For Travel Managers

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.

Managing Traveller Safety in a Post-Coronavirus World

by Robin Hanselman

Managing Traveller Safety in a Post-Coronavirus World

For organisations to remain strong when the coronavirus pandemic begins to ease, business travel must restart. How can they ensure that employees aren't travelling into infection hot spots?

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.

How to Avoid an ‘OK Boomer’ Reaction to Your Corporate Travel Policy

by Tim Wheatcroft

How to Avoid an ‘OK Boomer’ Reaction to Your Corporate Travel Policy

In the era of bleisure travel, ride-sharing and electric scooters, expense policies of old sound positively archaic. Any travel leader who expects their team to follow the policy down to the letter will likely be met with eye rolling and mutterings of “OK Boomer.” How can organisations keep their business travellers happy without killing the bottom line?

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 organizations are cutting their travel budgets. As potential economic clouds are gathering, how can organizations avoid hampering their own growth by slashing team travel?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Congratulations Cindy Heston – 2016 Business Travel Hall of Fame Inductee

by Anne Becknell

Congratulations Cindy Heston – 2016 Business Travel Hall of Fame Inductee

We're thrilled to learn that Cindy Heston, director of travel and events at Chrome River customer, Anthem, has been honored as a 2016 inductee into the Business Travel Hall of Fame.

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.

Creating an Expense Policy that Helps, not Hinders Your Employees

by Chad Peters

Creating an Expense Policy that Helps, not Hinders Your Employees

Creating an effective expense policy is a balancing act. You need to walk the fine line between eliminating unnecessary costs and establishing a policy that is reasonable and workable for employees and managers alike. Create a policy that’s too lax and you’ll watch travel costs skyrocket. Create one that’s too stringent and you’ll end up with impractical restrictions, unhappy business travellers, and an increased risk of expense fraud.

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.

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.

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.

Cost-effective Perks to Minimise (and Maximise!) Business Travellers’ Airport Time

by Serge Merkin

Cost-effective Perks to Minimise (and Maximise!) Business Travellers’ Airport Time

We recently talked about how to keep your business travellers happy while maintaining cost control and avoiding expenses spiraling out of control. One of the biggest challenges many companies face is that those who travel the most are more likely to have specific preferences (hotel chains, airlines, etc.) that may not tally with your organisation’s negotiated rates. While this can lead to friction, there are several ways that can both make your road warriors happier and more productive, and also keep the CFO smiling.

One-Stop-Shop vs. Best-of-Breed: What’s Best for Travel and Expense?

by Frank Davis

One-Stop-Shop vs. Best-of-Breed: What’s Best for Travel and Expense?

One of the most common discussions in business software procurement has been that of one-stop-shop versus best-of-breed. Choose a single vendor for all aspects of a particular function, they say, and your organisation will see wide-ranging benefits, from lower costs, to smoother integration, more straightforward support resolution, and so on.

How Can You Maximise Expense Policy Compliance and Maintain Traveller Happiness?

by Tim Wheatcroft

How Can You Maximise Expense Policy Compliance and Maintain Traveller Happiness?

Corporate travel and expense policy compliance is a constant theme in the business travel industry. Although using the corporate expense policy manual as a stick to beat your travelers may be a short-term solution to enforce compliance, it doesn’t address the underlying issues of why employees don’t adhere to the policy, and could also alienate travellers by imposing regulations that reduce productivity and create frustration.

Seven tips for creating an expense policy that your employees will love (well, almost)

by Mandy Neske

Seven tips for creating an expense policy that your employees will love (well, almost)

We’d all love to fly first class and eat steak dinners on somebody else’s dime, but if everyone did that, many companies would run out of cash pretty quickly. Therefore, creating a sensible expense policy is a must for any organisation to both control costs and, as we recently said in our white paper, reduce business expense fraud. Without a clear policy, staff are left in the dark about what is and isn’t allowed, and will just assume how much they can spend. And we all know what “assume” does.

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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