Market benchmarks indicate that Travel & Expenses (T&E) are a law firm’s #2 indirect cost with a run rate of 1-12% of annual revenues. Many firms struggle with disjointed processes for capturing, tracking and reconciling client billable T&E, and that leads to highly inefficient workflows that add significant additional hidden costs. But Chrome River lets business flow.
Welcome to The River.
Routing an expense report or invoice from point A to point B to point C isn’t the challenge for law firms. The challenge is transcribing complex business rules into an actionable workflow because every single transaction has a different allocation, a different approver, and a different compliance requirement. It involves pre-approvals, firm compliance, client agreements, practice leader approvals, administrative approvals, auditing, tax compliance and cost recovery. And untying this Gordian Knot is how Chrome River lets business flow.
There are many vendors who solve the basic workflow problem: moving electronic documents along a predefined approval chain. But Chrome River is the first and only travel and expense management vendor to solve the business rules problem where every expense line item is scrutinized by matter, approver, and client compliance.
Our Business Rules Engine Is Paramount
Every time a user enters an expense or invoice item, it is checked for policy compliance against a rules set. Every time an item is submitted, the routing is determined by the rules engine. Rules are customized for each organization and can be changed as rules and policies change. Law firms always present the most complex business rules and it is a challenge Chrome River embraces. Our business rules engine is endlessly configurable no matter how many offices, departments, divisions, clients, or employees you have.
Mobile Solutions for Your Firm
Attorneys and partners are competing to win new clients and keep existing clients every day. The finance team is also working around family demands and use their mobile devices to stay up-to-date. That’s where Chrome River’s interface is a true business advantage: expense report creation, submission, and approvals, as well as invoice automation including PO matching and electronic payments can all be managed on the go. And because of its responsive design, all the features and functionality Chrome River offers are available on each and every device in your firm.
This includes our popular Snap & Send receipt handling feature. Users can use their phone or tablet to snap a photo of the dinner check or taxi receipt when and where the expense happens – at the restaurant table or in the back of a cab – and send that receipt to their Chrome River account. It’s now ready to be added to an expense report.
Another feature law firms appreciate is the security our web app affords. Sensitive data is never stored locally on a user’s device – so even if a tablet or phone or laptop is lost or stolen, no banking or credit card data is accessible.
IT professionals love that all the features and functionality users love on their desktop are available on each and every device, too. This means no special training for each device – another headache solved – and IT doesn’t need a matrix of who owns what device and what features work on which devices. IT issues solved.
One Expense Report Covers Client Billable and Non-Billable Expenses
No matter your role in the firm, you can certainly appreciate the convenience of not having to compile two expense reports: one for the client-billable charges and one for firm or personal expenses. Simply put all charges on one expense report and Chrome River’s business rules engine takes care of the rest. Line items are examined one by one to identify the client, the client’s compliance rules, the special approval workflow for that client – and of course, the business rule engine also knows that Karen is on vacation this week and Tim is picking up her workload for expense approvals.
This means that billable and non-billable items with different approval requirements are processed independently rather than always bound together within an expense report. In turn, that means timely client billing and rapid personal reimbursement.
Split allocations are intuitive, too. Users can enter unique descriptions for each split entry to keep the entire report organized, streamlined and poised for rapid approval.
Your Firm Serves Clients around the World
A typical global Chrome River customer will have operations in at least 20 countries, multiple general ledgers to allocate expense items to, multiple languages, and will require strict compliance to their own unique interpretation of local regulations. You're in need of global expense management solutions with languages, currencies, VAT, per diems, and international tax jurisdiction requirements out of the box. Chrome River supports 183 currencies and 40 different tax jurisdictions so your employees don’t need to worry about exchange rates – just the job at hand.
An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure
Expense fraud just doesn’t happen in large corporations – as the headlines indicate, fraud can happen in government and law firms. Law firms require smart auditing tactics precipitated by expense policy violations – Chrome River AUDIT provides a secondary review process to help catch these policy violations and errors to eliminate the potential for fraudulent activity.
Integrations Mean Fewer Clicks and Fewer Mistakes
Delegates are often under a time crunch to enter expense reports. Wouldn’t it be helpful if they could drag and drop charges from corporate card statements onto the expense report? How easy would it be if partners could tap their Uber trip into an expense claim? Finance benefits, too, with seamless integrations with Elite and Aderant – so there’s no manual data entry. Corporate card programs are integrated, as are online booking tools, travel management companies like Altour or Ultramar, and travel technologies like Meridian or Quipsound for VAT recovery. Your firm is never beholden to list of approved vendors – Chrome River adapts to your firm’s needs and growth.
Legal Firms Love Chrome River
The next time you run into a colleague at another firm, please ask them what expense report software they use. Chances are it’s Chrome River and they love it. They might even pay the check just to show you how Snap & Send works. 80% of the AmLaw 200 and 65% of the Global 100 law firms use Chrome River. Read the featured case studies and be sure to visit our Testimonials page, too, for more quotations from happy customers. After all, Chrome River lets business flow.
After conducting a search that included industry leading vendors, we selected Chrome River because of their product strategy and proven law firm experience. They have over 25 years of law firm financial systems experience, which allows them to deliver the right functionality with a successful deployment model and professional service that delivers results. We believe that the easy-to-use interface will make this well-received among our lawyers and automation will improve operational efficiency in our firm.
