Brex Statement to Excel: Card and Account Guide

TL;DR Brex users usually deal with two kinds of records: corporate card statements and business account statements. Treat them as separate accounts. Get the official statement for each period, convert it to one row per transaction with a signed amount, and check that the previous balance plus new charges, minus payments and credits, equals the new balance. On a card statement, payments to Brex are not expenses, they're transfers from your bank account; on the business account side, card repayments are outgoing transfers to the card. Once each account reconciles on its own, you can map categories to your chart of accounts and import into QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite.

Brex is used by many startups and growing companies for corporate cards, spend management and business accounts. Its dashboard is designed for approvals, receipts and policies, which is great for day-to-day control. Month-end is a different story: your accountant wants a reconciled list of transactions that matches the statement, in a format the general ledger can take.

This guide covers how Brex records are structured, which files to use, how to convert statements to Excel, a worked reconciliation for a card statement, and how to keep card and account activity from double-counting in your books. Brex updates its product regularly, so we describe screens and options generally instead of giving exact click paths.

Two accounts, two reconciliations

The most common mistake with Brex data is treating everything as one list. In most setups there are at least two separate things:

• The corporate card. Employees make purchases, the balance builds up, and the company repays it, often on a daily or monthly schedule depending on the account. From an accounting point of view this is a liability account, similar to a credit card.
• The business account (if you use one). This holds cash, receives deposits and sends payments, including repayments of the card balance. From an accounting point of view this is a bank account.

Each needs its own statement, its own opening and closing balance, and its own reconciliation. A card repayment appears in both: as a payment that reduces the card balance, and as an outgoing transfer from whichever bank account paid it. If you count it as an expense in either place, you've double-counted.

If you repay the card from an account at another bank, the same logic applies: the repayment is a transfer between that bank account and the Brex card liability.

Which files to use

Brex generally gives you a few ways to get data out. The options depend on your account and plan, so check what's available.

• Statements (PDF). The formal monthly record, showing the previous balance, activity and new balance for the period. This is what you reconcile against, and what auditors and lenders usually want to see.
• Transaction exports (such as CSV). Usually richer: they may include the cardholder, merchant category, memo, receipt status, department or custom fields. They're ideal for analysis but are often filtered by date and may include pending items or exclude some adjustments.
• Accounting integrations. Brex can connect to several accounting platforms. Integrations are useful going forward, but if you're catching up on past months, fixing a broken sync or reviewing what was posted, you'll still want a statement-based reconciliation.

A practical rule: reconcile from the statement, enrich from the export. Use the statement to prove completeness. Use the export's extra fields, such as cardholder and memo, to categorise.

Converting a Brex statement to rows

If you have a CSV export, Excel opens it directly. If you're working from PDF statements, perhaps because you're a bookkeeper receiving them from a client, or because the export doesn't match the statement period, you need to convert them.

• Copy and paste from the PDF works for a few lines but often merges columns and drops signs.
• Power Query in Excel for Windows can extract tables from PDFs. See our Power Query guide.
• SheetStatement's credit card statement converter turns the PDF into one row per transaction with a signed amount, and checks the balances before export. The free plan covers 3 pages a month; Starter ($9), Pro ($19) and Business ($39) monthly plans handle more.

The target layout for a card statement:

Choose a sign convention and stick to it. For a card account, a common convention is charges positive, payments and credits negative, because charges increase what you owe. Some accounting tools expect the opposite on import, which you can handle at the import step by multiplying by −1. Our credit card reconciliation guide explains both conventions.

The Type column is where you tag each row as Purchase, Refund, Payment, Fee or Adjustment. It makes the reconciliation and the bookkeeping far easier.

Reconciling a card statement step by step

Step 1: get the summary figures

From the statement, note the previous (opening) balance and the new (closing) balance. Many card statements also show subtotals for purchases, payments and credits. Write those down too.

Step 2: check the totals by type

Using the Type column, sum each group:

=SUMIFS(D:D, E:E, "Purchase")
=SUMIFS(D:D, E:E, "Payment")
=SUMIFS(D:D, E:E, "Refund")

Compare each total to the statement's subtotals. This is faster than hunting through every row: if purchases match but payments don't, the problem is in the payments.

