Expense Management

9 Signs it’s Time to Switch Expense Management Systems

by Tim Wheatcroft

9 Signs it’s Time to Switch Expense Management Systems

It’s not too long ago that the panacea to everyone’s expense problems was “get expense management automation software.” Anything was a quantum leap from having to staple or tape your receipts to a spreadsheet, then hand it into your accounting team, and then wait a pay cycle (or two) for them to be reviewed, and then go up the approval chain, and then finally to the payroll team who would often cut you a paper check... that you often had to take to the bank or ATM to deposit.

How We Did It: Supporting Front Line Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Outbreak

How We Did It: Supporting Front Line Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Outbreak

A sudden transition to working from home meant that nonprofit Compass Health Network needed to rapidly bring its expense processing online. The organisation also needed to ensure that it could effectively support its front line employees, so they could focus on their core mission of supporting their clients.

Controlling Car Rental Spend With Car FOLIO

by Barbara Doane

Controlling Car Rental Spend With Car FOLIO

Many organisations have negotiated corporate rates with their preferred car rental providers. But with potentially many thousands of rentals each year, how can they verify that each traveller receives the appropriate rates? Chrome River is making it far easier to analyse the data with the launch of FOLIO for car rentals.

Supporting Your Organisation’s Temporary Transition to Work-from-Home

by Danielle Tabor

Supporting Your Organisation’s Temporary Transition to Work-from-Home

Making the transition to working from home isn't always easy for employees. Emburse's Chief People Officer, Danielle Tabor, offers tips on how organisations can set their teams up for success.

Why Expenses Shouldn’t Have to Be So Painful

by Tim Wheatcroft

Why Expenses Shouldn’t Have to Be So Painful

Gartner analyst Chris Pang spoke with technology buyers to learn about their challenges with expense management, and outlined how technology vendors could tackle these challenges.

Virtualising Financial Operations to Adapt to Increased Work from Home Requirements

by Katherine Edenbach

Virtualising Financial Operations to Adapt to Increased Work from Home Requirements

Working from home will be with us for some time. To ensure everyday operations are disrupted as little as possible, finance teams need to quickly adapt to a virtual environment.

ERT - Ensuring Even Easier Expensing

by Ted Power

ERT - Ensuring Even Easier Expensing

At the heart of every expense management solution is the ability to quickly and accurately extract and make sense of the data on paper and electronic receipts. With the launch of Emburse Receipt Transcription for Chrome River, we're using innovations from across Emburse to get to the next level in intelligent expense management.

Five Key Questions to Ask on Your Expense Management Solution RFP

by Barbara Doane

Five Key Questions to Ask on Your Expense Management Solution RFP

Organising your expense management software RFP can be a daunting task. Start with these five questions on global capabilties, mobile features, user experience, pricing and support. Then dive deep with our free RFP template.

IDC Recognizes Chrome River as a Leader in Enterprise Expense Management

by Tim Wheatcroft

IDC Recognizes Chrome River as a Leader in Enterprise Expense Management

We're honoured to announce that Chrome River has again been recognised by leading global technology analyst IDC as a Leader in the 2019 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Enterprise Travel and Expense Management Software

Making the Best Mobile Expense Solution Even Better

by Barbara Doane

Making the Best Mobile Expense Solution Even Better

Chrome River has long been viewed as the most comprehensive, most user-friendly mobile solution for expense management. And now we've gone and made it even better!

Empowering our Customers’ Administrators with Configuration Self-Service

by Ryan Plutnicki

Empowering our Customers’ Administrators with Configuration Self-Service

Chrome River is further empowering our customers with the introduction of configuration self-service, allowing administrators to quickly and easily make changes within their expense management solution.

Gartner Digital Markets Reviews Crown Chrome River the Leader in Expense Reporting

by Tim Wheatcroft

Gartner Digital Markets Reviews Crown Chrome River the Leader in Expense Reporting

Gartner Digital Markets uses real reviews from verified users to rate software products. So when its reports list us as the leading expense software solutions, we're pretty happy. See for yourself where we stacked up against three of our key competitors.

Tackling the Challenge of German Per Diems

by Barbara Doane

Tackling the Challenge of German Per Diems

German per diems may not suddenly spring to mind as a critical business issue for global organisations. However, if you work in the world of corporate travel, expense or accounting, it can be a major source of angst. Thankfully, help is at hand.

Readying your T&E Program for the Next Decade

by Tim Wheatcroft

Readying your T&E Program for the Next Decade

We're now less than 90 days away from the end of not just the year, but the decade. Is your T&E program future-ready and prepared for the next era of business and travel?

Is Your Organisation Taking Fraud Seriously Enough?

by Barbara Doane

Is Your Organisation Taking Fraud Seriously Enough?

