Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

Drop down menus are somewhat useful, but overall awkward interface.

Inconvénients

The interface is not intuitive at all. Info is missing. Nothing makes sense. I'm clicking on everything just to try to move forward through the process.

Avantages

I've used chrome river for various roles within my organization. It's a great way to track expenses I submitted for reimbursement. I love the use friendly interface and how it allows me to upload a pdf scan of the document. Being able to upload the scan has saved time that I would've spent writing each report.

Inconvénients

The math feature on the app isn't right sometimes. For example, it reports $503.86 as 503,860 which is confusing.

Avantages

The OCR capability is outstanding - allows expenses to be captured either at time of issue using mobile app or by scan/email functionality. Eliminated much of the manual data entry previously involved with expense reporting. Customized business and compliance rules ensure that submission, routing, review and approval meet Firm policies.

Inconvénients

The initial setup is very involved, as there are so many factors to consider. Once set up, however, the ongoing maintenance is very minimal.

Avantages

The platform is user friendly and intuitive. Travelers have the capability of taking pictures of their receipts and sending them directly into their Chrome River e-Wallet. We use Egencia Travel which is in the process of integrating with Chrome River. This will result in all travel data also being housed in the traveler's e-Wallet. Our travelers also like the mobile capability of the new web-based platform, Mercury, which allows them to have access to the site while on the go. Credit card integration has also proved very valuable enabling travelers to see transactions they need to submit on their reports. Approvers have the ability audit and approve reports on the go with the ability to easily review receipts that are being billed to their projects. With the ability to program policies and routing, approvers can be assured that reports are meeting programmed company policies. If there is a need to split the allocation of the expense - Chrome River makes it very easy. Employees love the ability to easily delegate access to others and assign approval to coworkers while on vacation.
We have been very happy with this software. It has simplified and made the expense report process very efficient for our firm.

Inconvénients

As a travel manager, the analytics engine that I use frequently could be more intuitive. If reports are required outside of the standard list, the engine to produce custom reports is not very user friendly.

Avantages

The software is easy to configure and update for administrators. For our users it is simple to create and submit their expenses made on their card or out of pocket.

Inconvénients

I felt that things that I found challenging was because it was a new process or I did not have a full understanding.

Avantages

I literally don't like anything about this system, we used Expensify previously and it literally takes me 3 to 4 times longer to submit expenses, which means I am always behind.

Inconvénients

The UI is very poorly designed, it needs binning and starting again with a decent UI design team, that actually watch users trying to interact with the system.
The mobile App is terrible, it times out, and does not integrate seamlessly with SSO, the mobile receipt upload does not work, so you have to download a second app for receipt upload.
One receipts are uploaded there are loads of OCR errors compared with other systems i have used.
Bug after bug, if you change currency (because it did not recognise) and manually change the currency you need to double check the FX rates they do not update, then it gives you an error.
You can not split bills and only pay personal expense , you need to calculate your business expense from the bill manually then write a note to explain.
The system waits to update your changes then it will give an error it does not error check as you go, so you waist loads of time reviewing.

Avantages

Automated workflows: Chrome River Expense automates many tedious and time-consuming tasks involved in expense management, such as expense policy compliance checks and receipt matching, reducing the workload for employees and managers.Real-time reporting and analytics: The software provides real-time visibility into expense data, allowing organizations to identify trends, outliers, and potential issues quickly.

Inconvénients

Limited customization: While the software offers some customization options, there may be limitations to how much it can be tailored to meet the specific needs and policies of individual organizations.

Avantages

Our expense reimbursement process improved greatly when implementing Chrome River Expense 12 years ago. No more paper shuffling from in box to in box for approvals, potentially getting lost. Also, Chrome River continues to improve their product and keeps up with client demands as technology evolves.

Inconvénients

Customer service is up and down. Chrome River now charges for changes you want to make, where that used to be baked in the subscription price. Or you can pay for an almost unlimited service model - a bit pricey, but overall worth it if you have a lot of changes to make like we do. (Changes are because our business needs often change).

Avantages

Can easily upload expenses and can be monitored. This is then easily exported to be upload into our accounts software therefore we don't have to import the information twice.

Inconvénients

Need to look into more about how to make changes but have seen some of the webinars and this looks like it will be getting easier

Avantages

It is the best tool for expense submission and management as it as so many features such as ease of submission of expense reports, uploading of receipts is just a click away it helps in auditing the expense reports on easy basis. You can prepare lot of reports with the help of tool such as spend management reports, not submitted reports, reports pending with manager for approval and so on details. Overall it is a great tool.

Inconvénients

No i i not fin any issue. Basically i had few issue with the tool before, but it has been rectified.

