End-to-End Finance Automation: Top Picks Beyond Brex

Brex is one of the leading financial solutions for startups and high-growth companies that are looking for robust expense management and corporate card programs. However, organizations have unique needs that often require exploring other options. Whether you’re looking for broader global payment features, advanced AP automation, or industry-specific tools, the fintech market offers a range of alternatives to Brex.

In this article, we’ll take a deeper dive into the top competitors of Brex, looking at strengths, features, and ideal use cases to help you find the perfect financial solution for your business.

Top Alternatives and Competitors to Brex

Tipalti

Tipalti is a top-reviewed and popular financial operations solution offering advanced expense management and corporate card tools designed to streamline company spend and improve controls. Tipalti’s main features automate expense reporting, enforce policy compliance, and provide real-time visibility, enabling companies to manage their financial workflows precisely. With global reimbursement capabilities and innovative corporate card features, Tipalti simplifies how companies handle employee expenses and vendor payments at scale.

Top Features

• Expense management: automates the submission, categorization, and approval of employee expenses, reducing administrative workload.
• Corporate cards: Tipalti Card offers physical and virtual cards with customizable controls, real-time tracking, and automatic reconciliation.
• AP automation: from self-service supplier onboarding with built-in tax compliance to automated invoice management and fast global payments.
• Global payments: facilitates reimbursements in 120+ local currencies across 196 countries, ensuring seamless international expense management.
• ERP integration: integrates with accounting software like NetSuite and QuickBooks for unified financial management tools.
• Procurement: end-to-end procurement with 3-way PO matching, guided purchase requests, and automated approvals.

Serviceable Market

Tipalti caters to businesses of various sizes (from small businesses to enterprise companies) in many industries like SaaS, digital advertising, e-commerce, and media. It’s especially beneficial for businesses with a high volume of employee-initiated expenses or global payment needs.

Strengths

• Extensive expense management automation and receipt scanning.
• Corporate card solutions with user-friendly spend controls.
• International payment and multi-currency support.
• Seamless integration with leading ERP systems for efficient reconciliation.
• Real-time visibility into expenses and spending patterns.

Pricing

Tipalti’s pricing is tailored based on the specific needs of your business, including transaction volume, feature requirements, and company size. The system follows a subscription-based model with additional charges for premium features or higher transaction volumes. Businesses can request a customized quote for a detailed breakdown. The Starter plan for accounts payable starts at $99/month.

BILL

BILL is an AP, AR, and financial operations platform that offers expense management and the BILL Divvy corporate card. Its tools automate expense reporting, enforce policy compliance, and provide real-time visibility into cash flow. Key features of the system allow a business to create and pay bills, control budgets, manage expenses, and even provides a line of credit.

Top Features

• Spend and expense management: combine a powerful company card with expense management software to streamline reporting.
• Virtual cards: create instant virtual cards to manage subscriptions and make online purchases.
• Budget management: set spend controls to keep finance teams on budget.
• Accounts payable automation: BILL Pay to capture, approve, pay, and sync invoice data with your entire system.
• Reporting and insights: real-time visibility into spend right as it’s happening with a simple user interface.

Serviceable Market

BILL payments is a great Brex alternative because it serves a variety of businesses, including professional services, healthcare, accounting, retail, etc. It is particularly beneficial for companies looking to reduce manual AP/AR tasks, enhance cash flow visibility, and improve financial operations

Strengths

• Streamlines expense management from submission to reimbursement.
• Virtual cards with robust spending controls, enhancing financial oversight.
• Seamless integration with leading ERP systems and popular platforms.

Pricing

• Essentials plan: $45 per user/month.
  • Basic AP and AR automation.
  • Ideal for businesses with straightforward payment and billing needs.
• Team plan: $55 per user/month.
  • Advanced features like approval workflows and integrations.
  • Suitable for teams managing more complex financial workflows.

Concur

SAP Concur is a leading provider of integrated expense, business travel, and invoice management tools, designed to streamline finance for a business of any size. Concur automates key financial processes like expense management, travel booking, reporting, approvals, and more. The system helps to reduce manual work, facilitates accounting automation, set spend limits, and optimize travel management.

Top Features

• Travel management: centralized booking for flights, hotels, and car rentals with real-time trip updates.
• Expense management: automated expense tracking and reporting with receipt capture via mobile app (automated receipts scanning)
• Mobile accessibility: manage expenses, book travel, and remotely approve invoices.
• Global compliance: localized tax and regulatory compliance for international operations.
• Invoice management: OCR invoice capture with automated approval workflows and PO matching.