Organisations that rely on manual processes to verify and approve expenses and invoices could leave themselves open to become victims of fraud, and even the largest companies aren't immune. How can your organisation foster a fraud-prevention culture?

What Makes People Commit Expense Fraud?

by Tim Wheatcroft

What Makes People Commit Expense Fraud?

An estimated 5% of business travellers commit expense fraud. But what makes them do it? Is it just that the temptation is too much to resist, or that they bear a grudge against their company. Our survey revealed some interesting findings.

HBR Research: How to Use Data to Protect Your Corporate Travel Culture

by Tim Wheatcroft

HBR Research: How to Use Data to Protect Your Corporate Travel Culture

How can organisations protect their travel culture and insulate their budgets during times of economic uncertainly. Harvard Business Review analyzes industry data and talks to leading experts in the field to develop best practises that are a must-read for every finance or corporate travel leader.

Why Does Expense Automation Make Life So Easy?

by Tim Wheatcroft

Why Does Expense Automation Make Life So Easy?

We recently showed why manual expenses are so inefficient to submit, approve and process, and how this can dramatically slow down the reimbursement process. You may be wondering how this process improves with an automated solution. Follow the path of an automated expense claim and you'll see how a streamlined, automated process benefits everyone in the company.

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

by Barbara Doane

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:

Why is Your Company STILL Doing Manual Expense Reporting?

by Tim Wheatcroft

Why is Your Company STILL Doing Manual Expense Reporting?

We’re in 2019. Cars can drive themselves. You can order niche products on Amazon and have them delivered to your door the same day. You can tell your phone to play some obscure song from your youth that you’ve not even thought about in 30 years. So why are you making your employees do their expenses using tape and printed spreadsheets?

How I Did It: Eliminating the Risks of Paper-Intensive Expense Processes

How I Did It: Eliminating the Risks of Paper-Intensive Expense Processes

The University of New Mexico upgraded its expense claims to Chrome River in 2016. In this guest blog post, Lorrie Black, a senior business analyst at UNM, discusses how the university’s decision to move to Chrome River from a home-grown system reduced risk and increased employee satisfaction.

Beyond Efficiency: How Spend Data Delivers the Biggest Benefits of Expense and Invoice Management

by Barbara Doane

Beyond Efficiency: How Spend Data Delivers the Biggest Benefits of Expense and Invoice Management

Manual expense claims and invoice processing are huge efficiency killers for both business travellers and corporate finance teams. By automating these processes through the implementation of expense and invoice management technology, organisations can save tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. However, the financial benefits of eliminating inefficient use of employees’ time can often just be a fraction of the overall financial benefits. The big-ticket improvements come from the visibility that automation delivers.

How I Did It: Reducing Administrative Time to Devote More Resources to Our Core Mission

How I Did It: Reducing Administrative Time to Devote More Resources to Our Core Mission

Northeast Treatment Centers is a Philadelphia-based non-profit which provides a continuum of trauma-informed behavioural health and social services designed to meet complex needs of all family members. In this guest blog post, NET’s Controller, Robert Ferrandino, and Accounts Payable Specialist, Teresamarie Morris, explain how Chrome River’s expense and invoice automation solutions let business flow by enabling the finance team to focus on high value activities.

Delivering Value from Shrinking Corporate Travel Budgets in Uncertain Economic Times

by Barbara Doane

Delivering Value from Shrinking Corporate Travel Budgets in Uncertain Economic Times

Travel budget growth is stalling and increasing numbers of organisations are cutting their travel budgets. As potential economic clouds are gathering, how can organisations avoid hampering their own growth by slashing team travel?

How Manual Expense Reporting is Killing Your Finance Team’s Efficiency

by Tim Wheatcroft

How Manual Expense Reporting is Killing Your Finance Team’s Efficiency

Manually attaching receipts to spreadsheets is a real drudge for business travellers. However, their frustrations pale in comparison to those of the finance team, who have to navigate cumbersome approval workflows, enforce confusing T&E policies, and spend hours manually entering data into their accounting system.

7 of the Most Common Expense Scams (and How to Stop Them)

by Barbara Doane

7 of the Most Common Expense Scams (and How to Stop Them)

Most employees are inherently honest. They realise that the risk of imperiling their career over a couple of hundred more dollars in their pocket isn’t worth it. However, a small section of employees don’t agree. What are the most common ways they try and defraud their employers, and how can they be prevented?

ICYMI: Last Year’s 10 Most Popular Blogs

by Tim Wheatcroft

ICYMI: Last Year’s 10 Most Popular Blogs

Worried that you may have missed out on some of our blog posts? Fear not - we've compiled a list of the 10 most-read blog posts in 2018. See what your peers thought were the most pressing topics of the year.

What do Expense Professionals Expect to See in 2019 and Beyond?

by Barbara Doane

What do Expense Professionals Expect to See in 2019 and Beyond?