Step 3: run the balance check

With charges positive and payments negative:

=ROUND(Opening + SUM(D2:D500) - Closing, 2)

The result should be zero.

Step 4: investigate any difference

• Equal to one transaction: a row is missing or duplicated.
• Twice a transaction: a sign is wrong, often a refund recorded as a charge.
• Equal to a payment: a repayment fell just inside or outside the statement period.
• Small, odd amounts: fees, interest or foreign transaction charges missed in conversion.

If your conversion has a running balance, a row-by-row check pinpoints the first error. The running balance guide shows how.

Worked example

Here's an illustrative card statement for a small team. All figures are invented to show the method.

Previous balance: $4,200.00. New balance: $3,914.75.

Purchases: 812.40 + 486.20 + 612.00 + 79.00 + 245.15 + 2,000.00 = 4,234.75. Payments: −4,200.00. Refunds: −120.00.

Check: 4,200.00 + 4,234.75 − 4,200.00 − 120.00 − 3,914.75 = 0.00. The statement reconciles.

For the books, the expenses are the purchases net of the refund: $4,114.75, split by category. The $4,200 payment is not an expense. It moves money from the bank account to settle last month's card balance, and it should match an outgoing transfer on your business account statement for the same amount. If you can't find that matching transfer, that's the next thing to investigate.

Mapping categories to your chart of accounts

Brex exports usually include a merchant category and may include your own categories or custom fields. These rarely match your chart of accounts exactly. A lookup table solves it:

Then:

=XLOOKUP(F2, Map[Category], Map[GL account], "Review")

Anything that comes back as "Review" needs a human decision. Our guide to Excel formulas to categorise transactions covers keyword-based rules, and categorising business expenses from bank statements covers how to set up sensible categories in the first place.

Department or cardholder fields are useful for management reporting. A pivot table by cardholder and category answers most "who spent what" questions in a minute.

Avoiding double-counting with the bank side

When the card and the bank account are both in your books, every card repayment needs to appear once in each, as a transfer:

• On the bank account: an outgoing payment to Brex, coded to the card liability account.
• On the card account: an incoming payment that reduces the balance, coded to the bank account.

In accounting software, you'd usually record this as a single transfer between the two accounts, then match both bank feed lines to it. If you import both statements and code the repayment as an expense on the bank side, you'll double-count every purchase.

A quick test: total expenses for the month should be close to total card purchases plus non-card spending from the bank. If expenses are close to purchases plus repayments, something's coded twice.

Importing into accounting software

Once the card statement reconciles:

• QuickBooks Online can import credit card transactions from CSV into a credit card account. Check the sign convention carefully. See importing credit card transactions into QuickBooks Online.
• Xero accepts CSV statement imports into a credit card account. See the Xero CSV import format.
• NetSuite and other ERPs typically import through bank or card statement import features. See importing bank statements into NetSuite.

If an integration already synced some transactions, import only the missing ones. Fixing duplicate transactions in QuickBooks helps if you've already doubled up.

Month-end routine for Brex

A simple monthly checklist:

1. Download the card statement and, if applicable, the business account statement.
2. Convert each to rows and run the balance check.
3. Tag each card row by type and category; review anything flagged.
4. Match each card repayment to the corresponding bank transfer.
5. Chase missing receipts or memos for anything material.
6. Import or confirm the entries in your accounting software.
7. Reconcile the card and bank accounts in your software to the statement closing balances.

This fits into a broader month-end close checklist.

Accruals and cut-off at month-end

Card statements rarely close on the last day of the month. If your Brex statement period runs, say, from the 20th to the 19th, a strict month-end close needs a small adjustment.

There are two common ways to handle it:

• Reconcile by statement, report by month. Reconcile each statement exactly as issued, because that's the only way the balance check works. Then, for monthly reporting, use the transaction dates to allocate purchases to the right month. A filter on the Date column gives you the month's purchases regardless of which statement they came from.
• Accrue the stub period. At month-end, take the purchases posted between the last statement date and the month-end date (from the export or the dashboard) and record them as an accrual, reversing it once the next statement arrives. This is more work, but it's what many companies with formal monthly closes do.

