **To avoid service interruptions, you should first add ACH ID 9121145349 to the [allowlist](https://www.brex.com/allowlist-authorize-brex) for your company’s funding account. ### For your main account (parent entity) **Step 1: **Go to _Accounts _and click _Reimbursement Setup _or _Company settings > Plan _> _Set up employee reimbursements. _**Step 2: **Go through our step-by-step guide to set up funding sources and payment settings. **Step 3:** Choose whether to fund your reimbursements through your Brex business account or your US-based external bank account that has already been linked to your Brex account. If you cannot connect your external bank account through your dashboard, you won’t be able to use it for reimbursements. **Note: **The parent entity account needs to be funded by a US-based bank account. **Step 4: **Set up hierarchical approvals and invite employees. All your invited employees can utilize Brex reimbursements through the web or mobile app. You can also adjust your employees’ permissions to let them submit reimbursement requests even if they don’t have access to a Brex card. By default, payments for your main account are pulled daily. Your payment cycle determines the frequency of the bulk pulls from your funding source and the batched payouts to your employees. ### For each subsidiary entity By default, reimbursements for all your subsidiaries are funded by your parent entity in USD. However, you can choose to separate reimbursement payments by configuring different funding sources, or locally funding your reimbursements for each individual entity. **Step 1:** Go to _Account_ > _Reimbursements_. **Step 2:** Under _Balance_, you can see the entities that are paid with the parent. Click _Manage._ **Step 3:** On the side panel, click _Set up individual payment _for the specific entity. Each entity can configure its own funding source and payment cycle, as applicable. **Note: **Payment cycles are defaulted to “daily.” Your payment cycle determines the frequency of the bulk pulls from your funding source and the batched payouts to your employees. **Step 4**: Click _Review_. Review details, agree to the terms, and click _Confirm_. ### Require spend limits for reimbursement requests You can make spend limits required for reimbursements in _Company settings_ > _Expenses_. If you enable this, you’ll make selecting a spend limit for reimbursements required. If disabled, the spend limit will be optional when a user submits a reimbursement, they can choose to associate the expense with a spend limit, which applies the spend limit’s policy and approval chain to the reimbursement. If they choose not to associate a spend limit, the default policy and approval chain will apply to the reimbursement, instead. All reimbursements will appear in _Expenses_, whether or not it has a spend limit. If the submitter doesn’t select a spend limit, approvers have the option to choose one during the review. ## Disable reimbursements Please [contact Brex Support](https://www.brex.com/contact-and-support) to disable reimbursements. ## Fund reimbursements By default, reimbursements are processed daily on weekdays. This means that your funding source will have a bulk pull once per day, and employees will receive a batched payout once per day. All of these transactions are accounted for, depending on your accounting settings with your ERP setup. With certain ERPs, you can customize your payment cycle as per your needs, scheduling them to occur weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. You can also set custom configurations for your separate entities. Each entity can configure its own payment configuration. When using custom payment cycles, these transactions are accounted for via Accrual accounting. Custom payment cycles can help align reimbursements with your accounting process or corporate reimbursement policy. It is important to note that payment cycles will increase the time for your employees to receive their reimbursements. For entities in countries supported by Brex for direct debit, one bulk amount covering all approved reimbursements will be pulled via local rails (i.e. ACH) from your entity's configured funding source. For other locally funded entities, an account or card admin will need to push money to the payment instructions provided to fund the payouts. For locally funded reimbursements with EU and UK based entities, an account or card admin must authorize new employee accounts viaStrong Customer Authentication (SCA) before funding a reimbursement due to EU and UK regulations. You can see all the employee accounts that are waiting to be added by going to _Accounts _> _Reimbursements > Make payment_. Verify the one-time password and click Authorize to proceed._ _You’ll only be asked once for any new employee account that you’ll reimburse to in the EU and UK. Upon receipt of funding, Brex will process batched payouts to your employees. This means that if there are five approved reimbursements for $10 each for a single employee since the last payment cycle, that employee will see a single transaction for $50 to their bank account. The employee will receive communication of this payment and the reimbursements