7 Best Travel and Expense Management Software Tools

Travel and expense management software combines corporate travel booking (flights, hotels, cars, rail) with expense management (receipt capture, policy enforcement, reimbursement) in a single platform. These tools manage the complete lifecycle of corporate spending, from booking a flight to submitting the expense to reconciling with your general ledger.

Core functions include booking within policy, capturing transaction data automatically, routing approvals based on spend thresholds, and syncing with accounting systems. The best platforms offer mobile apps that let employees book travel, capture receipts, and submit expenses from their phones.

Top 7 Business Travel and Expense Software Platforms

Here are the top travel and expense management software platforms used by businesses across industries:

1. Navan

Navan is an all-in-one travel, expense, and corporate card platform designed for teams that need real-time spending visibility and proactive policy controls.

Unlike single-purpose tools that require stitching together travel bookings, expense management, and payment data from multiple systems, Navan consolidates the entire T&E workflow into a unified platform.

Companies report average T&E savings of 15%, with certain customers saving as much as 25%, thanks to Navan's inventory breadth, Navan Rewards program, and policy compliance enforcement.

Core capabilities:

With integrated systems, Navan allows you to analyze spending at multiple levels, from individual transactions to department-wide trends, without manual data assembly.

Policy control and approval flows: Navan lets you control how bookings are reviewed, from fully self-serve to strict, policy-enforced approvals. You can choose whether bookings require no review, are reviewed only when they fall out of policy, are always reviewed, or are blocked entirely through hard out-of-policy rules. These review modes are configured per booking type, such as flights or hotels, giving teams precise control over spend without adding unnecessary friction for travelers.

Travel support: Ava, the Navan’s AI-powered travel agent, handles booking changes, answers traveler questions, and manages disruptions. When issues arise, Ava resolves routine requests immediately while routing complex situations to human agents with full context.

Mobile capabilities: Navan's mobile app (available on iPhone and Android) gives travelers full booking and trip management capabilities on the go, including real-time trip updates, loyalty program integration, and expense capture.

Payment flexibility: Your organization can choose between Navan's corporate card program or Navan Connect, which allows you to connect eligible Visa, Mastercard, and American Express corporate cards without switching payment providers. This flexibility addresses treasury team concerns about disrupting established banking relationships while still gaining real-time transaction visibility.

Integrations: Direct integration with NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks, Xero, and other systems provides pre-coded transactions that flow automatically into the general ledger. Navan also connects directly with 30+ HRIS systems. When someone gets hired, changes teams, or leaves the company, their travel access and policies update automatically.

Best for: Mid-market and enterprise organizations seeking unified T&E management with financial controls, real-time visibility, and high employee adoption driving actual policy compliance.

2. Brex

Brex provides corporate cards and spend management, especially popular with startups and fast-growing companies. Travel management is typically handled via integrations with external platforms rather than natively within Brex. For example, BrexPay allows organizations to connect Brex cards with Navan to get proactive spend controls and 100% payment reconciliation on travel booked on Navan.

Key Strengths: Corporate cards designed for startups with underwriting models that don't require personal guarantees. Expense management automates categorization and integrates with accounting systems. Rewards weighted toward software and SaaS spending.

Best for: Venture-backed startups and technology companies seeking startup-focused financial services with integrated expense management.

3. SAP Concur

SAP Concur provides travel and expense management with deep ERP integration capabilities, particularly for organizations already running SAP infrastructure. The platform serves large, complex organizations that need multi-entity support across global operations.

Key strengths: Integrates with major business systems and provides audit trails that meet enterprise compliance requirements. Strong multi-entity support for organizations managing T&E across subsidiaries and regions.

Best for: Large enterprises with complex, global operations requiring deep SAP integration and complete audit capabilities.

4. Perk (formerly TravelPerk)

Perk positions itself as an intelligent platform for travel and spend management, built to automate booking, expenses, and invoice processing in a single experience.

Key Strengths: Consumer-grade booking interface with strong European inventory. FlexiPerk offers flexible cancellation options. The company acquired expense management specialist Yokoy in 2025 and now offers Perk Pay corporate cards alongside its travel booking capabilities.

Best For: Organizations prioritizing traveler experience and booking simplicity, particularly those with strong European travel patterns.

5. Expensify

Expensify focuses on expense report automation with mobile-first receipt capture. The platform allows employees to submit expenses with receipt scanning and policy compliance checks.

Key strengths: SmartScan technology extracts data from receipts and automates expense report generation. Solid per diem and mileage tracking. Routes expenses through configurable approval workflows.

