7 Strategiesto Increase YourT&E Program ROI
An interactive edition of the Brex × Navan guide. Pick a reading track, try the numbers on your own program, and check what stuck.
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Overview — min
Executive Summary
A full 80% of travel and finance professionals call business travel “an essential investment.” Yet most enterprises are running T&E programs built for a different era — fragmented systems that slow decisions, inflate costs, and frustrate the very employees driving revenue growth. It’s one reason why 79% of global finance leaders said their teams are “swamped” with manual work, citing reconciliation and delayed expense tracking as top challenges.
The solution involves rethinking every T&E touchpoint, from travel booking to expense reconciliation. Companies that consolidate fragmented vendor relationships, leverage AI, and empower employees with integrated travel-to-payment workflows can drive real business growth.
It’s no wonder, then, that 55% of leaders are embedding payments directly into their travel solutions, eliminating manual reconciliation, reducing settlement cycles, and delivering real-time spend visibility that accelerates T&E’s impact. This embedded approach to T&E can help your company spend smarter, move faster, and go further.
What you’ll learn in this guide
- The top T&E challenges costing your business time and money.
- Where AI eliminates manual work for travelers, managers, and finance teams.
- How to increase ROI with integrated, best-of-breed travel and payment solutions.
Before you start
Choose your track
Both tracks cover all seven strategies. Switch any time from the header; your place on the page stays put and the reading times update.
Strategy 1 — min
Eliminate Manual Expense Reports
Most T&E solutions struggle to consistently enforce policies, which can result in out-of-policy expenses, manual receipt verification issues, and complex approval workflows. And that’s after an expense report is filed — a process which, for 40% of travelers surveyed by Navan, takes at least one hour.
Expense reports eat hours before anyone even approves them. Move the policy into the card and the receipt check into software, and approvals stop waiting on people.
- Block out-of-policy spend automatically with customizable controls.
- Verify receipts instantly with and image analysis.
- Accelerate approvals by 8x* with intelligent routing.
What’s costing you:
Cumbersome expense workflows that cost hours
- Employees spend hours collecting receipts and manually categorizing expenses.
- Approving out-of-policy expenses saps valuable time.
- Expense report approvals are slowed by manual routing.
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Getty comp · 1505202637How to fix it:
Embedded controls and automated workflows
- Block out-of-policy spend automatically with customizable controls.
- Instantly verify receipts using and image analysis to catch fraud and duplicates.
- Accelerate approvals by 8x* with intelligent routing based on amount, vendor, role, and more.
*Based on Brex internal metrics from December 2024. Past performance does not guarantee future results, which may vary.
+Implementation notes: rolling out receipt automationDeep dive
Start with the policy, then the plumbing. Teams that move fastest write the policy as rules a card can enforce before they configure any approval chain.
- Translate each policy line into a control: merchant category, amount ceiling, per-diem, or pre-approval.
- Turn on receipt capture at the point of purchase, so the receipt arrives with the transaction instead of at month-end.
- Route approvals by amount, vendor and role, and keep a human review only for genuine exceptions.
Measure the before and after with the two numbers in the calculator: hours filed and days waiting.
Strategy 2 — min
Rein in Travel Costs
Employees booking travel outside approved tools can result in surprise charges and higher costs. Off-platform bookings can limit a traveler’s access to inventory, negating the benefits of corporate negotiated rates and potential savings through , and resulting in out-of-policy trips.
Off-platform bookings cost more and dodge policy. One booking platform with policy built into the card keeps travelers in-policy without a lecture.
- Book through a single platform with personalized, in-policy options.
- Cards decline out-of-policy spend automatically.
- AI spots disruptions early and offers compliant rebooking.
What’s costing you:
Travel leakage and out-of-policy spend
- Employees booking off-platform can drive up costs.
- Manual receipt verification is time-consuming and prone to error.
- Scouring multiple off-platform sites can take excessive time and effort.
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How to fix it:
One centralized platform with enforcement built in
- Have employees book through a single platform with a robust inventory and personalized, in-policy options.
