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PEX Zapier integrationAutomate PEX with Zapier.

The PEX Zapier integration gives you 1 trigger, 5 actions and 1 search. Enough to react to new card purchases, top up or empty a card, order a new one and fetch receipts, without opening PEX for each step. It works on the free plan.

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Overview

What the PEX Zapier integration actually does for a finance team

The PEX Zapier integration links your PEX spend account (prepaid Visa cards managed from a web app) to the rest of your tools. Zapier watches PEX for new purchases, and it can also act on PEX for you: put money on a card, empty it, order a card, fetch receipts or add a tag option.

Three results people build with it:

Receipts that follow the purchase. Purchase Is Made starts the Zap, then Download Receipts pulls the receipts of that transaction so they land where your bookkeeper works.

Cards funded from a request. An approval in another tool runs Fund Card on the right cardholder, and Find Cardholder fetches the account first when the request only carries a name.

Cards that close with the project. When a project ends in your project tool, Zero Card takes back whatever money is left on the card it used.

What Zapier does not do here: PEX has no instant trigger, so a purchase reaches your Zap at the next check, never the second it happens. There is only one trigger, so nothing starts a Zap when a card is funded or a cardholder is added. And no search here creates a missing cardholder for you.

If you are still weighing tools, the Make vs Zapier comparison sits next to the n8n vs Zapier one.

Vocabulary

Zapier words you will meet on this page

Eight terms, each in plain words. They come back all through the page without a reminder.

Zap
The automation you build on Zapier: one trigger, then one or more actions that run each time that event happens.
Trigger
The event in an app that starts the Zap. Once the Zap is on, Zapier waits for it and does nothing before.
Action
What the Zap does after it starts: the step that writes, sends or moves something for you in an app.
Task
The unit Zapier bills: one action your Zap completes successfully. The number on your plan counts those.
Polling trigger
A trigger Zapier checks on a timer: it asks the app for new items at a set interval and keeps only what is new.
Instant trigger
A trigger the app reports on its own, the moment the event happens. PEX offers none of this kind on Zapier.
Filter
A step that lets the Zap carry on only when what arrived meets your condition, and stops it quietly otherwise.
Search step
A step that looks up something already stored in an app, so the steps after it can reuse what it found.
Cost

What a PEX Zap costs you in tasks

PEX is not a premium app, so it runs on the free plan. The trigger never costs a task, and neither does Zapier checking PEX for new purchases.

  • Free plan100 tasks a month, unlimited Zaps
  • Trigger checksNever billed
  • Premium appNo, PEX works on the free plan
  • Multi-step ZapPaid plan only

Each action that succeeds counts as one task, and an action that fails is not billed. A Zap with three actions eats three times what a one-action Zap does. A few apps and a few actions take more than one task when they complete, so read the count after your first runs. The free plan stops at two steps: one trigger, one action. Add a filter, a search or a second action and the Zap becomes multi-step, which needs a paid plan.

Connect

Connect your PEX account in three steps

  1. 01

    Open the connection dialog

    In Zapier, go to the Apps page of your account and click + Add connection. A connection is your PEX account linked to Zapier once, then reused by every step that touches PEX.

  2. 02

    Pick PEX and launch the sign-in

    Type PEX in the search box of the dialog, select it in the list of results, then click Add connection. Zapier opens a new tab where PEX asks you to sign in.

  3. 03

    Sign in and grant access

    Log in with your PEX account and allow Zapier to access it. You need read or write rights on any card or cardholder you do not own yourself but want the Zap to touch.

First Zap

Your first PEX Zap: settled purchases, receipts fetched

GoalEach settled card purchase above a threshold you choose gets its receipts downloaded automatically.

  1. 01

    Pick the trigger

    Create a Zap, choose PEX as the app and Purchase Is Made as the event that starts it, then select the PEX connection you just added.

  2. 02

    Answer the two required questions

    The trigger asks whether to fire only once the merchant settles the purchase, and only once an admin has reviewed and approved it. Both answers are mandatory.

  3. 03

    Test the trigger

    Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent purchases of the connected account, so you pick a real one to map from.

  4. 04

    Add the filter

    From the plus icon, add a Filter step: the field to look at, the rule, the value. Compare numbers with a number rule, or the filter never passes.

  5. 05

    Add Download Receipts

    Add a PEX action, choose Download Receipts, and map the transaction from the trigger into its Transaction ID field. Test the step and read what came back.

  6. 06

    Publish

    Click Publish to switch the Zap on. The filter makes it a multi-step Zap, so this one needs a paid plan before it can run.

Triggers

The PEX trigger

1 event starts a Zap when something happens in PEX. Zapier checks for them at the interval your plan allows.

1

Purchase Is Made

Polling trigger

In Zapier“Fires when a new purchase is made”

Starts your Zap each time one of your PEX cards is used for a new purchase, so spending feeds your other tools without anyone exporting it.

How it fires
Zapier goes and looks at regular intervals, and how often depends on your plan: every 15 minutes on the free one
When to use it
logging every card spend in your accounting sheet, or warning a manager in chat when a team card is used.
Watch out
two settings are mandatory, one for purchases settled by the merchant only and one for purchases an admin has reviewed and approved. Saying yes to either holds back purchases that have not reached that stage yet.
Actions

The 5 PEX actions

PEX gives you 5 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.

1

Fund Card

Action

In Zapier“Add funds to a card”

Adds money to a cardholder's card. You give it the Cardholder Account ID and the amount to put on.