At Chrome River, we are interested in what’s next for the expense automation industry. To find out where our customers see the world of corporate expense management going, we asked them what their number one prediction is for expense management in 2019.

How I Did It: Building an Integrated Card and Expense Program

by Mary Hayat, Dealer Tire

How I Did It: Building an Integrated Card and Expense Program

Cleveland, Ohio-based Dealer Tire manages replacement tire and parts programs for more than 20 automotive OEMs in the U.S. and China. In this guest blog post, Mary Hayat, Dealer Tire’s director of accounting, explains how the company lets business flow by building an integrated card and expense program.

Is Your Travel Expense Policy Keeping Up With the Times?

by Tim Wheatcroft

Is Your Travel Expense Policy Keeping Up With the Times?

Your organisation must ensure that its travel and expense policy stays updated, to support the requirements of both the employer and also those who need to submit expense claims. With services such as Uber/Lyft and Airbnb now in the mainstream, is your policy keeping up?

How I Did It: Speeding up Expense Reimbursement with Automated Policy Compliance

How I Did It: Speeding up Expense Reimbursement with Automated Policy Compliance

Idaho State University (ISU) is a public research university in Pocatello, Idaho. Founded in 1901 as the Academy of Idaho, ISU now has 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students and more than 2,000 faculty and staff. In this guest blog post, Lisa Leyshon, assistant controller at ISU, explains how the university let business flow by automating expense policy compliance and speeding up the approval process, getting reimbursements back in travellers’ accounts much more quickly.

How Can Expense Automation Benefit Your Organization?

by Tim Wheatcroft

How Can Expense Automation Benefit Your Organization?

New research shows that expense automation technology is firmly in the mainstream, and the majority of organisations that have made the switch have adopted dedicated cloud-based expense automation software. If your organisation hasn't yet made the leap, what are the main benefits that you are missing out on?

How I Did It: Upgrading to Chrome River from Another Expense Solution

How I Did It: Upgrading to Chrome River from Another Expense Solution

Latham & Watkins was founded in 1934 and is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious law firms. It has annual revenues of more than $3 billion, and has 2,500 attorneys. In this guest post, Neil Ackley, Latham & Watkins’ director of global accounting explains how he let business flow for the firm by upgrading its expense management solution to Chrome River.

Will Your Expense Management Solution Evolve with Your Organisation?

by Tim Wheatcroft

Will Your Expense Management Solution Evolve with Your Organisation?

Change is a constant in the business world. New business units. International growth. Acquisitions. For an organisation's software solutions to keep up, it needs to be flexible and robust enough to adapt as a company evolves. When choosing an expense management solution, how can organisations ensure that it will be able to adapt to the changing tides?

Why Navigating your Expense System Migration to Chrome River is Smooth Sailing

by Christina Gruen

Why Navigating your Expense System Migration to Chrome River is Smooth Sailing

Navigating change is critical to the successful adoption of a new software solution. However many organisations stumble as they attempt to reap the benefits of a new solution because they get stuck during the changeover to a new offering. Here's how Chrome River enables our customers to avoid this.

Playing by the Rules: Why Configurability is Key in Expense Management Choice

by Tim Wheatcroft

Playing by the Rules: Why Configurability is Key in Expense Management Choice

One of the biggest benefits that an expense management solution can deliver is automated enforcement of an organisation's expense policy and approval processes. However, not all expense solutions have the capability or flexibility to support the requirements of complex global organisations.

How I Did It: Five Key Steps to Manage Technology Change

by Karen Keegan, Nixon Peabody

How I Did It: Five Key Steps to Manage Technology Change

Nixon Peabody, LLP is a Global 100 law firm with more than 700 attorneys across the U.S., Europe and Asia. In this guest post, Karen Keegan, Nixon Peabody’s assistant controller, discusses how to the firm let business flow by effectively managing technology change.

Intelligent Automation with Chrome River Autobot: Eliminating Repetitive Tasks in Expense Approval

by Tim Wheatcroft

Intelligent Automation with Chrome River Autobot: Eliminating Repetitive Tasks in Expense Approval

Chrome River announces the launch of Autobot - an intelligent automation solution which enables organizations to create custom workflows that streamline repetitive manual tasks.

How I Did it: Best Practices for Implementing Chrome River in Higher Education

How I Did it: Best Practices for Implementing Chrome River in Higher Education

Spokane, Washington-based liberal arts college, Whitworth University, chose Chrome River to streamline expense management for its travelling faculty and staff. Carolina León, Business Analyst, Finance and Administration at Whitworth University explains how the university lets business flow with a smooth implementation and an agile approach to providing the best solution for its team.