Avantages

The ease of use for the claimant, being able to create the expense tiles to suit our business needs. It was easy to implement and train end users. I can make changes and updates easily on my own or utilize support from the help desk.

Inconvénients

The reporting can be a bit of a challenge to understand and set up.

Avantages

- Very intuitive, tile-based with the picuture driven for easy identification.
- Centralized configurations
- Better tracking mechanism
- Better workflow management
- Violation tracker

Inconvénients

Customer Service is good but I see room for development in handling the cases faster after assignment.

Avantages

Easy to administrate, less training effort, connected with Cytric travel

Inconvénients

Usage in some eastern European countries

Avantages

All our Expenses Policy has been built into the system - threshholds, variations, warnings and violations.
The user interface is really straight forward and the solution being fully mobile has put the expenses claim process into a completely different eprspective.
OCR functionality enable quick scan and upload receipt process, integration with Credit Card provider eliminate clunky process we had before.

Inconvénients

The biggest challenge was the implementation and understanding the old-fashioned rule building via excel sheets. Luckily this process is changing gradually as is becoming more sophisticated and current. This will be a benefit not only to new customers but a huge step forward for existing ones too.

Avantages

The ease of approval, visibility of receipts.

Inconvénients

Unable to know if someone is over the daily meal allowance, their name may appear on another expense report(s) for meals.

Avantages

Easy to send receipts to the product. Very easy for occasional users to pick up. Rarely any down time.

Inconvénients

Customization is able to be done in house, but it is not easy to learn in a non tech department.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

Chrome River Expense is fast, fluid, and easy to use the application to report travel expenses done with a corporate credit card or even with a personal card. The application is available for all platforms including desktop, mobile, and tablet, etc. which makes the expense reporting process fast and easy even when you are on the go. Some of the features of the application are – Automated spend control, automated approval routing, credit card integration, Snap and send receipt submission, optical character recognition (OCR), integration with leading financial systems, configurable policies, and routing, online dashboard and self-service inquiries. The application has a powerful analytics engine that saves a lot of time for employers and accounts staff.

Inconvénients

You need to spend some time initially to understand it as the tool includes a lot of categories and sub-categories which makes it a little bit confusing to use, but trust me it saves a lot of time. Receipts have to PDF formatted. Ad-hoc functionality seems a little slow and can be improved.

Avantages

End user functionality is easy! Our guys in the construction field arent always tech savy, so this is a huge plus for us.

Inconvénients

you have to pay for better customer service

Avantages

Yes, Product is much helpfull in terms of interface with ERP and few of the reporting tools from where we can extract data easily.

Inconvénients

I see allocation of expense report or Assign the expense reports and tracking of the same is something missing. Especially on SLA matrix.

Avantages

I like that you can see the past 90 days of submitted reports all in one spot. Also, the map feature allows you to type I a business name and it will auto populate the address for you.

Inconvénients

It does sometimes glitch if you dont enter everything in correctly, and you will need to go back and do it again.

Avantages

Integration with our corporate card program has been such a time saver. All users are able to track and expense their incurred business expenses in a timely fashion, and that helps with decision making. We also integrate with our travel agency, so expencing full trips now take way less time.

Inconvénients

Setting up the routing rules was a challenge with some of the exceptions we had to work through, but once the time was spent to consider everything, the system does what we expect.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense) 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

The system creates a workflow that saves us time and money. It enforces our expense policy so the administrators don't always have to be the bad guy. It also integrates with other systems such as our HR system (employee feeds), our corporate credit cards and out Concur travel system.

Inconvénients

The admin features can be a bit tricky to use. Features aren't always in the most intuitive place. The CR team is working on changing everything around. Once things are found/explained, it is a nice system to use. The help desk can also be slow to respond. Most times i want to be able to pick up the phone and call someone rather than dial 1-800 help.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

The best part of the program is the ease in teaching others how to use. We have users that come in, not knowing anything about the program and with one training and 1 or 2 uses, they make it work.

Inconvénients

The settings section in the new platinum version is not very user friendly.

Avantages

Able to customize all aspects of the expense reporting, and easy to use functionality in every way.

Inconvénients

Difficult to utilize 3rd party connectors for systems such as FinancialForce.

Avantages

It is extremely easy to use. Our entire organization now uses it on a daily basis. It has completely streamlined our expense processes.

Inconvénients

Implementation took a while, but we did eventually get it customized perfectly for our organization.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

Just looks "Pretty". As an end user, since I have been using this program in our company, I haven't found anything with Chrome River which made me think what a great program.

Inconvénients

Not user friendly, at all. It takes the Chrome River support help weeks to respond to your request. The features that Chrome River offers is too restricted and they are not tailored with our needs in the company. The final report is too long and keeps repeating the same information in different line entries. Overall, the previous simple program which our company used was much more user friendly and easy to process and use.

