Flowdesk cuts reporting time from 2–3 days to seconds with Navan

Region

EMEA: Europe, Middle East, and Africa

Headquarters

Paris, France

Industry

Tech, Finance

Products Used

• Navan Business Travel
• Navan Travel Payments
• Navan Expense

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Flowdesk, a fintech company specialising in digital liquidity, provides technological tools to help clients manage their liquidity on the financial markets. Currently expanding internationally — with offices in Paris, Singapore, and the United States — the company is seeing an increase in business travel. Against this backdrop, business travel management quickly became a strategic issue. To regain control over its costs, ensure efficient logistics, and have complete visibility over each trip, the company turned to an all-in-one travel and expense solution.

Before Navan

Before Navan, Flowdesk had a travel tool, but each entity managed its expense reports with its own system, which proved a nightmare for budget visibility and data access. The tools were far from efficient, and the company did not feel that they were helping to save any real money.

So Flowdesk went looking for a tool that could offer a superior experience to travellers while optimising costs. The first driver of change came from across the Atlantic, when the American subsidiary’s contract with its expense reimbursement solution was coming to an end. It was then that the company decided to look for a single system and unify its financial management.

At the same time, complaints about the previous travel tool were mounting, so the finance team was asked to find an all-in-one tool to manage business travel and expense reports.

“

Throughout this transition, the Navan team has been extremely helpful and has done a remarkable job.

Géraldine Adjadj

Group Financial Controller

Why Navan

To optimise the management of its business travel programme, the company wanted a platform that was simple to use and easy for employees to learn, in order to maximise adoption and minimise leakage. Stakeholders, including the company’s frequent travellers, thoroughly tested Navan’s UX. Everyone came away satisfied with the tool and convinced that the application was intuitive and easy to use.

Customer support was also a key factor in choosing the new tool. With the previous solution, programme managers had received a lot of negative feedback. “Navan’s customer support really made the difference. Travellers feel supported. The agents don’t give up until the problem is solved, and they understand the stress associated with travel,” explains Géraldine.

Navan supported the company at every stage of the decision-making process, developing use cases tailored to company needs and providing the necessary backup for Flowdesk to evaluate the customer support capabilities. “The Navan team was always available and did a remarkable job,” says Géraldine.

Navan’s accuracy of reporting and improved access to data were also key factors in the decision, as the finance team had previously suffered from a lack of visibility due to the use of multiple tools.

The Navan touch

“

Navan stands out for its excellent customer service. Their dedicated teams have a perfect understanding of the solution and provide us with high-quality support.

Géraldine Adjadj

Group Financial Controller

Automated workflows and a quick ramp up

Navan’s built-in approval system has significantly reduced the validation workflow for the finance department and relieved the burden on teams that were previously forced to review 100% of all reservations. Ufuoma Ogagarue, FP&A Manager at Flowdesk, notes a real gain in efficiency: “Compliant reservations are automatically validated. We save valuable time and can focus on those that really require our attention,” she explains. Similarly, dynamic policies offer unprecedented flexibility and significant time savings by allowing employees to book trips independently, wherever they are in the world. In recent months, the company has seen a marked improvement in compliance, proving that autonomy empowers travellers rather than encouraging abusive behavior.

The platform was quickly adopted by Flowdesk’s frequent travellers, who appreciate how intuitive Navan is. The result has been a significant improvement in the quality and accuracy of travel data. And customer support has been an entirely different experience than with the previous solution; travellers feel fully supported. “I’ve tested it myself; Navan’s agents are very responsive and very attentive,” says Géraldine.

Also, thanks to Navan’s event organisation features, Flowdesk is able to anticipate event costs and react immediately in the event of budget overruns. The finance team has control over all settings and can modify policies itself, which has enabled greater flexibility and faster responsiveness.

Full visibility, from payments to accounting

On the expense side, employees now submit their expense reports as they travel, which reduces processing times and improves visibility. “We know how much the trip cost us and we know its ROI, even before the traveller returns,” says Géraldine. In addition, Navan automatically reimburses employees, and the number of manual tasks has been greatly reduced.

Géraldine was also impressed by the expense report submission system. Thanks to optical recognition, the information captured is accurate and the submission process is much faster. “With Navan Travel, the finance team has really saved time. We no longer have to manually validate all expense reports,” she says.

Navan also facilitates the management of all accounting entries for the finance department and improves the quality of reporting. Previously, Géraldine and her team had to create imports in Excel and transfer the data manually. Today, Navan is integrated directly into Flowdesk’s ERP system, and all accounting entries are synchronised automatically. Centralised access to data is also an undeniable advantage. “Thanks to the real-time data available on Navan, our analyses are much higher quality,” says Ufuoma. “They help us make forecasts and set our budget, as we can easily detect trends.” Flowdesk has also implemented Navan purchase cards, offering a payment solution to offices in the United States that did not previously have one. And the company offers physical cards to certain employees who travel frequently, in order to further streamline the process. These travellers generate their own cards directly on Navan — another factor contributing to autonomy and flexibility.

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Before Navan, sorting and cleaning data took us 2 to 3 days. Thanks to Navan’s dashboards, we can now do it in seconds.

Géraldine Adjadj

Group Financial Controller

The future with Navan

As Flowdesk continues its international expansion, its travel budget is steadily increasing, making it crucial for the company to have accurate information and to know exactly how much each trip costs. To do that, Flowdesk will continue to rely on Navan, and plans to extend access to more users in order to maximise its adoption.

Navan has established itself as an essential tool that is both simple and enjoyable to use, as evidenced by an NPS score of +65 and a high adoption rate among travellers. “In finance, we are very satisfied with it,” says Géraldine. “If we had to do it again, we would do exactly the same thing.”