- Enforce policy automatically with cards that decline out-of-policy spend.
- Use AI to detect disruptions early and offer instant, compliant rebooking.
Strategy 3 — min
Support Your Travelers at Every Turn
Generic travel assistance and limited support hours may leave employees stranded when they need help with T&E questions or pre-trip approvals. When support is slow or unavailable, productivity drops, and even minor issues can turn into costly disruptions.
Travelers need answers at 2am in another time zone. AI chat handles the common questions instantly, and humans are on call around the clock for the rest.
- AI-powered, multilingual chat for common T&E questions.
- 24/7 support and AI-driven travel recommendations.
- Automated pre-trip approvals with visa and compliance checks.
What’s costing you:
Inefficient support for travelers
- Employees who wait too long for answers to basic T&E questions can easily overload support teams.
- Travel help is often limited to email or business hours, frustrating employees.
- Manual pre-trip approvals may miss key compliance checks, increasing the risk of travel disruptions.
Getty comp · 1972372046How to fix it:
24/7 support and proactive travel approvals
- Answer common T&E questions instantly with AI-powered, multilingual chat.
- Provide 24/7 support and AI-driven travel recommendations for a smoother trip.
- Automate pre-trip approvals with built-in checks for visas and compliance.
Strategy 4 — min
Streamline the Slog of Reconciliation
When corporate cards, travel bookings, and expense management operate separately, finance teams can spend hours matching transactions to receipts and travel itineraries. Direct integrations between T&E cards, travel tools, and expense management platforms eliminate manual transaction-to-booking .
When the card, the booking and the receipt live in one system, they match themselves. Finance gets detailed reports instead of spreadsheets, and the books close faster.
- Sync every booking, card swipe and receipt in real time.
- Report by region, department or project.
- Auto-match receipts and close the books 3x* faster with AI.
What’s costing you:
Disconnected systems requiring hours of manual reconciliation
- Finance teams manually match expenses, bookings, and card transactions.
- Global T&E reporting lacks detail and is hard to generate.
- slow down due to missing receipts and manual verification.
Getty comp · 2273985905How to fix it:
Automated reconciliation for every trip and expense
- Sync every booking, card swipe, and receipt in real time by using an integrated T&E platform.
- Trade the spreadsheets for detailed reports by region, department, or project.
- Auto-match receipts, categorize spend, and close the books 3x* faster with AI.
*Based on Brex internal metrics from December 2024. Past performance does not guarantee future results, which may vary.
What stuck so far?
Keep these four numbers. They’re the ones people quote back in budget meetings.
Strategy 5 — min
Make Employee Compliance Seamless
Disconnected legacy systems make it hard to verify if expenses are justified, pre-approved, or within policy at the time of spend. Without enforcement built into the tools they use, employee overspending or out-of-policy bookings can require after-the-fact audits, which may not happen until weeks or months later.
Let AI review every receipt the moment it arrives. Violations, duplicates and missing info are flagged in real time, and every decision lands in one audit-ready log.
What’s costing you:
Reactive reviews and missed policy violations
- Expenses are reviewed weeks after the fact, letting misuse slip through.
- Policy violations go unnoticed until end-of-month audits — well after the damage is done.
- Disconnected systems leave gaps in documentation and delay resolution.
How to fix it:
Let AI do the heavy lifting
- Flag issues — policy violations, duplicate receipts, unusual spend patterns, and missing info — the moment they appear.
- Automatically log every transaction, approval, and exception in one system for a complete, audit-ready trail.
- Streamline the booking experience with personalized recommendations and clarity around out-of-policy options.
• High risk item detected on receipt: Alcohol
Strategy 6 — min
Get More Visibility Into Spend
Without real-time T&E visibility, finance teams can’t track budgets, identify spending anomalies, or make informed decisions about travel policies. That’s why 82% of respondents in a global Brex survey said they are prioritizing spend visibility, and 42% of travel and finance managers in a Navan survey named real-time visibility their most wanted T&E feature.
Weeks-old reports can’t steer a budget. Real-time dashboards and continuous AI monitoring surface overspend and anomalies while there’s still time to act.
