How Hudson Automotive Accelerated Reporting and Expense Visibility with Navan

Region

NORAM: North America

Headquarters

Charleston, South Carolina

Industry

Retail

Products Used

• Navan Business Travel
• Navan Expense
• Navan Travel Payments

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Hudson Automotive Group operates 65 retail automotive dealerships across the United States, representing nearly every non-luxury car brand, along with select luxury lines. Headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, the company employs roughly 6,000 people nationwide, with about 200 employees based at its corporate office. As Hudson Automotive rapidly scaled, its finance team faced increasing pressure to manage travel and corporate card spend without losing control or visibility.

Before Navan

Before adopting Navan, Hudson Automotive’s travel and expense management was largely decentralized. Employees booked their own travel, and expenses were managed through Enterprise Spend Platform, which offered limited insight into how money was being spent. While policies technically existed, enforcing them was nearly impossible.

“We had a policy, but we didn’t have a way to hold people to it,” said Lydia Callaway, corporate controller at Hudson Automotive Group. “There was very little oversight into what was being booked or expensed.” 

When it came to travel, the lack of transparency meant the finance team couldn’t easily see whether employees were booking first-class flights, paying extra seat fees, or exceeding reasonable meal thresholds. On the expense management side, the outdated, clunky platform offered no easy way to code transactions, track missing receipts, or follow up with employees. 

Why Navan

Hudson Automotive’s CEO discovered Navan in an industry article, which he shared with the finance leadership team. After seeing a demo, the value became clear almost immediately. “Transparency was the biggest thing for us,” said Callaway. “We used to piece together reports just to understand what we’d already spent. Now we have instant visibility into expenses as they happen, which has completely changed how we manage our budget.”

“

Now we have instant visibility into expenses as they happen, which has completely changed how we manage our budget.

Lydia Callaway

Corporate Controller

Results with Navan

From the start, Navan gave the finance team real-time visibility into expenses and the ability to embed company policy directly into the platform.

For the accounting team, the impact was immediate. “Now everything is reviewed and approved before it comes to us,” said lead staff accountant Laura Evans. “We can see the full audit trail — all in one place.” With receipts automatically attached and expenses coded in real time, the team no longer has to chase down missing information.

Today, roughly 70% of expenses are coded within 48 hours of the transaction — a dramatic improvement over the previous process, which often took more than ten days. Evans attributes this shift to Navan’s intuitive, mobile-first experience. “Employees get a notification almost immediately after they swipe their card,” she said. “They take a picture, code the expense, and it’s done. The entire process is just so much easier than what we had before.”

Navan has also transformed how Hudson Automotive analyzes spend. As the primary administrator, Callaway relies heavily on Navan’s reporting and search capabilities. “I can type in a vendor name and instantly see how often it’s been used and how much we’ve spent with them,” she said. “That kind of visibility just didn’t exist for us before. Plus, we’ve cut reporting time by about 90%. Custom reports that once took days to prepare now take about an hour.”

“

Navan keeps advancing its platform, especially with AI features that streamline expense management. That’s helped us tremendously, by improving accuracy and saving our team time.

Laura Evans

Lead Staff Accountant

Future with Navan

After seeing success at the corporate level, Hudson Automotive plans to expand Navan across the entire organization, including its dealerships. This shift will replace highly manual processes — such as coding expenses from PDF statements — with a single, standardized platform. According to Callaway, the broader rollout will also help address fraud risk. “Credit cards are one of the easiest places for fraud to happen,” she said. “By onboarding every card into Navan, we’re shining a light on everything. Nothing is hidden anymore.”

Navan’s continued product innovation has further strengthened the partnership. Evans points out that Navan has noticeably evolved in only a short period of time. “Navan keeps advancing its platform, especially with AI features that streamline expense management,” she said. “That’s helped us tremendously, by improving accuracy and saving our team time.” 

With Navan, the company has transformed expense management from a manual, opaque process into a scalable system that supports growth while maintaining financial discipline.