that contributed to the total of $50 received. You can set your preferred billing cycle in your dashboard and, if you have multiple entities, can customize the funding source and billing cycle per entity. This is all done in your dashboard under _Accounts _> _Reimbursements. _Here, you can click on your specific entity and choose either _Make payment _or _Manage payments_. **Note: **You can make a payment at any time, even mid-cycle. A one-time mid-cycle payment can expedite reimbursement, typically within 0–3 business days, depending on your account. At the end of the cycle, the statement will reflect that the payment was initiated mid-cycle and the amount will be accounted for in the final statement balance. ## See who can receive a reimbursement In order for a team member to submit a reimbursement request and receive reimbursement through Brex, they must first connect a personal bank account, where they’ll receive their reimbursed payment. Account, card admins and any other users with the [specific product capability](https://www.brex.com/custom-roles) have a read-only mode to see which team members are eligible for reimbursements by following the steps below. Former employees can still receive approved reimbursements up to 30 days after termination. **Note: **Only the employee themselves can see the status of their personal bank account connection. **Step 1:** In your dashboard, go to _Team. _**Step 2: **Click on the name of any employee whose status you want to know. **Step 3:** Under _Roles & Access, _find _Submit reimbursements. _**Note**: This is not configurable. ## Submit reimbursement request Employees can submit reimbursement requests for business expenses that were paid out of pocket by following the steps below. ### Connect your personal bank account You can watch the video or follow the steps: ![YouTube Video](https://youtu.be/8DBi9RPH8e0) You only need to do this once. There are two ways to start: Go to _Wallet_ and click _Request reimbursement_. You'll be prompted to connect your bank account before the reimbursement flow starts. Go to _Personal settings_ and find the _Account preferences_ section. You'll see whether a bank account is already connected, or connect one if not. **Step 1:** Select your country and agree to the authorization. **Step 2:** Choose your connection method: - **Bank search:** Search for your bank and connect directly. This is the recommended method. - **Manual:** Scroll to the bottom of the module and click _Connect manually_ to link via account and routing numbers. Brex will verify the connection via a micro-deposit. **Note:** Only you can see the status of your personal bank account connection. Account and card admins cannot view this information. ### All reimbursement types ### In your dashboard You can watch the video or follow the steps: ![YouTube Video](https://youtu.be/BTSobTV6x94) **Step 1:** Go to _Wallet _and click _Request reimbursement_. **Step 2: **Select _Out of pocket_ or _Mileage_ based on your reimbursement. If you haven’t already, you will be asked to connect your personal bank account to receive your funds. **Step 3: **Upload one or more receipts. We’ll automatically read all the receipts and pre-fill data for you. If you’re missing or weren’t issued a receipt, click _Lost or missing a receipt?_. Your account or card admin may reach out to you before approval for more information. **Step 4:** If required, choose the spend limit to fund your reimbursement request. This spend limit must have a timeframe that includes your purchase date. **Step 5: **Enter the details for all the required fields and press _Submit_. ### In your app **Step 1:** After opening your app, tap _Request reimbursement_. **Step 2: **Select _Request reimbursement_ or _Request mileage_ based on your reimbursement. If you haven’t already, you will be asked to connect your personal bank account to receive your funds. **Step 3: **Upload one or more receipts. You can take a photo of your receipt or upload multiple images from your phone’s photo library. We’ll automatically read all the receipts and pre-fill data for you. **Step 4:** Enter the details for all the required fields and tap _Submit._ ### Via email Requesting a reimbursement via email creates a draft reimbursement request in your dashboard. You can then sign in to your dashboard and submit the reimbursement request for account or card admin approval. If you use an email alias, draft reimbursements are associated with the primary email on your Brex account. Sign in to the dashboard to complete and submit your reimbursement for accounts using an email alias. **Step 1: **From the same email address you use to sign in to Brex, begin drafting an email to [reimbursements@brex.com](mailto:reimbursements@brex.com), with your desired memo as the subject line.