As teams grow, tracking employee expenses can quickly become a challenge. Spreadsheets, manual reimbursements, and end-of-month expense reports often leave finance teams guessing where money actually went. That’s why many founders start searching for the best corporate card for employee expense tracking, or how companies track employee spending in real time — because traditional methods simply don’t scale.
Modern corporate cards for employee expense tracking are built to solve this exact problem. Instead of chasing receipts and reconciling expenses weeks later, companies gain real-time visibility, built-in spend controls, and automated reporting from the moment a purchase is made. This helps answer another common question: how can startups control employee spending without slowing teams down? The right corporate card makes that possible.
For growing businesses, this shift isn’t just about convenience — it’s about financial clarity. With smarter business credit cards for teams, finance leaders can monitor budgets, prevent overspending, and simplify accounting without adding manual work.
In this guide, we’ll break down the 3 best corporate cards for employee expense tracking, comparing features, controls, and tracking capabilities so you can choose the right fit for your team.
Why Traditional Expense Tracking Fails
As teams grow, manual expense tracking quickly becomes messy. What worked for five employees breaks at fifty, which is why founders often search for why expense tracking is so hard for growing companies and how to manage employee expenses at scale.
Traditional systems create problems like:
- No real-time visibility – Finance teams see spending only after reports are submitted, making it hard to control budgets proactively.
- Manual admin overload – Chasing receipts, reviewing reports, and reconciling transactions eats up valuable time each month.
- Reactive, not proactive – Money is already spent before policy issues are caught.
- Limited spending controls – It’s difficult to set limits by team, role, or vendor using spreadsheets and reimbursements.
- Scaling frustration – As hiring increases, errors and delays grow alongside expense volume.
This is why many companies are looking for corporate cards that automate controls, provide instant visibility, and reduce the finance workload. Below are the 3 best corporate cards for employee expense tracking that help growing teams stay in control without adding finance chaos.
1. Brex Corporate Card
Brex is built for teams that need real-time expense tracking — not at the end of the month. As startups and growing companies scale, visibility and control over employee spending become critical, and that’s where the Brex corporate card fits naturally.
Instead of relying on reimbursements or delayed reports, Brex tracks expenses as soon as a transaction occurs. Finance teams can see where money is going, apply rules automatically, and reduce the back-and-forth that usually comes with manual expense management. This directly answers a common question teams ask: how do corporate cards track employee spending?
Why Brex Works Well for Employee Expense Tracking
Brex works well for monitoring team spending because expense management is built directly into the card’s functionality, not added later as a separate layer. With built-in expense controls automatically enforced at the point of sale, employees can only spend within approved limits and categories. This prevents policy violations before they happen and reduces manual reviews for finance teams.
Another major strength is real-time visibility into spend. The moment an employee makes a purchase, finance teams get deep transaction data showing where money is going, how much is being spent, and which team or category it belongs to. This removes delays, simplifies reporting, and clearly answers how corporate cards track employee spending without relying on reimbursements.
Brex also eliminates founder risk by requiring no personal guarantee, as underwriting is based on business fundamentals rather than personal credit. At the same time, it offers up to 30x higher limits than traditional business credit cards, allowing growing teams to manage increasing spend without hitting restrictive caps.
For distributed and global teams, Brex supports global operations across 200+ countries and 60 currencies. Through a direct partnership with Mastercard, the card is built directly into the network without a processing intermediary, enabling faster card setup and issuance, greater security, and deeper data capture. All of this is backed by 24/7 live support, providing finance teams with reliable assistance whenever issues arise.
Case Study: How Brex Solved Goody’s Expense Tracking Challenges
The Problem: As Goody scaled its ecommerce gifting platform, employee spending increased rapidly. Most transactions were tied to fulfilling customer gift orders, resulting in high card usage and increasing transaction volume.
With this growth came two major challenges: limited visibility into where funds were being spent and an increased risk of fraud due to excessive manual touchpoints in the card process. Traditional expense-tracking methods made it difficult for the finance team to monitor spending in real time or proactively control it.
The Solution: Goody switched its corporate card program to Brex to bring structure and control to employee spending. With Brex, expenses became visible the moment transactions happened.
Built-in controls and virtual cards reduced manual intervention, while automated workflows streamlined ordering. This allowed the finance team to manage spending more strategically, without slowing down employees who needed to place frequent orders.
The Result: After moving to Brex, Goody improved cash management, reduced operational overhead, and eliminated fraud entirely. Real-time expense tracking helped leadership make better financial decisions, while rewards earned through Brex were reinvested into team travel, off-sites, and brand visibility.
What started as a card switch ultimately became a more efficient, controlled, and scalable expense management system.
You can explore more real-world case studies and customer stories directly on Brex’s website.
2. Expensify Corporate Card
As teams grow, tracking employee expenses can quickly become time-consuming. Expensify addresses this challenge by integrating corporate cards with its well-known expense management software, helping businesses consolidate spending and reporting in one place.
For startups and small teams that want a straightforward way to manage receipts and reimbursements, Expensify can feel familiar and easy to roll out. Employees can capture receipts on the go, while finance teams get a clearer view of company spending without chasing paperwork.
Popular Features:
- Automated receipt capture and expense categorization
- Real-time expense reporting tied directly to card transactions
- Built-in approval workflows for team spending
- Integration with accounting tools for smoother reconciliation
Expensify works best for companies focused on simplifying expense reports and improving visibility into day-to-day employee spending.
3. Airwallex Corporate Card
For startups operating across borders, managing international expenses can get complicated fast. Airwallex is built for global businesses, offering corporate cards alongside multi-currency financial tools that make overseas spending easier to manage.
Instead of juggling foreign transaction fees and maintaining separate systems for global payments, Airwallex enables businesses to manage multiple currencies and international vendors on a single platform. This makes it especially appealing for remote teams and companies with international contractors or suppliers.
Popular Features:
- Multi-currency wallets for holding and spending in different currencies
- Competitive FX rates for international transactions
- Virtual and physical employee cards with spend controls
Airwallex is a strong fit for startups operating internationally that want greater control and visibility over cross-border employee spending.
How to Choose the Right Card for Your Team
Choosing the right corporate card depends on how your team spends money and the level of visibility your finance team needs for business expense monitoring. As companies grow, the gap between tracking expenses after the fact and controlling them in real time becomes clear. That’s usually when teams start rethinking their card setup.
When evaluating options, these factors matter most:
- Real-time expense visibility, so finance teams see spend as it happens
- Controls enforced at the point of sale, not after submission
- Scalability, as employee spend increases across teams
- Reduced reliance on reimbursements, which slows everyone down
- Global usability, especially for distributed or international teams
If your team needs visibility before problems arise—not after—choosing a card with built-in controls makes the biggest difference. This is where Brex fits best. With real-time tracking, automatic enforcement of spending rules, and limits based on business fundamentals rather than personal credit, Brex gives teams control upfront while still supporting growth.
For companies focused on simplifying expense tracking and scaling with confidence, that combination often makes Brex the strongest choice.
Conclusion
Employee expense tracking works best when it’s simple, timely, and built into everyday workflows. As teams grow, the tools they use should reduce friction—not create more administrative work for employees or finance teams.
That’s why understanding the differences between the 3 best corporate cards for employee expense tracking really matters. Each option supports a different type of team, depending on how spending is managed, the level of control required, and whether the company operates locally or globally.
Ultimately, expense tracking isn’t just about recording transactions. It’s about choosing a system that improves visibility, strengthens spending control, and supports smarter financial decisions as the company scales. The right corporate card helps teams move faster while keeping finances organized and predictable.