Next-gen Expense Management Technology: What Are Users Looking For?

by Tim Wheatcroft

Next-gen Expense Management Technology: What Are Users Looking For?

What are the innovations that global organisations can expect to see in expense management technology in the coming months and years? Learn from experts at analyst firm IDC and Chrome River what to look out for.

Welcome to The River, Yatra Customers!

by Ted Stavropoulos

Welcome to The River, Yatra Customers!

Chrome River is excited to announce a new relationship with Yatra, India's leading online business travel company. What does this mean for Chrome River, and Indian business travellers?

Banishing the Hotel Bill Nervous Breakdown

by Karen DeLucia

Banishing the Hotel Bill Nervous Breakdown

Tired of having to enter line after line of expense items for a simple overnight hotel stay? You're not alone... and you need not suffer any further, says Karen DeLucia.

What Critical Factors Must You Know About For Global Expense Management?

by Tim Wheatcroft

What Critical Factors Must You Know About For Global Expense Management?

Every company has unique requirements for its expense management solution, be it industry-specific regulations that need to be followed or complex business rules for approval routing. However, few organizations have as specific and complex needs for their expense management system as those with a significant global presence.

Overcoming the Headache of Changing Global Expense Tax Regulations

by Anne Becknell

Overcoming the Headache of Changing Global Expense Tax Regulations

There are countless nuances of international business regulations that organisations need to follow. In particular, how can companies ensure that they stay compliant with global statutory requirements for expense reimbursement?

Welcome to The River, SpotHero Customers!

by Tim Wheatcroft

Welcome to The River, SpotHero Customers!

Chrome River and SpotHero have teamed up offer an even easier way for business travellers to find, purchase, and expense parking spaces.

The Four Most Critical Reasons Why Native Apps Don’t Work for Expense Management

by Frank Davis

The Four Most Critical Reasons Why Native Apps Don’t Work for Expense Management

There are two approaches to deploying business apps to employees: native apps and web apps. For both approaches, the end-user experience is – at least at first glance – outwardly very similar. However, that’s where the similarity ends, and the inherent weaknesses of native apps soon become apparent.

Chrome River Leads Global Expense Players in Building Stronger Customer Relationships

by Tim Wheatcroft

Chrome River Leads Global Expense Players in Building Stronger Customer Relationships

Product capabilities and functionality are almost top of any company’s list of priorities when assessing software solutions. However, any organisation that’s looking to deploy a software solution across the enterprise needs to understand that the relationship with the solution provider can be just as critical for long-term success as the product itself.

IDC Rates Chrome River as an Expense Management Leader

by Tim Wheatcroft

IDC Rates Chrome River as an Expense Management Leader

We’re delighted to have been listed by respected technology analyst firm IDC as a “Leader” in its Travel and Expense MarketScape, validating our position in the global expense management industry.

Don’t Fox your Fleet: Why Expense Reimbursement for Trucking Companies Shouldn’t be Complex

by Greg Allworth

Don’t Fox your Fleet: Why Expense Reimbursement for Trucking Companies Shouldn’t be Complex

One of the largest groups that travels on business is the trucking and transportation industry. With all of the stressors placed on long-haul drivers, what can fleet operators do to make the expense submission and reimbursement process as smooth as possible?

The Fourth Era of Expense Management: Spend Optimisation

by Alan Rich

The Fourth Era of Expense Management: Spend Optimisation

We're seeing a paradigm shift in the world of expense management, from a focus on control and compliance to spend optimisation. CEO Alan Rich discusses where T&E spend analysis is heading.

Where is Expense Management Going in 2018 (and Beyond)? Part One

by Alan Rich

Where is Expense Management Going in 2018 (and Beyond)? Part One

Chrome River's CEO, Alan Rich, starts the year by looking at some of the macro trends which will impact the world of expense management not just in 2018, but for years to come.

How Analysing Your Holiday Customer Gift Spend Can Drive Next Year’s Revenues

by Alan Rich

How Analysing Your Holiday Customer Gift Spend Can Drive Next Year’s Revenues

Expenses such as holiday gifts for customers can help provide valuable data for measuring sales, but only if companies have the tools to analyse it. How can organisations make better use of this - and other sales team travel and expense data - to better plan for the future?

False Assumptions That Could Impact Your Expense Management Selection Process

by James Sekab

False Assumptions That Could Impact Your Expense Management Selection Process

How can organizations avoid being bamboozled by false information in the marketplace? It's critical to ensure that you get input from all sides and don't make inaccurate assumptions.

Future Proofing your Expense Management System Investment

by Nancy Dushkin

Future Proofing your Expense Management System Investment

How can organisations ensure that their software investments bear fruit for years into the future? They need to be sure that as they evolve and grow with the market and the economy, the software solutions that are used to support them can accommodate these changes.