Serviceable Market

SAP Concur serves a wide range of organizations and industries, primarily focusing on companies that need streamlined solutions for managing expenses, travel, and AP workflows. The scalable offerings make it suitable for both small businesses and larger enterprises.

Strengths

• Physical (Mastercard and Visa) and virtual cards with strong spending controls, enhancing financial oversight.
• Enables seamless global reimbursements and payments, accommodating diverse financial operations.
• Ensures efficient data flow and reduces manual data entry through integration with popular ERPs and accounting platforms.

Pricing

SAP Concur’s pricing is customized based on the size of the business, the features required, and the volume of transactions. While it does not publicly disclose standard pricing on its website, you can contact sales for a custom quote.

Expensify

Expensify is a cloud-based expense and spend management platform that is one of the best Brex alternatives out there. That’s because it helps a business streamline the entire process of tracking, submitting, and reimbursing expenses. The system is known for its user-friendly interface, robust features, and advanced expense functionality for a company of any size.

Top Features

• Corporate card management: Expensify Cards with automated expense categorization and policy enforcement.
• Customizable approval workflows: multi-level approval chains for faster reimbursement with instant notifications.
• Key integrations: connects with popular ERPs and accounting software like Xero, NetSuite, Sage, and Quickbooks.
• Reimbursement and payments: direct deposit reimbursements for employees and automated payment processing.
• Mobile accessibility: mobile app for receipt capture, report submission, and remote approvals.

Serviceable Market

Expensify serves companies of every size, including freelancers and individuals who require extensive expense tracking and management. The affordability and user-friendly atmosphere make it particularly appealing to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), though it also scales effectively for larger organizations as well.

Strengths

• User-friendly automation technology for everything from receipt scanning to expense categorization.
• Flexible features and pricing plans that are easily scalable for a variety of business needs.
• Seamless integrations with major accounting platforms ensuring a smooth flow of financial data.

Pricing

• Collect plan: $5 per user/month.
  • Companies that need receipt collection and expense processing.
• Control plan: $9 per user/month.
  • Advanced features like policy enforcement, approval workflows, and integrations.
  • Ideal for companies seeking more control over expense management.

PayEm

PayEm is a spend management and procurement platform that streamlines expense tracking, AP processes, and employee reimbursements. The system was developed to provide end-to-end control over company spend and offers tools for budgeting, invoice management, and real-time visibility. It is particularly suited for growing organizations that need an all-in-one platform to manage spend efficiently.

Top Features

• Customized requests: teams can submit fund, card, and other requests through personalized forms with dynamic conditional logic.
• Corporate cards: virtual and physical corporate cards with customizable spending controls, real-time tracking, and automatic transaction reconciliation.
• Invoice management: AI-powered invoice processing to automate the capture, creation, and scheduling of payments in any currency.
• Procurement Management: streamlines procurement by enabling the creation and management of POs.
• ERP Integration: integrates with existing ERP systems like NetSuite and QuickBooks, ensuring data consistency and operational efficiency.

Serviceable Market

PayEm serves organizations of all sizes, with a focus on mid-market and evolving/scaling companies. It is particularly valuable for companies with distributed teams, global operations, or those looking to consolidate spend management and procurement under one roof.

Strengths

• Unified platform for managing requests, corporate cards, invoices, procurement, and optimizing financial operations.
• Granular control over expenses, ensuring businesses set budgets, usage dates, and card types according to their specific needs.
• Virtual cards with unique numbers, instant card locking, and fraud protection.

Pricing

PayEm’s pricing is customized based on the specific needs of the business, including transaction volume, feature requirements, and company size. Pricing details are not publicly disclosed, but Companies are encouraged to contact PayEm for a tailored quote.

Honorable Mentions

• Airbase
• Ramp
• Navan

Brex vs Tipalti

What Does Tipalti Do?

Tipalti provides an award-winning AP automation, expense management, and corporate card solution across your entire business. The system provides granular control over the entire payable process to protect you from fraud, Tipalti boasts features like: 

• Purchase order management
• Tax and regulatory compliance 
• Self-service supplier portal for easy onboarding

• Tipalti Detect with detailed payee monitoring to prevent fraud
• Custom approval flows with predictive routing via artificial intelligence

Tipalti Product Capabilities Overview

Tipalti software improves efficiency and offers a new level of scalability while reducing extra headcount. The intelligent tool saves your company money, processing transactions with a variety of different payment methods, across 196 countries, in 120 currencies.  

