Navan Empowers DisputeHelp to Scale — Without Switching Banks

“Travel, to us, is the lifeblood of our organization,” said Vinay Shiriwastaw, chief commercial officer at DisputeHelp. The rapidly scaling company offers merchants and payment processors a software solution to help minimize and dispute chargebacks and fraud globally.

With conventions and trade shows fueling nearly half of its business, ensuring efficient expense management and policy compliance became critical. Upon partnering with Navan, DisputeHelp achieved newfound visibility and control over its T&E program — all without the hassle of changing its existing banking relationship or business cards.

Before Navan

When Shiriwastaw joined DisputeHelp, he immediately recognized the pressing need for formal T&E tools and policies.

Employees spent precious time booking hotels, flights, and cars online from multiple sources and manually tracking expenses via spreadsheets. And if an employee needed support on the road, the onus was on them to contact the travel provider — or sometimes, multiple providers — to fix the issue.

“Our associate’s job is to be on the road performing business-related functions to help grow the business and generate revenue,” said Shiriwastaw. “Our old system was a very inefficient way to run the travel and expense process for our business.”

Back at the office, the accounting team grappled with the laborious task of manually reviewing and coding each expense submission. The process took time away from the team’s core responsibilities and didn’t give DisputeHelp control or visibility.

“When travelers book direct, it doesn’t allow us to control expenses and budget against the travel policy,” Shiriwastaw said. “Somebody books, and then we get the expense afterward — by then there is no budget control.”

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The ability to load our business card and have every expense pulled into the expense management system at Navan really made it an easy choice.

Vinay Shiriwastaw

Chief Commercial Officer

Why Navan

Shiriwastaw sought out a T&E tool that could streamline operations and scale with the rapidly growing, global company.

“As you put together a formal travel and expense policy, it becomes obvious that you need a tool that allows you to book travel against that policy and aggregate expenses that fall into that policy,” he reflected.

But 26 years in the corporate world have taught Shiriwastaw the harsh reality of clunky, outdated, and disparate T&E systems. “I’ve used a lot of well-known Navan competitors, and those tools felt bureaucratic and inefficient,” he said.

After demoing Navan, he was sold.

“The agility of the tool fit well with the size of our company, yet I could see that it would also allow us to scale,” Shiriwastaw said.

And with Navan Connect, the company could link the business cards they already had in place. There was no need to switch banks or go through the hassle of distributing new cards to employees.

“The ability to load our business card and have every expense pulled into the expense management system at Navan really made it an easy choice,” he said.

Results with Navan

From improved efficiency and control to enhanced visibility and cost savings, Navan has proven to be a game-changer for DisputeHelp. Here’s how.

Time Savings

With Navan's intuitive interface, DisputeHelp employees complete full travel bookings — airfare, hotel, and car — in less than seven minutes. This is a stark contrast to the 30- to 45-minute ordeal Shiriwastaw estimates it used to take using disparate apps and websites.

And gone are the days of laborious expense reports; Navan streamlines the entire process, making burdensome paperwork a relic of the past.

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Having the business credit card connected, and the fact that all expenses are ported in for visibility — we take the burden off the associate to enter and record that expense.

Vinay Shiriwastaw

Chief Commercial Officer

With automatic reconciliation in place, DisputeHelp’s accounting team can direct its focus toward core business objectives. No more slogging through tedious spreadsheets line item by line item — Navan handles it all, freeing up valuable time and resources for driving growth and innovation.

“Getting a business credit card statement and then looking at that statement across 12 or 15 people and trying to figure out where an expense belongs is, to be quite frank, tremendously inefficient,” Shiriwastaw said.

“Having the business credit card connected, and the fact that all expenses are ported in for visibility — we take the burden off the associate to enter and record that expense,” he said. “We’ve seen a tremendous amount of time savings.”

Policy Control and Visibility

Navan ensures seamless compliance with expense policies, automates approvals and enforcement, and simplifies the reconciliation and reimbursement processes for DisputeHelp.

“Our employees have the freedom to book and spend within the controls we have put in place,” Shiriwastaw said. “And on the admin side, everything’s aggregated in one place. We can pull reports right off of the tool. We can look at spend in various categories and actually control the budget.”

This level of insight has empowered the company to make informed decisions about budget allocation and identify areas for cost optimization, ultimately driving greater financial accountability.

“Being able to account for the travel and measure that against the budget and see how we’re trending has increased our efficiency tenfold,” he said.

What’s Next

Shiriwastaw staunchly maintained Navan’s position as a “best-in-class tool,” emphasizing that “the user experience is a perfect 10.” He underscored that his colleagues echo his sentiment and that he has only heard positive feedback.

“Pre-Navan, we lacked the ability to holistically look at travel and exercise the necessary budget control,” he said. “Transitioning to Navan has been a tremendous boost for us.”

DisputeHelp’s choice of Navan for its T&E tool demonstrates the importance of laying the groundwork for sustained success as a company looks to scale.

“At the end of the day, growing any business is about putting procedures in place that allow for scalability,” said Shiriwastaw. “Navan is a great example of a tool that allows for growth.”

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At the end of the day, growing any business is about putting procedures in place that allow for scalability. Navan is a great example of a tool that allows for growth.

Vinay Shiriwastaw

Chief Commercial Officer

Average time to book a complete trip is based on estimates by DisputeHelp and Navan data.