How to Ensure Travel and Expense Policies and Processes Support Your Sales Organization

by Julie Roy

How to Ensure Travel and Expense Policies and Processes Support Your Sales Organization

The sales team is typically the division within an organization that has the greatest travel and entertainment expense budgets. They travel the most and spend the most on entertainment for prospects, suppliers or current customers. However, and perhaps most importantly, the sales team also is the greatest contributor to top-line revenue. How can companies ensure that best performers remain engaged and drive revenue, while effectively controlling costs?

Putting Expense Solutions’ Optical Character Recognition Capabilities Under the Microscope

by Jim Whitmore

Putting Expense Solutions’ Optical Character Recognition Capabilities Under the Microscope

Of all the innovations that have made receipt submission a painless part of expense management, the ability to capture receipt images on a mobile phone and upload them directly into the expense solution is one of the greatest. But how do different OCR offerings add up?

Chrome River Hits New Global Expense Milestone with Launch of 31st Language

by Tim Wheatcroft

Chrome River Hits New Global Expense Milestone with Launch of 31st Language

Chrome River adds to its global expense management capabilities with yet more languages, so even more of our users in over 115 countries worldwide can now submit their expenses in their native language.

Three Reasons Why Manual Expense Management Kills Policy Compliance

by Julie Roy

Three Reasons Why Manual Expense Management Kills Policy Compliance

Corporate travel expense policies are created for a reason: to provide clear guidelines for travellers, which saves the organisation money by minimising excessive or wasteful spend. As with all regulations, these policies are only effective if they’re adhered to. To achieve this, organisations need to make it easy for them to be followed and hard for them to be sidestepped.

Taking Corporate Cards into the Virtual Age

by Ted Stavropoulos

Taking Corporate Cards into the Virtual Age

The end of the traditional corporate card era is looming. The way that organisations source, pay for, and reimburse business travel has changed more in the past five years than the previous several decades combined.

Why UX is a Critical Factor for a Successful Software Deployment

by Jim Whitmore

Why UX is a Critical Factor for a Successful Software Deployment

Any investment that a company makes in a new product or solution can only deliver its intended benefits if it's used - and embraced - across the organisation. While reluctant employees can avoid having to use some software solutions, when it comes to tools such as expense reporting, there isn’t really an option to sidestep it. However, this doesn’t mean that an optimal user experience needs to be an afterthought in the software review process.

Why your Expense Policy Should Follow your Business Travellers (Not Just the Other Way Around)

by Tim Wheatcroft

Why your Expense Policy Should Follow your Business Travellers (Not Just the Other Way Around)

How often does your organisation's expense policy get updated, and how does it address innovations in travel and travel technology? In order to keep your employees satisfied, you should ensure that your policy stays abreast of emerging travel trends.

Why is Mobility the Foundation of Effective Expense Management in Construction?

by Stephen White

Why is Mobility the Foundation of Effective Expense Management in Construction?

The construction industry is more exposed to economic ebbs and flows than almost any other sector of the economy. As a result of this position, construction companies must ensure that they carefully maintain cash flow and cost control, even during boom periods. How can employee expense automation solutions help this?

7 Reasons Why the Finance Team Should Push for Expense Management Software

by Tim Wheatcroft

7 Reasons Why the Finance Team Should Push for Expense Management Software

While there's no denying that automating end-user processes and enabling hassle-free mobile submission of expense claims provides major ease-of-use and time-saving benefits for business travelers, the ROI that these benefits deliver is often dwarfed by the impact that expense automation has on the finance function.

Chrome River and Lyft Launch Integration for Even Easier Business Rides

by Tim Wheatcroft

Chrome River and Lyft Launch Integration for Even Easier Business Rides

Chrome River and Lyft are making it even easier for business travellers to create expense claims.

Creating and Enforcing Expense Policies: The Happy Medium for Cost Control and Employee Satisfaction

by Julie Roy

Creating and Enforcing Expense Policies: The Happy Medium for Cost Control and Employee Satisfaction

Corporate travel and expense policies have long been a hot-button issue for HR departments. On one side are travelling employees, who want to be able to choose the airlines and hotel chains where they have high status, or select flights and lodgings that are more convenient for them. On the other side are CFOs and corporate controllers, whose primary focus is to manage costs and minimise unnecessary spend. While these may seem like two groups that will never find common ground, a combination of reasonable policies, intelligent enforcement, and smart technology tools can keep all parties happy.

6 Reasons for Implementing an Expense Management System

by Dave Terry

6 Reasons for Implementing an Expense Management System

Forty-six percent of respondents to a recent survey said they still submit their expenses manually - stuffing their pockets, wallets and briefcases with wrinkled receipts. These bunched up pieces of paper then get stapled to printed spreadsheets that must be typed up, listing every detail of every item, and then mailed to accounting departments. In an era where the majority of business functions have been automated, expenses are one of the few areas that still involve an excessive amount of manual processing.