** Note: **You can forward an existing receipt email to [reimbursements@brex.com](mailto:reimbursements@brex.com) with your desired memo as the subject line. No need to upload any additional documentation to the email body. **Step 2:** Attach one or more receipts for the transaction(s) you want to be reimbursed. A reimbursement request will be created for each receipt attached. **Step 3:** Sign in to the Brex dashboard. Go to _Tasks > Drafts t_o review your draft reimbursements. **Step 4: **Fill out any remaining details and submit the reimbursement(s). ### Bulk upload You can upload all your receipts at once, and our top-of-class algorithms will automatically parse your reimbursement receipt images. Prior to submission, you can make adjustments to the information or fill out any missing details. We recommend using the memo field to enter your trip or report description, so account and card admins can quickly approve all relevant reimbursements. **Note:** Bulk uploading still creates individual reimbursements. ### Reimbursements for trips If you booked a trip using a personal credit card, you can request a reimbursement by following the steps below. ### In your dashboard **Step 1: **Go to _Trips _and click on the trip you want a reimbursement for. **Step 2: **Click the three dots and choose _Request reimbursement_. ## Partial reimbursements ### Request less than expense amount When going through the flow to submit a reimbursement request, the _Amount _field may auto-populate to the entire cost of the expense you’re requesting reimbursement for. If you need to request a partial reimbursement that is less than the amount of the expense, you can manually change the _Amount_ field during the submission process. For example, let’s assume you made a purchase for $150 but only need to reimburse $100. You can manually update the _Amount_ field to $100. ### Separate one receipt across multiple spend limits You can separate your receipt across multiple spend limits by submitting multiple reimbursement requests with the same receipt and assigning to the right spend limit. For example, if you made a purchase for $150, but $80 is for spend limit A and $70 is for spend limit B, you’d start by submitting one reimbursement request for spend limit A. For this request, you can upload the receipt and set the requested reimbursement amount to $80. After submission, submit another reimbursement request for spend limit B by uploading the same receipt and setting the requested reimbursement amount to $70. You can use the memo and comment thread to provide context to expedite approval. ## View saved reimbursement draft You can save reimbursements as a draft to be submitted later. You can find draft reimbursements in _Tasks > Drafts _or _Expenses > Request reimbursement > View drafts._ To view the status of your reimbursement, navigate to _Expenses_ and select the reimbursement in question. ## Cancel reimbursement request You can delete a pending reimbursement request by following the steps below before the payout begins processing. If the reimbursement can’t be canceled due to payout processing, domestic employees can arrange a repayment. If you’re an international employee, we recommend reaching out to your account or card admin to address the situation. ### In your dashboard **Step 1: **Go to _Wallet _and click on the personal reimbursement request you want to cancel. Account and card admins can see reimbursement requests submitted by their entire team in _Expenses._ **Note: **You cannot cancel a pending reimbursement that you didn’t request. **Step 2:** At the bottom of the details window, click _Cancel request_. Your account or card admin can also deny your reimbursement request by clicking _Deny _here, instead. ![HC - Reimbursements Cancel01](https://brand.brex.com/m/2fe3a72775038190/webimage-HC-Reimbursements-Cancel01.png) Note that if a reimbursement has already been approved, employees won’t see a cancellation option in the dashboard, as it is considered final. However, in very limited circumstances, admins may be able to cancel the reimbursement, but the cancellation is not guaranteed and depends on the payment status. If an employee repayment isn't an option, admins can reach out to Brex Support to attempt to cancel the reimbursement. ## Copy reimbursement request You can copy reimbursements that are approved to generate new reimbursement requests by following the steps below. ### In your dashboard **Step 1: **Go to _Wallet _and click the personal reimbursement request you want to copy. **Step 2:** At the bottom of the details window, click the three dots and select _Make a copy_. ## Delete reimbursement Account and card admins can delete denied, failed, or canceled reimbursements so that they no longer appear in their dashboard. Employees can delete their own canceled reimbursements. ### In your dashboard or app **Step 1: **Select the reimbursement you want to delete. **Step 2: **At the bottom of the details window, click _Delete_. **Note: **Once a reimbursement is deleted, it cannot be undone. If you’ve exported the reimbursement to your ERP, you can remove it by manually un-exporting from your provider. ## Resubmit reimbursement If a reimbursement is denied or canceled, you can’t edit the details, but you can resubmit it with updated details for a second chance at approval. By resubmitting, you're submitting the request as a new reimbursement that copies over the values from the old reimbursement. ### In your dashboard **Step 1: **Select the reimbursement you want to resubmit. **Step 2: **At the bottom