Best for: Organizations primarily seeking expense report automation and receipt management, with travel booking as a secondary consideration.

6. Ramp

Ramp combines corporate cards with spend management software, positioning itself as a finance automation platform that includes T&E management as part of broader spend controls.

Key strengths: Real-time transaction feeds eliminate receipt collection for card purchases. Automated spend management capabilities with policy enforcement at the transaction point. Strong accounts payable automation.

Best for: Fast-growing companies seeking startup-friendly pricing models and organizations wanting to consolidate corporate card programs with spend management software.

7. Emburse

Emburse offers expense management and AP automation through a platform assembled from multiple acquisitions (Chrome River, Certify, Captio, Tallie). The suite provides flexibility for organizations with complex approval workflows.

Key Strengths: Automatically categorizes expenses and routes transactions through approval workflows. Audit-ready documentation and reconciliation tools that accelerate month-end close. Enforces policies at the transaction point.

Best for: Organizations prioritizing accounts payable automation alongside expense management, particularly those seeking to consolidate vendor payments and employee expenses without integrated travel.

What Are the Key Features to Look for in a Travel and Expense App?

When evaluating platforms, focus on capabilities that separate tools providing real control from those that only report what already happened.

Real-Time Spend Visibility

Transactions should appear as they happen, not when employees submit reports weeks later.

The best expense platforms automatically capture merchant name and category, location, trip association, meeting attendees pulled from your calendar, department, project code, and GL classification at point of swipe without manual entry.

Policy Enforcement at Point of Booking or Swipe

Employees can easily adhere to your travel and expense policy when the T&E app automatically stops unapproved bookings or expenses.

On Navan, when employees book travel, policy-compliant options appear first, with out-of-policy choices requiring justification. For expenses, Navan’s traffic light-like approval system auto-approves routine purchases (green), flag edge cases for review (orange), and decline violations (red).

Travel Inventory and Booking Experience

When employees find cheaper rates off-platform on website such as Expedia or Google Flights, they may there and send their travel manager screenshots to prove it, undermining the entire travel program. Platforms need broad inventory (GDS, NDC airline connections, OTA partnerships, plus your negotiated rates) to surface competitive options in a single search. Loyalty program integration removes another reason to book outside the system.

Integration with Finance Systems

When ERP connections (NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero) and HRIS integrations work properly, transactions flow from swipe to general ledger without manual export. Employee data stays in sync and GL codes populate at the source.

Mobile Experience

Business travel doesn't happen at a desk. The best T&E apps offer full-featured mobile experiences where employees can book flights, snap receipt photos, submit expenses, and track approvals from their phones. Look for apps that work offline for international travelers with spotty connectivity.

How to Choose the Best Travel and Expense Software for Your Company

Match the Platform to Your Travel Volume

Companies with weekly business trips and frequent flyers need unified T&E with broad inventory, real-time expense capture, and duty of care features that track traveler locations during disruptions.

Monthly or quarterly travel still benefits from integrated platforms — even occasional trips create reconciliation headaches when booking and expense data live in separate systems. Light travel programs with rare trips may work fine with expense-focused tools, particularly if existing travel arrangements already function well.

Consider Your Integration Requirements

Companies with complex ERP environments may lean toward legacy systems despite UX tradeoffs, since deep back-end integration can outweigh other concerns. Organizations using tools like NetSuite, QuickBooks, or Xero should verify the existence and quality of direct connections rather than accepting generic “we integrate” claims.

Also ask about HR system connections. Ideally, you want a platform that syncs with your HRIS to automatically keep employee data, travel policies, and access permissions current.

Evaluate Adoption, Not Just Features

Features don't matter if employees refuse to use the platform. According to Navan's State of Corporate Travel & Expense 2026 report, 80% of travelers book off-platform sometimes, usually because they believe they can find better prices or more convenient options elsewhere. When booking takes longer or surfaces fewer options than Expedia, employees work around the system. Ask vendors for actual adoption metrics.

Calculate Total Cost of Ownership

Platform pricing tells only part of the story. Factor in implementation timelines (weeks for modern platforms, months for legacy systems) and ongoing vendor coordination if you're stitching together separate tools.

Simplify Your Business Travel and Expenses with Navan

Separate travel and expense tools lead to data mismatches, broken audit trails, and delays in expense reporting.

Navan prevents these issues by unifying travel booking, expense management, and corporate cards in a single platform. Finance sees spend as it happens, and policy enforcement at the point of booking or swipe prevents violations before money changes hands.

Schedule a demo to see how unified T&E works in practice.

Competitive data was collected as of Jan. 15, 2026 and is subject to change or update.