How Expense Automation Can Increase Manufacturers’ Profit Margins

by Stephen White

How Expense Automation Can Increase Manufacturers’ Profit Margins

Any opportunity for manufacturers to lower manufacturers' operating expenses is welcomed by the CFO, whether this is hedging against commodity price increases and exchange rate fluctuations, or identifying opportunities for cost reductions within the supply chain. But what about reducing the cost of back-office processes?

Reducing Employee Expense Fraud – Strategies and Tools for HR Leaders

by Greg Allworth

Reducing Employee Expense Fraud – Strategies and Tools for HR Leaders

It’s estimated that expense fraud committed by employees adds up to nearly $3 billion per year across North America. How can HR teams prevent this from happening at their organisation?

Capturing and Optimising Your True Corporate Travel Programme Spend Using Total Cost of Ownership

by Ted Stavropoulos

Capturing and Optimising Your True Corporate Travel Programme Spend Using Total Cost of Ownership

If your CFO or controller asked you to provide the organisation’s total travel spend over the past year, how would you get that data? The obvious (and traditional) answer is to ask for reports from your travel agency, breaking down hotel, flight and rental car costs. That should give you a pretty accurate figure, right? Well – not really.

Specialist Expense Vendors vs. ERP Suite Modules: Pros and Cons

by Jim Whitmore

Specialist Expense Vendors vs. ERP Suite Modules: Pros and Cons

For mid-size and large companies, best-of-breed travel and expense or all-in-on isn’t the only decision to be made when it comes to expense software. Many ERP providers also offer expense management capabilities as part of their broader suite of financial and HR tools. How do you decide which works best for you?

New Gartner Market Guide: Key Criteria for Travel Expense Management Solutions

by Tim Wheatcroft

New Gartner Market Guide: Key Criteria for Travel Expense Management Solutions

Gartner has just released its 2017 Market Guide for Travel Expense Management (TEM) Software. The guide is essential reading for any organisation that’s thinking of investing in an expense management solution in the coming year, or is considering upgrading its existing solution.

7 Steps to Expense Submission Nirvana - Making Life Easy for Your Business Travellers

by Frank Davis

7 Steps to Expense Submission Nirvana - Making Life Easy for Your Business Travellers

Expense management systems must provide several receipt submission formats, to match the different types of receipt format in use, as well as users’ own preferences. What types of receipt submission should your expense solution be able to support, to cater to the full spectrum of your organisation’s users and their travel profiles?

Less Appy, More Happy: How the Mobile Web Can Lead to Easier Expense Management

by Robin Hanselman

Less Appy, More Happy: How the Mobile Web Can Lead to Easier Expense Management

Any expense management solution worth its salt these days will tout its mobile capabilities. Most of these solutions will highlight their iPhone or Android apps as a key selling point. However, for the both hard-pressed business traveller and the company for whom they work, apps aren’t always the best solution.

Expense Reimbursement, I’d Like You to Meet the Real World…

by Tim Wheatcroft

Expense Reimbursement, I’d Like You to Meet the Real World…

Combining expense reimbursement with the payroll slows your process to a crawl, making your employees wait weeks for payment. Decouple the two and see how much happier you make employees AND finance.

Chrome River or Concur – How to Decide Which Works Best for You

by Holly Allison

Chrome River or Concur – How to Decide Which Works Best for You

Organisations who are looking for a full-featured, enterprise-grade expense management solution often find that the choice comes down to Chrome River and Concur. Once the shortlist has been created, how can finance, IT and procurement teams work out which solution works best for their team?

4 Critical Things to Look for in Your Next Expense Management System

by Tim Wheatcroft

4 Critical Things to Look for in Your Next Expense Management System

Your road warriors are complaining about your expense system having a clunky old interface that looks more like Frogger than Facebook. Your system administrators say that the level of customer service could put Basil Fawlty to shame. Your AP team tells you that the vendors’ invoices have more unexpected charges than a hospital bill. It’s time. Time to start looking for a new expense management system.

Alternative Facts and The Fallacy of Offline Expense Management

by Mandy Neske

Alternative Facts and The Fallacy of Offline Expense Management

There has been a lot of discussion in the business software market about the benefits of browser-based, responsive web (RWD) apps versus native Android and iOS apps. Even though there is evidence showing that more and more organisations are moving toward RWD for mobile software deployment, the debate continues as to which is better, just like Mac vs. Windows, Peyton vs. Tom and Pepsi vs. Coke.

3 Biggest Corporate Card Expense Headaches (and How to Fix Them)

by Ted Stavropoulos

3 Biggest Corporate Card Expense Headaches (and How to Fix Them)

Corporate card programs may make corporate spend better managed and even easier for the card holder, but they still leave a number of hassles for both cardholders and administrators when it comes to expense claims.