The software boasts advanced FX solutions, like hedging and intercompany transfers, and easily integrates with all ERPs and accounting systems. This includes popular platforms like:

• Microsoft Dynamics
• NetSuite
• QuickBooks
• Intacct and Sage ERP
• Xero
• Acumatica
• SAP ERPs

Tipalti is a simple setup, and implementation can be completed in as little as a few weeks.

What Does Brex Do?

Brex is an expense and spend management platform that also offers bill pay and travel. It has basic invoice-processing functionalities, including header-level OCR and invoice capture. The system offers a range of products, including corporate credit cards, expense management solutions, cash management accounts, and financial reporting. However, Brex does not offer all the end-to-end AP capabilities that Tipalti does, like self-service onboarding, tax compliance, or procurement.

Brex Product Capabilities Overview

Brex is designed to empower companies with seamless access to capital and modern financial tools. The platform focuses on simplifying financial workflows, providing companies with real-time insights, automated expense tracking, and robust integrations with popular ERP systems.

• Corporate credit cards with high credit limits tailored to business needs
• Automatic receipt capture and reconciliation with custom spend controls
• Business bank accounts with no monthly fees and payroll integration
• Support for international spending via corporate cards
• ERP integrations with key systems like QuickBooks and NetSuite

Brex also includes an easy-to-use dashboard for simplified cash flow tracking.

Features of Tipalti vs. Brex

Knowing Which Solution is Best for Your Business

When to Choose Tipalti?

Your business needs global payment tools with supplier management.

If your organization regularly handles vendor payments across the globe, Tipalti is the clear choice. It supports payments in 120+ currencies and across various payment methods (like debit cards, ACH, wire, PayPal, etc.), along with built-in tax compliance and reporting features. The system also offers a self-service portal for empowered supplier management that eliminates your manual work.

You need AP automation in addition to expense management.

If you need a solution for AP automation, Tipalti will be your best option. Features like automated invoice processing, approval workflows, and payment reconciliation, make it ideal for companies managing high volumes of supplier transactions.

You need to focus on compliance and risk management.

Tipalti has always offered strong features for regulatory compliance, like tax form collection (W-9, W-8), OFAC screening, and fraud detection. If your business needs to focus on maintaining compliance and reducing risk, Tipalti provides extensive safeguards that go beyond Brex’s capabilities.

When to Choose Brex?

You want a corporate card with tailored rewards.

If your organization prioritizes access to corporate credit cards with high limits, no personal guarantees, and rewards tailored to specific spend categories like travel, SaaS, and marketing, Brex is the better choice. Its credit card offerings are more startup-friendly.

Your business only needs expense management capabilities.

Brex offers advanced tools for real-time expense tracking, automated receipt capture, and spend policy enforcement. It offers seamless integration with accounting systems, making it ideal for startups and growth-stage companies who need to efficiently manage employee expenses.

You run a startup or venture-backed company.

Brex is designed to specifically serve the needs of startups and fast-growing businesses. If you’re looking for a financial tool that may understand the unique challenges of a startup environment, Brex stands out as the better option.

What Customers Are Saying

The inefficient days are behind us. Tipalti provides a level of visibility and efficiency that has dramatically increased our team’s output.

Mark Lewis, CFO, Decide

We replaced what was a 19-person department at National Geographic handling intellectual property management and payables, and we’re able to guarantee a 30% savings on total cost of running an operation like that.

Ed Klaris, CEO, KlarisIP

We’re developing our human capital internally as opposed to spending money on manual, error-prone, processes where people can’t keep up with growing volumes.

Courtney Santry, Controller, Sensei

Summing it Up

Choosing the right financial solution requires careful consideration of unique business needs, whether it’s expense management, global payments, or accounts payable automation. While Brex certainly excels when serving startups (corporate card offerings and real-time expense tracking), alternatives like Tipalti offer more comprehensive features, like global payment capabilities, advanced AP automation, and customizable financial workflows. 

Make sure to evaluate the strengths and pricing of each option, so you can find the best fit for your company’s size, growth stage, and financial goals. Tipalti is a great place to start. Book a free demo today!