of the details window, click _Resubmit_. **Note: **You will see both the declined reimbursement and the new record for one resubmitted. ## Approve reimbursement request Account and card admins will see a list of reimbursements needing approval in _Tasks _> _Reimbursements._ On your app, these will appear in your _Tasks_. To approve a reimbursement, click an expense, view details on the right, and click _Approve_. If the request was still waiting on other reviewers or user documentation, you can click _Override additional requirements_ to dismiss those and instantly approve the reimbursement. To request more information from the employee, click _Comments_ to add a comment or _Remind about documentation _to send reminders. After an account or card admin approves a reimbursement, employees will be notified by email and can expect to receive the funds based on the payment settings of the entity. For more information on approval chains, read this [help article](https://www.brex.com/approval-chains). **Note: **Once a reimbursement has been approved, it cannot be cancelled. ### Rapid approval Account and card admins can rapidly filter and bulk approve reimbursements from the _Expenses_ page in your Brex dashboard. By clicking _Group_, you can organize the list based on employee, trip, or other commonalities, so that you can view reimbursement requests in context. Clicking _Add Filter_ narrows down your search by parameters such as how many reimbursements have yet to be paid out, what expenses are pending for a specific subsidiary, or which expenses aren’t compliant. You can use more than one filter at a time. From here, you can bulk approve reimbursements by checking the boxes on the left side of each individual reimbursement or the box above to select all requests in a common group. ![HC - Reimbursements Approve02](https://brand.brex.com/m/604b2dd1dc6152b0/webimage-HC-Reimbursements-Approve02.png) You can leave comments on a reimbursement request to ask the employee for more information about the transaction. Add a ‘@’ followed by the user’s name to tag them, or click _Remind about documentation _to send them an automated reminder. ### Automated approval rules You can configure your policy to auto-approve reimbursements that are under a certain dollar amount. ### In your dashboard **Step 1: **Go to _Cards and Limits > Manage policy _and click _View all_. Read [this help article](https://www.brex.com/policy-rule-builder) for more information on Brex's policy engine. **Step 2:** Select the policy you want to edit and click _Edit_. **Step 3: **You can skip the first page by clicking _Next_. **Step 4: **Click _Edit_ to modify the approval flow for reimbursements. **Step 5**: Under _Approvers,_ click _Add rule_. The default rule lets you choose the minimum dollar amount that requires approval from an account or card admin. For example, if you want reimbursements under $25 to be automatically approved, change _For expenses equal to or above_ to $25. ![HC - Reimbursements Approve01](https://brand.brex.com/m/36a3c6004348bc90/webimage-HC-Reimbursements-Approve01.png) You can configure secondary approvals for reimbursements by clicking _Add another approval step_. This adds another approver to pass the approval chain to after the primary approver has signed off. You can also click _Add another rule_ to make the required approval threshold even more specific. For example, you can configure auto-approval under $25, add single approval for expenses from $25 to $75, and a secondary approval for expenses over $75. ![HC - Reimbursements Approve04](https://brand.brex.com/m/2e709be0db6309e1/webimage-HC-Reimbursements-Approve04.png) ## Delivery time Employees will receive their reimbursement payout 4-8 business days after it’s batched. Different types of reimbursements may have different timelines due to cross-border transfer timelines or payment settlement times. If your entity has configured custom payment cycles (i.e., weekly on Fridays), then funding will only occur as per that payment cycle and will still take 4-8 business days to be received by the employee. The estimated time of arrival for a reimbursement can be seen by clicking on the detailed pane of that reimbursement in the dashboard. **Note:** New accounts and new funding sources may experience longer than normal reimbursement periods due to ACH settlement risk. Please contact Brex Support if this is a prolonged issue. ## Track reimbursement payout After you have submitted your reimbursements, you can track the status of your reimbursement in your Brex dashboard by going to _Wallet_. To track another employee’s reimbursement, an account or card admin can go to _Expenses, _where they can view the status of the reimbursement in the details pane. Locate the reimbursement you want to track from the list and click on it. In the detail pane, if the reimbursement is already approved and is processing, you will see the estimated time of arrival in the blue box: ![HC - Reimbursements Where01](https://brand.brex.com/m/4e7095111cffef4d/webimage-HC-Reimbursements-Where01.png) The _Audit trail_ helps you understand if the reimbursement is still pending approvals so you can reach out to your