Higher Education Expense Claims: a Unique Challenge

by Robin Hanselman

Higher Education Expense Claims: a Unique Challenge

Unlike commercial organisations, whose expenses are funded by operating budgets, higher education institutions’ faculty and research members’ travel and expenses are often funded by grants and scholarships. These funding sources often have a variety of different requirements for how they can be used, and therefore require specific reporting regulations for expenses.

7 New Year’s Resolutions to Make Expense Management a Breeze in 2017

by Tim Wheatcroft

7 New Year’s Resolutions to Make Expense Management a Breeze in 2017

The worst thing about most New Year's resolutions is that they're so easy to break. To make your expense management easier in 2017, here's a list of things that you should not do, along some a couple of one-and-done fixes that will benefit you throughout the year.

How Expense Data Integration Makes Finance and Accounting Easier

How Expense Data Integration Makes Finance and Accounting Easier

While a streamlined expense management system can make life easier for your business travellers and travel managers, it can also do amazing things for your finance and accounting departments. Not every expense management system will have the power to perk up accounting and finance, however. You need a platform that can integrate into the finance and accounting systems your departments already know and use.

6 Best Practices for Reducing Expense Fraud

by Greg Allworth

6 Best Practices for Reducing Expense Fraud

Expense fraud can happen at even the best-run organisations, but your company can definitely arm itself with the tools and processes to rein it in.

Best-of-Breed or One-Stop-Shop? Five Questions to Consider for Expense Automation

by Sarah Dart

Best-of-Breed or One-Stop-Shop? Five Questions to Consider for Expense Automation

When selecting travel booking and expense solutions, organisations have two choices: a single vendor for both elements, or individual vendors for each. All parties will say that their solution works best, but which will work most effectively for you? Here are five questions you should ask yourself.

5 Things Travel Managers Need from Expense Management Systems

5 Things Travel Managers Need from Expense Management Systems

As with all good business tools, an expense management system should make everyone’s job a lot easier. However, you need to ensure that you select a solution that works for your organisation's requirements.

Easy Expense Management for University Grants and Research

by Robin Hanselman

Easy Expense Management for University Grants and Research

With expenses that can range from a handful of photocopies to overseas travel, grant and research project budgets can be tough to track. Paper-based expense management systems are a headache for both your researchers and administrators. And one-size-fits-all expense software doesn’t have the specific capabilities your university needs to accurately manage the myriad of grant and research nuances.

Which Way Does Your Non-Profit Handle Non-Employee Expenses?

by Ali Mast

Which Way Does Your Non-Profit Handle Non-Employee Expenses?

Volunteers can offer an incredibly valuable resource for non-profit and non-governmental organisations, and other non-employees, such as scholarship and grant recipients, are a key part of many of these organisations. However, properly tracking and recording any out-of-pocket expenses they incur can be a major headache. Organisations typically have two options for handling expenses accrued by volunteers and non-employees. One involves a time-consuming, tedious process, while the other offers a quick and easy resolution.

Productivity on the Road: How Your Expense Management System Can Contribute

by Jim Prouty

Productivity on the Road: How Your Expense Management System Can Contribute

Creating and submitting your expenses while on a business trip need not be a drain on productivity. What are the biggest challenges your users face with their expenses on the road, and how can these be resolved?

Top 10 Perils of Using a Manual Expense Solution

Top 10 Perils of Using a Manual Expense Solution

Nearly half of all organisations are still stuck using manual expense claiming systems. If you continue to use paper-based processes instead of an expense automation solution, the risks could easily outweigh any perceived benefits.

How to Make the Business Case for an Expense Management System

How to Make the Business Case for an Expense Management System

Fifty-four percent of respondents to the recent GBTA / American Express Traveller Sentiment Survey said that they submit their expenses electronically. While the adoption of expense claim automation solutions is at a record level, it still highlights that nearly half of all business travellers are forced to stuff their pockets, wallets and briefcases with receipts, which they then have to staple to sheets of paper and mail to accounting departments, along with a printed spreadsheet that needs to be typed up with every detail of every item.

Myth vs. Reality in Expense Management Solutions

by Dave Terry

Myth vs. Reality in Expense Management Solutions

You may possibly have noticed that there’s an election taking place in a couple of months. One of the time-honored tactics used by politicians from all sides is to throw out facts or statistics about your opponent, which may or may not have any basis in fact.

Why Sensible Travel Expense Policies are Critical for Business Traveller Happiness

by Tim Wheatcroft

Why Sensible Travel Expense Policies are Critical for Business Traveller Happiness

The Global Business Travel Association recently announced the results of its Business Traveller Sentiment Index Global Report. The report assesses the overall happiness with several aspects of travellers’ overall experience, from making travel arrangements through to getting through airport security and taking various forms of ground and air transport.

