Commify Achieves “99% Reduction in Travel Admin Time”

Region

EMEA: Europe, Middle East, and Africa

Headquarters

Nottingham, UK

Company Size

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

Industry

Tech

Products Used

• Navan Business Travel
• Navan Expense

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Commify is a global business communications company serving more than 46,000 clients. With 400 employees across Europe, the U.S., and Australia, the company has grown rapidly through strategic acquisitions. As each acquired entity brought different travel and expense systems, Commify needed to streamline operations across its global offices. Travel is critical for the business, with 90% of trips involving interoffice collaboration, acquisition meetings, customer visits, and industry events. The fragmented systems created operational bottlenecks that demanded an integrated solution to support continued growth.

Before Navan

Commify faced significant operational challenges with its fragmented travel and expense management approach. Their office manager was responsible for booking all travel for employees across all locations — a process that consumed enormous amounts of time and created bottlenecks.

“During really busy weeks, I would spend 100% of my time just on travel bookings. I got absolutely nothing else done,” they explained to Navan.

The company had previously used a travel management company, but found the fees “spectacularly high,” particularly for premium features like carbon footprint tracking and flexible rebooking options.

Additionally, the travel booking process was entirely manual. Employees would raise tickets requesting travel with minimal details — often as simple as “I want to go to France tomorrow” — leaving Commify’s office manager to research flights, hotels, and logistics from scratch.

On the finance team, their management accountant told us how they struggled with expense processing using Excel spreadsheets and Google folders.

I would spend about 20 hours a month on credit cards and expenses, and there was just no end to it.” The manual system created compliance issues, impacted tax reporting, and required constant receipt-chasing.

The team began searching for a new solution when they realised they had a “severe lack of control” over company spending. The manual process disrupted financial reporting, making it nearly impossible to track expenses accurately and preventing the efficient monitoring of employee purchases and the collection of receipts.

Why Commify chose Navan

Commify’s UK finance manager was researching expense management solutions when they were contacted by a Navan account executive, Sean Mullooly. It was perfect timing. “I was looking for a tool. After I had a conversation with Sean, we found the right pace of work, and the collaboration was excellent.”

The decision process involved detailed demos for both the implementation team and senior leadership, including the CFO and head of finance. What made Navan particularly attractive was the integrated approach — combining both travel and expense management in one platform. “We needed a solution for expenses, too, and it made sense to combine everything in one place,” they explained.

With leadership support and a pricing advantage over their previous travel management company, combined with Navan’s intuitive user experience — which addressed concerns about employee self-booking — Commify selected Navan and rolled out the platform successfully.

The Navan effect

Implementation excellence

Commify demonstrated exceptional execution by launching Navan in just 25 days from contract signing — five days ahead of the standard 30-day best practice for similarly sized companies. Their finance manager explained how a carefully planned approach and strong internal commitment were key to the rapid deployment.

“We followed the processes Navan suggested. Our account manager, Billy Morris, shared a step-by-step guide for how to roll Navan out, including things like email announcement templates.” The Commify team proactively scheduled training sessions to demonstrate the platform, showing their confidence in Navan. The company also leveraged resources from the Navan Help Centre to create clear, concise FAQs and used internal communication systems to ensure a smooth rollout across all locations.

The implementation proceeded smoothly, with comprehensive training and communication across all locations.

Immediate operational impact

Within just four months of launching Navan, Commify experienced transformational changes across its operations. For their office manager, their workload transformation has been the most dramatic indicator of success.

“Since rolling out Navan, only a few people have asked for a bit of hand-holding,” they said. “It’s been like 1% of my time. The change has been absolutely massive for me.” Time spent on travel administration responsibilities has dropped by 99% from the pre-Navan days.

Commify’s management accountant experienced similar relief, thanks to Navan’s automated expense management. “It’s such a clever tool, and just to have that audit trail as well is quite helpful,” the office manager said. “We have real-time tracking of spend through the credit cards, whereas previously it used to be a monthly reconciliation once we got the statement.”

Policy compliance and control

One of Commify’s finance manager’s biggest concerns was whether employees would overspend when given booking autonomy. The results exceeded expectations.

“Our worry was that when we let people self-book, they would go crazy on prices, but that hasn’t happened at all. Giving that power to people was scary, but we didn’t have issues. It might be our company culture, but it was good to see.”

The platform has been especially helpful in enabling better policy enforcement, thanks to the ability to set different rules for different employee groups — including shorter booking windows and higher limits for executives. Most importantly, all travel is now booked through Navan, providing unprecedented visibility into company spend.

Real-time expense management

Navan’s expense management solution has eliminated the company’s previous Excel spreadsheet chaos. Employees can now take photos of receipts immediately and submit expenses through the mobile app, with automatic reminders for missing documentation.

For their management accountant, who previously spent countless hours chasing receipts and managing compliance, the change has been transformational. “I can’t even begin to express how amazing Navan is. It’s such a clever tool, and just to have that audit trail as well is quite helpful for me.” Additionally, Navan’s system has reduced reimbursement cycles from monthly to weekly, and Navan’s dedicated support has always been available when required. “When we needed help, support was always there, and that’s the reason why we were able to launch so quickly,” they said. This responsive approach to customer success enabled Commify to achieve its ambitious 25-day launch timeline.

Early results and rapid adoption

Commify has achieved remarkable results that validate its decision to switch to Navan. With 400 employees across nine countries, the company has maintained a high user satisfaction rate while gaining unprecedented visibility into company spend.

Most impressively, 95% of employees have logged in and set up their accounts — an exceptional level of adoption within such a short timeframe across a global workforce. Customer satisfaction scores of 4.5/5 and an NPS of +50 demonstrate strong early approval from users across all locations.

And the extent of the impact was noted by the finance manager: “All travel is now booked through Navan.” The change has provided substantial visibility into company spend compared to Commify’s previously fragmented solution.

Looking ahead: equipped for future growth

As Commify continues integrating acquisitions and streamlining operations across multiple countries, Navan provides the scalable foundation needed for continued growth.

Navan has allowed the finance manager to set a new goal for the future — to make sure travel and expense processes operate so smoothly that they become routine, eliminate any unnecessary paperwork, and give everyone more time to focus on their core responsibilities.

With strong reporting capabilities already enabling policy optimisation based on real spending data, Commify expects to continue refining its travel and expense management as the company scales.