company admin to get more insights on the approval. Under _Payment status_, you will see if the reimbursement has been initiated to your bank account: - Not Paid: Not yet initiated from the company - Paid: The reimbursement should have arrived in your bank account If the reimbursement has been paid, check your bank account for a transaction from your company’s name. The amount may be higher than your individual reimbursement amount since it will be batched with any other reimbursements that have been paid at the same time. This means that one transaction may include the amounts of multiple reimbursements. Check your email for a breakdown of the total amount into the individual reimbursements that have contributed to the batched payment. ## Reimbursement accounting We support reimbursements under our accounting integrations. Reimbursements will be treated on an accrual basis. This means that we will create an open liability from the date the employee reimbursement is approved and close out the liability when the payment to the reimbursement is made. (Not applicable to Xero customers). Remember to configure your Reimbursement Liability account and funding account on your integration settings to make sure the accounting is done correctly for reimbursements. More information on syncing your reimbursements can be found in [this help article](https://www.brex.com/reimbursements-integration-sync). Each entity can configure its own reimbursement settings and set global entities to be accounted for in local currency by following the steps [here](https://www.brex.com/locally-funded-reimbursements). ## Reimbursement statements Account admins, card admins, or bookkeepers can download statements from the Brex dashboard by following the steps in [this help article.](https://www.brex.com/documents-for-your-account) ## Global reimbursements Read more about Brex’s comprehensive global capabilities in this [help article](https://www.brex.com/global-reimbursements). ## Locally funded reimbursements ** ** Read more about Brex’s ability to receive local currency from your local bank accounts to fund reimbursements in this [help article](https://www.brex.com/locally-funded-reimbursements). ## View reimbursement liability Brex provides a global view of all your unpaid reimbursements liability across all your subsidiaries for easy global management. As reimbursements are paid out, this total balance will update automatically. You can view your total approved reimbursement balance in your dashboard under _Account _> _Reimbursements_. ## Troubleshoot There are multiple reasons why a reimbursement request might fail, but it can usually be attributed to a recipient issue or a funding issue. You can see if a reimbursement has failed by going to either the _Expenses_ page for employee reimbursements, or the _Wallet _page for personal reimbursements. Filter for _Payment status_ and click _Declined/Failed_. When you click on the expense, it will let you know why the reimbursement failed. In some cases, we automatically retry the failed reimbursements after the failure reason is identified and addressed. For example, we’ll re-attempt once a recipient user fixes their bank account issues or passes KYC. We only retry reimbursements approved within the last 90 days. If a reimbursement was approved more than 90 days ago, we won't automatically retry it, even after the failure reason is resolved. ### Deactivated users Once deactivated, reimbursement requests submitted prior to the deactivation of an employee’s Brex account may be processed and paid if approved within 30 days. This is regardless of whether they’re approved before or after deactivation. A reimbursement can be cancelled or denied by following the steps above. After 30 days, the employee’s bank account connection is severed, and you won't be able to pay your employee through Brex. In this case, you can pay the employee outside of Brex and _mark as paid_ for reconciliation. Find more information on offboarding a user in this [help article](https://www.brex.com/manage-users). ### Recipient issues ![HC - Reimbursement Failed 01](https://brand.brex.com/m/4865f8bd14b760a8/webimage-HC-Reimbursement-Failed-01.png) If the personal bank account information is not valid, the employee will need to reconnect their bank account. You can leave a comment in the details pane to help communicate this. After the employee has updated their bank account, we’ll automatically retry any failed reimbursements. ### Funding issues ![HC - Reimbursement Failed 02](https://brand.brex.com/m/b6dea55d4da46b7/webimage-HC-Reimbursement-Failed-02.png) An error message referencing the company bank account may indicate that the bank account used for funding reimbursements doesn’t have enough funds available. If you still want to use this account to fund the reimbursement, you’ll need to increase its balance before retrying. Otherwise, you can choose to use a different bank account that already has the funds available. After making sure your designated bank account has enough funds to cover the reimbursement, an account or card admin can click _Retry payment_ at the bottom of the detail pane to pay the employee’s reimbursement.