Want Lower Business Travel Expenses? Start Here

More than one-third of companies face challenges in enforcing T&E policy compliance, according to a recent Navan survey. It’s a problem that can easily lead to higher costs in a business travel program — something no one wants.

Learning about problems like this is the first step toward creating solutions that save them time and money. So we asked users of T&E solutions other than Navan about their biggest challenges and concerns.

Read where these obstacles lie — and the solutions that can help overcome them — in our guide, 6 Surprising Ways to Reduce Business Travel Expenses. Here are two of those strategies.

Strategy #1: Increase Compliance

For the past three years, compliance has been on the decline, according to an annual survey and report produced by Skift and Navan. In the 2025 report, for example, we found a sharp increase in the percentage of managers who said that less than half of their employees comply with company travel policies.

That can translate directly to higher costs. In fact, in the most recent Navan survey, 35% of respondents said that non-compliance was one of the biggest obstacles in reducing travel expenses.

Why is it happening? Respondents cited factors such as booking travel outside of the approved tool and simply lacking the ability to enforce policies.

Navan is uniquely qualified to help with both. After all, business travelers can be driven to book off-platform when they can’t find flights that suit their needs. It’s why Navan has focused relentlessly on building a robust inventory — something we’ve done in part through our 21 (and counting) NDC-enabled connections.

And policy enforcement? It’s built in to the Navan platform and enforced at the time of swipe, so out-of-policy expenses won’t even go through.

Strategy #2: Automate Reconciliation

Travel spend comes with a lot of nuances, which increases the complexity of reconciliation. So when travel expenses — even those clearly in policy — roll in, finance teams have to buckle down for the slog of monthly reconciliation.

Of course, closing the books quickly would let finance teams focus on analysis and strategy instead of busywork — a much more effective way of keeping budgets in check. But in our survey, 83% of respondents said the process took longer than two days. And almost one quarter — 24% — told us it takes longer than six days.

Here, too, Navan offers a solution. Automated reconciliation lets in-policy expenses fly through, removing manual tasks like matching charges with receipts or hunting down employees for clarifications. That can help companies decrease the time needed for reconciliation from days to minutes.

These are just two strategies to help companies reduce travel costs. Get all six strategies in our guide, 6 Surprising Ways to Reduce Business Travel Expenses.