When to use it
topping up a travel card once a trip request is approved in your form tool.
Watch out
the step needs the account ID, not a name, so place Find Cardholder before it when the request only carries a name.
2

Order Card

Action

In Zapier“Create cardholder account”

Creates a cardholder account in PEX from data that arrives in another tool, typically a new hire record.

When to use it
giving each new field employee a card the day HR adds them.
Watch out
it requires a long list of identity, address, shipping and contact details, plus a custom ID. If the source tool lacks one, the step fails.
3

Zero Card

Action

In Zapier“Remove all funds (zero) a card”

Removes all the funds left on a card in one go, from its Cardholder Account ID.

When to use it
clearing a contractor's card when their engagement is marked as finished in your project tool.
Watch out
it empties the card completely, so it suits a closure, not a partial correction.
4

Download Receipts

Action

In Zapier“Downloads receipts for a transaction”

Fetches the receipts attached to a PEX transaction so a later step can store or forward them.

When to use it
right after Purchase Is Made, to drop receipts into the folder your accountant reviews.
Watch out
it works from a Transaction ID, so map it from a previous step rather than typing one by hand.
5

Add Tag Option

Action

In Zapier“Adds an option to a dropdown tag”

Adds a new choice to one of your dropdown tags in PEX, with its name, value and enabled state.

When to use it
keeping a cost-center tag in step with the project list of your CRM.
Watch out
the Tag ID is the code at the end of the address when you edit that tag in PEX.
Searches

The PEX search

1 search step looks for data that already exists in PEX, so a later step can use it.

A search step finds a cardholder who already exists, so the next steps can use their account. In the editor, searches sit at the bottom of the Action event list, under SEARCH. Three settings decide what happens when the result is not a clean single match.

The three settings every search exposes

  1. Successful if no search results are found?
    Left on its default, a search that finds nothing stops the Zap there and the steps that relied on it are skipped. Switched on, the Zap carries on empty-handed.
  2. Create X if it doesn't exist yet?
    This box turns a search into find-or-create. PEX exposes no find-or-create variant for Find Cardholder, so plan for the case where no one matches.
  3. If multiple search results are found?
    Three ways out: keep the first match (the default), stop the Zap, or pass every match on at once.
When it breaks

When a PEX Zap breaks

Zapier links no help article to PEX, so the cases below are the general limits that apply to every Zap built on it.

None of them shows up during a test. They appear once the Zap has been running for a while. When something misbehaves, the Zapier troubleshooting guide covers the method.

  • Past purchases are never picked up

    A Zap only reacts to what happens after you switch it on. Purchases made before publishing stay out, and moving that backlog is a separate job.

  • A Zap that sets itself off again

    If a Zap writes into the very place its own trigger watches, it starts itself over and over and burns through your task count fast.

  • A sudden flood is held back

    When the trigger returns a huge batch at once, after a bulk import or a migration, Zapier's flood protection can hold the Zap back.

  • Each purchase starts the Zap once

    Zapier remembers which purchases it has already seen on this polling trigger, so the same one never runs the Zap twice.
Need help

Need help automating PEX with Zapier?

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FAQ

PEX Zapier integration: common questions

01Is the PEX Zapier integration free?
Yes, as long as your Zap stays at two steps. PEX is not a premium app, so it runs on the free plan, which gives 100 tasks a month and unlimited Zaps. The limit is the shape of the Zap: one trigger and one action, nothing more. A filter, a search such as Find Cardholder or a second action makes it multi-step, and that needs a paid plan. Checking PEX for new purchases is never billed.
02How many tasks does a PEX Zap use?
One task per action that completes successfully. The Purchase Is Made trigger costs nothing, however often Zapier checks PEX. A Zap that runs Download Receipts on every purchase uses one task per purchase. If you add Fund Card after it, each run counts two. An action that fails is not counted against your plan, so a broken step does not drain the monthly allowance of 100 tasks on the free plan.
03Does the PEX trigger fire in real time?
No. Purchase Is Made is a polling trigger: Zapier checks PEX on a timer instead of PEX notifying it. The interval depends on the plan, 15 minutes on Free, 2 on Professional, 1 on Team and Enterprise. Paid plans can change how often the check runs, and you can also run a check by hand from the editor while you build. PEX offers no instant trigger on Zapier, so this delay is built in.
04What does it take to connect PEX to Zapier?
A PEX account and access to the cards and cardholders the Zap will touch. If you are not the owner, you need read or write rights on them. The connection itself takes three moves: Apps, then + Add connection, then sign in to PEX in the tab that opens and grant access. Once linked, every PEX step of every Zap reuses that same connection, so you set it up once and never again per Zap.
05Why does Find Cardholder return the wrong person?
Because it can search by name, and names repeat. Find Cardholder accepts an account ID, a name or a custom ID. When several cardholders match, the default setting keeps the first one and moves on, which can fund or zero the wrong card. Searching by custom ID gives a single result. You can also set the search to stop the Zap when it finds more than one match, which is safer before Fund Card or Zero Card.
06What if the PEX operation you need is missing?
Then this integration does not cover it, and no setting adds it. Zapier exposes 1 trigger, 5 actions and 1 search for PEX, and those are the only steps the editor offers. There is no trigger for a card being funded or a cardholder being created, for example. The usual way around is to start the Zap from the other tool involved and use a PEX action or search as the following step.
07Zapier, Make or n8n for PEX?
Decide on three criteria rather than on a ranking. First, does the platform offer the PEX operations your process needs? On Zapier, that is the list on this page. Second, how fast must a purchase be seen? On Zapier the trigger is polled, every 15 minutes on Free. Third, how does billing scale with your volume? Zapier counts one task per successful action. Check the same three points on the other platform before choosing.
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