Navan, a US-based business travel and expense platform, has released a new Audit Engine designed to strengthen compliance and fraud detection across corporate transactions. The system introduces more than 45 configurable audit checks, including a dedicated Anti-Corruption and Bribery flag that draws on global risk intelligence to screen for sanctioned individuals and politically exposed persons in real time.
Closing compliance gaps in travel and expense
The Audit Engine builds on Navan's existing policy enforcement infrastructure, which already screens millions of transactions at the point of purchase. According to the company, approximately 75% of transactions are currently auto-approved, leaving the remaining 25% flagged for human review. So far this year, the system has flagged 2 million transactions, including around 30,000 instances of excessive tipping and hundreds of suspected AI-generated fraudulent receipts, a category that the company says traditional providers frequently miss. Other checks in the engine cover receipt amount mismatches, weekend spend, and purchases of prohibited items such as alcohol and tobacco.
The engine uses multiple large language models to test every transaction against customisable audit criteria. The company positions the system as a means of reducing the manual review burden on finance teams, directing human attention only toward transactions that require it.
One of Navan's customers, a global accounting director at Pendo.io, noted that expense review time had been reduced by at least ten hours per week following the introduction of auto-approval, with out-of-pocket reimbursements now processed within five days of approval.
Anti-corruption screening integrated into the T&E workflow
Beyond internal fraud detection, the Audit Engine addresses a distinct compliance challenge: verifying the identity and risk profile of transaction participants. Under legislation such as the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), a single transaction involving a politically exposed or sanctioned individual can trigger enforcement proceedings and financial penalties running into tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
Until now, this type of screening has typically required separate compliance tools operating outside the travel and expense workflow. The resulting gap between when a transaction occurs and when it is assessed for sanctions risk has represented a structural vulnerability for enterprise compliance teams.
Navan's Anti-Corruption and Bribery check, which can be enabled with a single configuration step, is designed to close this gap by running silent background checks on every transaction in real time. The approach ensures compliance teams are alerted without notifying the individuals under review.