How the Olympics Gets me Thinking About Expenses

by Tim Wheatcroft

How the Olympics Gets me Thinking About Expenses

Unless you live in a cave or have just woken up from a months-long coma, you’ll have noticed that the Olympics are in full swing. However, in addition to marvelling at the athletes' exploits (go Team GB!), seeing participants from more than 200 countries and territories competing made my mind spin in terms of the sheer logistics when it comes to the expenses that each team must incur, and how these will all get reimbursed into the currencies used across those nations once everyone returns next week

6 Key Expense Management Best Practices

by Tim Wheatcroft

6 Key Expense Management Best Practices

If you went to last week’s GBTA Conference, you probably came back with a fresh perspective, having seen the latest and greatest trends and innovations in the business travel industry. With these still fresh in your mind, now is a good time to revisit how travel and expense policies are managed at your own organisation.

Chrome River and Sabre: Making Integrated Travel and Expense Even Smoother

by Alan Rich

Chrome River and Sabre: Making Integrated Travel and Expense Even Smoother

As you may have noticed from today’s announcement made at the GBTA national conference, we are proud to become a Premier Provider of expense management for Sabre, one of the world’s biggest travel technology providers. This comes just a couple of weeks after we announced Sabre as the latest travel industry leader to adopt our expense management solution for its own 10,000 global employees.

Chrome River and Traxo Means Even Easier Hotel Expenses

by Alan Rich

Chrome River and Traxo Means Even Easier Hotel Expenses

As you may have seen from today’s press release, we’ve just announced an exciting new relationship with Traxo for hotel receipt integration. This will give Chrome River EXPENSE users an even better (and easier) experience when preparing their expense claims, and we’re sure it will be very well received by anyone who’s ever had to manually import or allocate hotel receipt data into their expense claim.

Reducing Business Expenses Without Impacting Operations (or Morale)

by Tim Wheatcroft

Reducing Business Expenses Without Impacting Operations (or Morale)

We’re getting towards the end of the second quarter, which means that public companies will soon be doing their earnings calls and press releases. If you’ve ever read these, you’ll see that they’re full of jargon and code-words. One of these is “expense management,” which is often code for “cost-cutting,” which in turn often means “job cuts.”

5 Things to Consider When Choosing a Global Expense Management Solution

by Craig Weiner

5 Things to Consider When Choosing a Global Expense Management Solution

If you are a global organisation looking to upgrade your expense management solution, there is a dizzying array of offerings on the market. Many of the vendors you speak to will tell you that they offer a global solution. However, there’s being able to process the occasional foreign hotel and restaurant bill, and then there’s a true global solution that will work for thousands of end users across dozens of different countries, supporting complex workflows, tax requirements and regional standards.

6 Questions Expense Management Vendors Don’t Want You to Ask

by Brian Deleon

6 Questions Expense Management Vendors Don’t Want You to Ask

When you’re looking at new expense management software, or looking to replace your existing system, every vendor will be more than happy to highlight the key selling points of their solution. “Look at this feature!” “See how we can make your life easier.” While shiny features are certainly great, they don’t always tell the full story, and sometimes you should be more focused on what the sales people don’t say. If you want to get the skinny on which solution will best match your organisation’s needs, you need to delve a little deeper and get beyond the sales pitch.

Welcoming MERCURY

by Alan Rich

Welcoming MERCURY

Those of you with a keen knowledge of Roman mythology will know Mercury was the god of financial gain, and travellers (among other things). This is really quite fitting given that today we unveil Chrome River MERCURY, which delivers a completely new experience in corporate expense management, making your travel smoother, and speeding up your expense processing.

Top Trends and Concerns of P2P Professionals

by Serge Merkin

Top Trends and Concerns of P2P Professionals

As organisations continue to implement technology designed to streamline their Purchase-to-Pay (P2P) processes, a number of trends and concerns keep surfacing. Both were discussed in a recent webinar hosted by PayStream’s Henry Ijams and featuring Greg Horton of OpenText.

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Our choice of Chrome River EXPENSE was made in part due to the very user-friendly interface, easy configurability, and the clear commitment to impactful customer service – all aspects in which Chrome River was the clear winner. While Chrome River is not as large as some of the other vendors we considered, we found that to be a benefit and our due diligence showed that it could support us as well as any large players in the space, along with a personalized level of customer care. Sally Abella, Director of Corporate Travel Harman International
We are excited to be able to enforce much more stringent compliance to our expense guidelines and significantly enhance our expense reporting and analytics. By automating these processes, we will be able to free up AP time formerly spent on manual administrative tasks, and enhance the role by being much more strategic. Ben Zastrow Zelle