10 Things to Look for on Your Expense Management Shortlist (And Why Chrome River Needs to Be on It)

Your old expense processes simply don’t support your organisation’s existing needs, so you’ve decided that it’s time to search for a new expense management solution. Whether it’s finally moving from soul-crushing spreadsheets, or freeing your company from the shackles of a clunky old system, you need to be sure that the solution will support your organisation’s needs today and for years into the future.

Here are 10 key reasons why Chrome River needs to be on your shortlist:

1. Flexible, Best-of-Breed Approach

One major consideration when rolling out a T&E program is whether to choose a single vendor for both travel booking and expense, or go with individual vendors for each solution. Thanks to Chrome River’s flexibility, you can rest assured that you can select the best of breed solutions that support your organisation’s precise requirements. We have deep technology integrations with major travel technology providers, and seamlessly take feeds from hundreds of corporate travel providers across the world, so you don’t need to choose between flexibility and ease of use.

2. Unlimited Configurability of Business Rules

No two organisations have the same set of rules for expense policy enforcement or approval routing. In addition, most organisations have a complex matrix of approvals for different expense categories and values, or have different policies based on location or GL code. Organisations shouldn’t have to worry about changing their business processes to fit into their expense system’s framework, and that’s why Chrome River developed its business rules engine to support unlimited configurability. Just like the burger chain says, you can have it your way.  

3. Support Your Mobile Travellers – Wherever they are

Few companies still provide mobile phones for their travelling employees, which means that there can often be a smorgasbord of different devices within an organisation. For those with staff based in developing countries the variety can be even more broad. For solutions that use native Apple/Android apps, ensuring that everyone has the same mobile user experience regardless of where they are or what device they use can be difficult. Chrome River’s use of responsive design technology ensures that everyone gets exactly the same experience no matter where they are or what device they use, making training and support simpler, and giving them full functionality on every platform.

4. Solutions that Support the Way Your Team Works

Chrome River makes it easy for customers to submit their receipts in the way that it suits them – on the road or in the office. This could mean simply uploading a hotel folio for Chrome River to automatically extract the data on a line-item level. Direct integration with rideshare companies means receipts are automatically added to your expense claim without any action from the end user. For corporate card holders, it could save time by prompting users to capture receipt images with real time alerts - and then matching them. Or it could just be snapping an image of a receipt on a phone and directly uploading it without clogging up the user’s photo gallery.

5. Industry-leading Optical Character Recognition Capabilities

Regardless of how easy it may be to upload receipts into the expense solution, if the technology isn’t smart enough to be able to extract the transaction data, much of the work still needs to be done manually. Chrome River’s OCR engine leads the pack in its ability to read and parse data and create expense items. It extracts transaction data in multiple languages and currencies with more than 95% accuracy, and can even extract merchant names from logos. Data is then automatically mapped into an expense item and categorised, ready for submission. Even better, this entirely automated process can be done in as little as 30 seconds. 

6. Support for Global Rollouts

Chrome River has customers in 115 countries around the world, who last year submitted expenses in more than 170 of the world’s 180 currencies, and accessed the solution in more than 30 languages. We offer 24-hour support in multiple languages through our support centres on three continents. Our project management teams have implemented Chrome River for organisations headquartered in more than two dozen countries.  Wherever your organisation is based, or has employees living or traveling to, you can rest assured that we’ve been there, done that, and have the delighted customers to prove it.

7. Ensure International Expense Compliance

Supporting global expense submission and reimbursement also means staying in compliance with local regulations and taxes. The VAT treatment on a specific type of purchase, or the mileage reimbursement rate for a certain vehicle type, can differ significantly between different markets. Keeping track of these across multiple markets can be a daunting task, especially as rates can change frequently. Chrome River’s partnership with a Big Four firm means that our customers can rely on the system to take care of those details, so they never have to worry about being out of compliance.

8. Deep Analytical Capabilities

As significant as the benefits of automating the expense process are on their own, the real financial benefits come from the insight that a solution provides. Knowing the what, where and how of your organisation’s expense spend can help your organisation to potentially save millions. Chrome River’s powerful but easy-to-use analytics engine enables our customers to easily analyse millions of transaction data points to spot trends and patterns that allow them to manage deep cost-control capabilities.

9. Designed to Evolve as Your Organisation Grows

When investing in a major, enterprise-wide software initiative, it’s critical to get it right first time. To avoid a costly, disruptive and embarrassing rip-and-replace a couple of years later, you need to ensure that the solution is both flexible and scalable enough to grow and adapt to your organisation. This could be anything from easily integrating acquisitions to implementing new languages as you expand into new territories. Chrome River’s agile architecture was designed from the ground up to support our customers as they evolve.

10. Easy Migration from Existing Expense Solutions

All of these benefits may be great, but if moving your expense processes over to a new solution is a massive headache, it makes you question if it’s all worth it. Chrome River knows this, and that’s why we developed a methodology designed to make the transition process efficient and hassle-free. Our project management teams each have hundreds of implementations under their belts and understand how to create a solution that works for each customer’s individual needs. End-users can easily get up-and-running with their expenses with our easy-to-use training and change management tools, and our ongoing customer support ensures that any issues can easily be resolved.

Whether you just need to finally get away from the hell of spreadsheets and hard copy receipts, or you’re tired of seeing your frequent travellers posting things like this about your existing expense solution, you need to ensure that Chrome River is on your shortlist.