What’s costing you:
Disjointed solutions and outdated reporting
- Finance teams wait weeks for reports to understand T&E spend, making budgets hard to manage.
- Unusual spending patterns or violations are spotted too late.
- Canceled or changed bookings create reconciliation headaches with unclear credit trails.
How to fix it:
Real-time T&E spend tracking and faster insights
- Real-time dashboards show spending as it happens, enabling proactive budget management.
- AI monitors spending patterns continuously and flags anomalies for early intervention.
- Travel changes and cancellations are tracked automatically with clear audit trails and real-time credit reconciliation.
Strategy 7 — min
Think (and Act) Globally
As companies expand globally, their T&E programs often can’t keep pace. Legacy solutions may struggle with multi-currency expenses, international tax compliance, and regional policy variations. This creates operational complexity that slows growth and frustrates teams that need global travel inventory and seamless expense management no matter where they’re located.
Multi-currency spend, local policies and recovery shouldn’t live in spreadsheets. Automate conversion, enforce local rules, and let AI find reclaimable tax.
Getty comp · 1216572181What’s costing you:
Limited international inventory and costly foreign exchange fees
- Multi-currency expenses require manual conversion and reconciliation, delaying reporting and increasing errors.
- Regional policies and approval hierarchies are hard to manage, leading to inconsistent compliance.
- and tax recovery opportunities are missed due to a lack of automation across jurisdictions.
How to fix it:
T&E that works wherever your teams are
- Automate currency conversion and reconciliation to enable accurate, real-time global reporting.
- Enforce local policies and approvals automatically, with global visibility baked in.
- Use AI to identify and process VAT and tax recovery opportunities without all the manual spreadsheet tracking.
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Next Steps — min
Increase Your Travel ROI with BrexPay for Navan
BrexPay for Navan eliminates the biggest headaches in corporate travel.
BrexPay for Navan embeds smart, global Brex cards directly into Navan’s travel platform for seamless booking, spend control, and automation. With BrexPay for Navan, a is issued for each booking and expenses sync instantly, so 100% of travel payments are fully reconciled without manual work. Finance teams never have to chase down expense details again, while employees enjoy a smooth, modern travel experience. No receipts, no friction, no surprises.
- Every booking and payment is automatically linked to the right traveler and trip.
- Global cards and expenses are managed directly within the Navan platform.
- Brex cards enforce Navan travel policies by default, with no extra setup required.
“BrexPay for Navan represents the highest level of achievement in global integrated payments. It brings the best of both worlds together, and allows us to spend more time focused on scaling and innovating, all in the most cost-effective way.”
“With BrexPay for Navan, we can process travel expenses in more local currencies where our employees go, saving us both money and time on global travel.”
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Next Steps — min
Get Started Today
Companies juggling disparate solutions for cards, expenses, and travel are falling behind. Business success today means finding efficiencies that save time, reducing costs without compromising growth, and seizing every competitive advantage available.
BrexPay for Navan — two industry-leading platforms in one unified T&E solution — is your secret weapon. With it, you get personalized travel booking service, global inventory, 24/7 support with 100% payment reconciliation, up to 99%+ policy compliance, and real-time T&E visibility that accelerates the month-end close.
Learn more
Navan is the leading all-in-one business travel and expense management solution that makes travel easy for frequent travelers. From finding flights and hotels to automating expense reconciliation, with 24/7 support along the way, Navan delivers an intuitive experience travelers love and finance teams rely on.
See how Navan customers benefit and learn more at navan.com.
Brex is the intelligent finance platform that empowers growing companies to spend smarter and move faster — in 120+ countries. By combining the world’s smartest corporate card and high-yield banking with intuitive software for expenses, bill pay, accounting, and travel, Brex enables finance teams to accelerate operations, gain real-time visibility, and control spend effortlessly.
See why 30,000 global companies, including ServiceTitan, Anthropic, and Robinhood, run their finances on Brex. Learn more.
Brex intends to provide accurate information but cannot guarantee this content is current, correct, or complete.
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