For a small company, the first approach is usually enough. If you have investors or lenders expecting accrual-basis monthly accounts, talk to your accountant about which method they prefer, and apply it consistently.

Either way, keep the statement reconciliation separate from the reporting adjustment. Mixing the two makes it impossible to tell later whether a difference is a data problem or a timing choice.

Preparing for an audit or due diligence

Startups that use Brex often go through financial due diligence for a fundraise, or a first audit as they grow. Card activity tends to attract questions, because it's spread across many people and many small transactions.

What usually helps:

• A reconciled file for each statement. One sheet per month, each with the balance check showing zero, and a summary tab listing every statement's opening and closing balance in sequence. Any gap between one statement's closing balance and the next statement's opening balance is the first thing a reviewer will spot.
• Receipts and memos for material items. Brex's receipt capture helps here. For anything above your materiality threshold, make sure there's a receipt and a short business purpose.
• A clear treatment of repayments. Show that each repayment matches a bank transfer, so the reviewer can see purchases were expensed once.
• Original statements alongside your spreadsheets. Your Excel file is a working paper; the PDFs are the evidence.

Our checklist on preparing bank statements for an audit applies equally to card statements.

If you're a bookkeeper with several Brex clients

Bookkeepers handling multiple clients on Brex benefit from a consistent template: the same columns, the same sign convention and the same Type values for every client. That way a single set of formulas and a single category map work across all of them, with a small per-client override table for unusual vendors.

Name files with the client, account and period, for example acme-brex-card-2026-09.pdf, and keep converted files next to the originals. Our guide to a bank statement workflow for bookkeepers with many clients covers folder structures and review steps that keep this manageable.

Common problems

Export totals don't match the statement. Exports are often filtered by transaction date and may include pending items; statements are based on a cut-off. Use the statement period, and exclude pending items.

Refunds in the wrong month. A refund posts when the merchant issues it, not when the original purchase happened. Record it in the period it appears on the statement.

Foreign currency purchases. The statement shows the amount charged in your billing currency. Use that amount. If there are separate foreign transaction fees, record them as fees.

Multiple cardholders, one statement. Keep the cardholder column. It's essential for expense reports and for finding who to ask about an unknown charge.

Amounts with currency symbols. Strip symbols and commas with SUBSTITUTE, then wrap in VALUE.

Convert your Brex statements

Upload Brex statement PDFs to SheetStatement, confirm the balance check passes, and export to Excel or CSV for your accounting software. Try it with the free plan's 3 pages a month.

FAQ

Can I export Brex transactions to Excel?

Brex generally offers transaction exports in a spreadsheet-friendly format and monthly statements as PDF. Use the export for detail, and the statement to confirm completeness.

Is a Brex card repayment an expense?

No. It's a transfer from your bank account to the card liability. The expenses are the individual purchases on the card.

Why doesn't my export match the statement?

Usually different date ranges, pending transactions in the export, or adjustments and fees that only appear on the statement. Reconcile to the statement period.

Which sign convention should I use?

For card accounts, charges positive and payments negative is common, but some software expects the opposite on import. Pick one, document it, and flip signs at import if needed.

How do I reconcile a card with many cardholders?

Reconcile the whole statement first, then use a cardholder column and a pivot table to review spend by person and category.

Do I need receipts if I have the statement?

Statements show what was charged; receipts show what was bought. Many businesses need both for tax and audit purposes. This is general information; check requirements with your accountant.

Is it safe to upload card statements?

See SheetStatement's security page for how files are handled, and review any provider's policy before uploading.

What if my statement period doesn't match the calendar month?

Reconcile each statement exactly as issued, then use transaction dates to allocate purchases to calendar months for reporting, or accrue the stub period if your accountant prefers that method.

How much does SheetStatement cost?

The free plan includes 3 pages a month. Starter is $9 a month, Pro is $19 and Business is $39.