Accounts with multiple entities
This article refers to a feature that might not be available in your current Brex plan. If you'd like to learn more about this feature and how to unlock additional capabilities in Brex's upgraded plans, please have your account or card admin reach out to Brex Support by clicking on Support in your dashboard.
Overview
Brex lets you easily manage all your spend across multiple subsidiaries and countries from a single dashboard. Map your legal* entities in Brex to the correct entities in NetSuite so that you can report and analyze your spend at any level. To add your entities and employees to Brex, navigate to Team > Entities. All companies will have one default entity already created. *Legal entity in this context refers to an independently incorporated company having a unique legal entity identifier (LEI).
Adding subsidiary entities
Manually
Step 1: Navigate to Team in your dashboard. Step 2: Entities > Add entity. Note: After you’ve added an entity, you’ll be prompted to provide additional company information. Brex has a regulatory obligation to collect and verify Know Your Customer (KYC) information on each legal entity prior to providing any financial services. After you’ve finished, you can begin adding entities and employees.
Via CSV import Premium Enterprise Smart card
You can add new employees to your account in bulk through a CSV upload, At the time of upload, Empower customers can designate that employee’s Legal entity.
Note: After you’ve added an entity, you’ll be prompted to provide additional company information. Brex has a regulatory obligation to collect and verify Know Your Customer (KYC) information on each legal entity prior to providing any financial services. Please find the list of documents needed in the section below
Specifying an employee's entity
Manually
Step 1: When manually inviting an employee, click Team > Company > Invite > Invite by email. Step 2: Under the Select Entity dropdown, select their legal entity. Alternatively, if the employee is already in Brex, go to Team > Company, select the employee, and change their entity under the Entity dropdown.
Required information and documents
Once you add an entity, as part of Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, we may ask for the following information before providing any financial services:
- Full legal name
- DBA (if applicable)
- Valid physical address
- Government issued company ID number (i.e. EIN for US entities)
You’ll also be asked to specify the relationship between your newly added entity and your Brex account’s existing entity. You can do this by providing a corporate organization chart and/or adding a description that details this relationship between entities. Note: When you open accounts outside of the United States (such as to support your locally-funded reimbursement and/or local card collections activity outside of the United States), you’ll be opening accounts with our banking and payments partners. As such, you must comply with their KYC requirements, which could mean providing information and/or documents in addition to the ones you provided when signing up for Brex. We’ll request this information on a case-by-case basis.
Deleting entities
Manually
Step 1: Navigate to Team > Entities. Step 2: Click on the row with the legal entity you’d like to delete. Step 3: A panel should open on the right side of your screen (full screen on mobile). If the entity has zero employees assigned to it and is not a separately-billed entity, click Delete at the bottom of the panel.
Billing
If you have multiple entities, you can customize each one to better align with how they individually operate. This includes applying separate billing information, as well as setting local billing and transaction currency.
Separate card billing for your entity Essentials Enterprise
Step 1: In your Brex dashboard, navigate to Accounts. Step 2: In the Credit row, click the parent entity > Edit billing settings. Step 3: Select the entity you would like to update your payment settings for. Step 4: Select the entity’s country and billing currency. If this is a USD entity, select your autopay account. Note: Your ability to select a billing currency and bill separately will depend on your Brex plan. If you are interested in billing an entity in your local currency, please contact your account representative. Step 5: Agree to the terms which confirm that the liability of the loan remains with the parent entity and click Confirm. Please be aware that these changes are permanent. Once you set an entity to be billed separately, it can no longer be billed back to the parent. Because all Brex cards are issued to employees in the currency that matches their entity’s billing currency, please make sure you’ve set up your entity to be billed in local currency before issuing a local card. After doing so, any cards belonging to employees of that entity will automatically start being billed in the local currency.
Edit billed entity of a card expense
For accounts with multiple entities, admins and bookkeepers can change the spend and billed entity, so long as the card expense is billed to your primary entity or is still processing. Step 1: Go to Expense and click the card expense you want to update. Step 2: In the details window, go to Entity and select the spend entity you want to change the expense to. Alternatively, select a different spend limit to automatically update the spent by and billed to entities. Note:. You can only update the billed entity if the expense is still processing. If we’ve already processed the expense and billed it to your primary entity, you can only update the spend entity.
View bills or statements for each entity
You can view bills or statements for each individual entity in your dashboard by clicking the entity’s name under Accounts > Credit.
Changing autopay for an entity
You can also change the autopay account for an individual entity in your dashboard by clicking the entity’s name under Accounts > Credit and selecting Edit billing settings. Follow the steps in this article to complete the process.
Manual payments for an entity
You can initiate manual payments towards your bill each month from your bank account by following the steps below. Step 1: In your Brex dashboard, navigate to Accounts. Step 2: Select your local entity and click View payment info. Follow the payment instructions when they open in the sidebar. Note: If you want to make a payment via SWIFT wire, you can use the details in the sidebar under Payment instructions. Step 3: Checkmark the box when you’ve finished making the payment. Note: We’ll notify you if we don’t receive your payment within 12 days of the billing statement date. our parent entity will be charged if we do not hear back from you.
Reimbursements
Your reimbursement balances are available in multiple currencies across your subsidiaries in one easy-to-manage dashboard. Your reimbursement balance is based on the foreign exchange rate at the time of each transaction. Your reimbursements dashboard allows you to see your overall spend throughout the globe broken out by subsidiary and the currency each operates in. Select an entity to view employee transactions and manage reimbursement payments for that entity. To complete the setup of locally funded reimbursements, you’ll be asked to provide additional company information to satisfy our 3rd party payment partners’ KYC requirements, such as Airwallex or dLocal. Brex has a regulatory obligation to collect and verify Know Your Customer (KYC) information. Note: If you want to make a payment via SWIFT wire, click View payment info and use the details in the sidebar under Payment instructions.
Separate reimbursement billing for your entity
By default, reimbursements are funded by your parent entity in USD, but you can change this to a more applicable currency.
View and pay reimbursement statements for each entity
You can view bills or statements for each separate entity by clicking the billed entity’s name in your dashboard under Accounts > Reimbursements.
Managing spend
Using one card program across subsidiaries
You can track card spend across your subsidiaries through one unified card program. This leaves you with only one credit limit to manage.
Using your dashboard, you can see your overall spend broken out by subsidiary and local currency, regardless of where the transaction took place in the world. Your balance and available credit is updated in real-time as spend occurs, using the foreign exchange rate at the time of transaction to determine your overall balance.
Using global spend limits
Each spend limit can be individually set up and managed depending on how you run your business in different markets. Your spend limits page shows you both card and reimbursement spend, giving you a complete view of your spending across subsidiaries. Any changes you make to spend limits and employee access will be implemented instantaneously. You can select the spend currency when you set up a spend limit, which cannot be changed once the limit is used. For more information on how to edit spend limits, read this help article.