Austin Powder

The Challenge

Austin Powder has a nearly 200-year legacy of growth and innovation in the industrial explosives space, but when it came to expense reporting, the company was still operating in the dark ages, with a manual system consisting of printed excel sheets with attached receipts. 

Employees frequently travel to remote locations such as mines and construction sites where there’s limited connectivity or access to computers, which made the already painstaking manual task of expense reporting even more arduous. Without a convenient mobile solution, many travelers saved receipts for months, or even an entire year, before submitting for reimbursement. And once an expense report was submitted, it could take up to a month to be fully processed. 

Not only was this system a poor user experience, but it was inefficient and risky—leaving ample room for human error, duplicate submissions, and no way to easily enforce policy or track approvals. 

The Chrome River Solution

With user experience top of mind, Austin Powder was determined to make expense reporting quick and easy so travelers can focus on their core mission of building and improving communities, without being bogged down by expense reports.

Mobility and scalability were key decision drivers. Austin Powder wanted a flexible solution that could scale with the organization, especially as it expands globally. The fact that Chrome River can easily convert international currencies and offers the solution in-language are distinguishing factors that enable Austin Powder to continue to grow without hurdles. Additionally, the organization felt that Chrome River’s mobile experience was superior to competitors like SAP Concur, with features like Chrome River’s SNAP app for convenient on-the-go receipt capture and submission. Travelers no longer have to save paper receipts or wait until they’re able to access a computer to submit an expense report—it can all be done from the convenience of their smartphone in a matter of minutes. 

Chrome River saves us time so we can focus on our mission of building and improving communities around the world.

Shelton Palmer,
Expense and Card Administrator

The Results

Austin Powder travelers find Chrome River’s mobile expense solution intuitive to use, which has resulted in more frequent expense report submissions and even a friendly competition among colleagues to see who can snap, submit, and get reimbursed the fastest.

Compliance has improved significantly, as built-in rules eliminate risk of duplicate and out-of-policy submissions. Data from Chrome River allows the AP team to track spending trends for more accurate budget forecasting, and integrations streamline data exchange between Chrome River and the company’s ERP and HR systems.

The need for human input has been reduced – eliminating manual errors and resulting in drastic time savings. For example, the process of validating expense reports and keying data into the accounting system has been reduced from hours to minutes. And expense reports that used to take up to a month to process, are now typically reimbursed within just one week. This time saved is now directed to more important tasks, like powering communities and scaling the organization.