Campus Life & Style Chooses Navan to Unify Travel and Expense in One Platform

Region

NORAM: North America

Headquarters

Austin, Texas

Company Size

Small and Medium-sized Business (1-800 employees)

Industry

Real Estate and Construction

Products Used

• Navan Business Travel
• Navan Expense

Previous Solutions

SAP Concur

Get the PDF Copy

Campus Life & Style (CLS), a premier student housing real estate company headquartered in Austin, Texas, manages more than 50 properties across the United States. With a growing portfolio and an increasing number of traveling employees, CLS needed a more efficient and cost-effective way to manage travel and expenses. Jiles Paul, CLS’s National Cost Management Administrator, shared how Navan transformed the company’s approach to corporate travel and expense management.

Before Navan

Prior to implementing Navan, CLS used Concur for expense management, along with Capital One credit cards, and didn’t have a structured travel solution. That made it difficult to track travel for their teams — particularly the marketing, leasing, and facilities operations specialists who traveled frequently between properties. “People were just booking at will with their Capital One cards,” Jiles explained. “There were few negotiated deals, little oversight, and it was not cost-efficient.”

CLS has grown significantly since its founding in 2015, making travel and expense management increasingly complex. The finance team struggled to track where employees were going, what they were spending, and how to optimize costs. “It was getting really difficult to see what was being spent and where,” said Jiles. “We needed a better way to manage travel and expenses across our portfolio.”

Why Navan

CLS explored several travel and expense solutions, including Egencia, but ultimately chose Navan due to its comprehensive platform and dedicated support. “Having a local team in Austin and a dedicated account manager gave us confidence that we would receive ongoing support,” Jiles said.

The company decided on a phased rollout, starting with Navan Travel and adding Navan Expense later. The ability to consolidate travel and expense management into a single platform was a key factor in their decision. As Jiles noted, “We just wanted travel and expense to be in one platform. It just made sense to go with Navan.”

Another major driver for change was the need to close the books faster and streamline expense coding and allocation. Using Concur had been a challenge: “It was a time commitment with Concur to upload receipts and sift through all the pictures of the receipts we’d take,” Jiles explained.

“

We just wanted travel and expense to be in one platform. It just made sense to go with Navan.

Jiles Paul

Results with Navan

With Navan Expense, employees now submit expenses in real time instead of waiting until the end of the month, which has been an enormous help in increasing efficiency and adoption. Plus, the Navan app’s ease of use has been a game-changer compared to Concur, which employees found difficult to navigate. “That is definitely the biggest improvement since switching to Navan Expense,” Jiles shared. Employees appreciate the ability to simply swipe, review transactions, or upload receipts instantly.

On the travel side, CLS has achieved significant cost savings. In a year-over-year comparison following the soft launch of Navan, CLS saw a reduction of more than $300,000 in travel spend across flights, hotels, and rental cars. Jiles explained that while policy changes and increased oversight also influenced these savings, Navan played a key role in streamlining travel management, providing visibility into spend, and enabling smarter booking decisions.

Additionally, Jiles also noted that whenever employees need to modify travel plans, they’ve found Navan’s support team to be highly responsive and helpful. Employees also appreciate the option to book personal travel within the platform.

“

It was a time commitment with Concur to upload receipts and sift through all the pictures of the receipts we'd take.

Jiles Paul

The Future

With its continued expansion into the multifamily housing sector, CLS plans to further optimize its use of Navan’s expense management features and continue its strong track record of travel booking adoption on Navan. The company is laser-focused on maximizing cost savings and utilizing more reporting capabilities to gain deeper insights into spending and operational efficiency — a goal CLS wouldn’t have been able to achieve with its previous solution.

When asked to describe Navan in three words, Jiles’s response was clear: “Catalyst for growth.”