Avantages

Once the compliance and rules are set-up behind the scenes for this system is it really a more efficient and easy tool to use. It helped streamline the reconciliation process for our P-Card and Travel Card programs. Users really appreciate that all the accounting information needed to process payment for expenses out of departmental budgets is readily accessible

Inconvénients

the reporting tool is not easy to use. We would really like to see more adhoc reports provided to higher eds and other companies that utilize this system.

Avantages

We really like the UX/UI. Many of our employees are less tech savvy, so simplicity was a key factor in our decision making process. We also have the ability to customize our expense reporting to match our job setup.

Inconvénients

We are in the middle of implementing Chrome River's audit feature. We have run into a few hiccups there because the feature is pretty strict and has rejected some acceptable expense reports.

Avantages

What I like most about the software is that we have the ability to customize to meet our companies needs, while also being able to take out a large part of manual tasked by having reports routed automatically within the platform to lessen some of the administrative burdens.

Inconvénients

What I would say is least liked about the product is that there are some functions that would be beneficial but are not yet envisioned, but with the ability to provide enhancement requests I am very positive that if it is possible that Chrome River will eventually have whatever it is added to the platform.

Avantages

from a user perspective, this software has helped eliminate steps in submitting and processing expense claims. The use of the Snap App to process the paper claims and combined with OCR capabilities help to make claims a breeze compared to our older manual method. Further, our AP team and others have gained greater efficiencies by being able to collect this information in real-time and process it faster.

Easily integrates with other accounting system or organization uses.
Easy to use user interface.

Inconvénients

The reporting/analytics features can be revamped, as well as greater flexibility in customization. Overall, the tool does a great job.

Avantages

The new receipt functions within Mercury are a life saver for the auditing process. We love the way it crops and attaches the receipts to individual line items, it makes auditing a breeze rather than going through countless pages of receipts. Its a huge time saver and that is important as we have such a high volume.

Inconvénients

Help Desk Turn Around time could be better.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

The ability to build rules around compliance and polices is top notch.

Inconvénients

The reporting (Analytics) isn’t as easy to navigate as it should be.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense) 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

I like that travel reimbursements can be processed within 1-2 days instead of 2-3 weeks.

Inconvénients

I wish the dashboard could be modified to user preference. It would be nice to categorize the expense reports as they come in.

Avantages

The ability to submit bills directly by scanning and uploading is a very good feature. Definitely saves time and resources - sending bills by courier or mail. The automation in travel/tour claims and reimbursements is a must have feature and Chromeriver is good at it. Works well with our travel portal and Hotel Vendors. The rules and flexibility offered is great for controls and monitoring spends.

Inconvénients

The interface looks clunky and not that intuitive. The workflow also is not that straight forward, with different steps required sometime unnecessarily. Its response time sometimes becomes too slow. We had 2-3 maintenance shutdowns and it was not acceptable.

Avantages

one of the best software which i used for accounting and payable. very simple and cleaver to use it.

Inconvénients

I think, May be improve the financial system service and payable service. not an big issue. over all good

Avantages

customizable for my business rules

Inconvénients

we opted for daily feeds of certain information. Sometimes new options are added that I might be interested in, but until I read their updates in detail, I won't know about changes.

Avantages

The software is easy to use. It enables expense owners the ability to submit their expense reports quicker and on time. Using the snap app makes it more quicker to submit receipt directly to your receipt library. The OCR capabilities to recognize receipts and auto populating the information reduces staff time . The mileage expense reports are amazing. Chromeriver uses Google Maps to calculate the travel trips. Employees just need to enter the destination points and the calculations are done for them. Setting up the routing for expense reporting is simple and the HelpDesk support from Chromeriver is quick to respond and tailor things to your needs.

Inconvénients

I have no issues at this time with the software

Avantages

The OCR capability is fantastic...expenses can be captured from anywhere using any device and interpreted as accurately (in many case more so) than our users! Really saves time and enforces compliance.

Inconvénients

We really don't have anything not to like...it just works!

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

Emburse dashboard, easy to submit expense report, user friendly.

Inconvénients

Analytics function - to heavy, not easy to retrieve data, several types of data with same information name, then difficult to select the correct one

Avantages

User interface and customizability is simple.

Inconvénients

Support sometimes takes longer to get requests done.

Avantages

Simplicity, great customer support, and fit our budget.

Inconvénients

Implementation was a bit challenging through all the Covid-19 stuff, but the Chrome River team was assume and supported us until we had it figured out.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense) 

Pourquoi passer à Emburse Expense Enterprise (formerly Chrome River Expense)

Avantages

Chrome River is a great expense management tool. We use it for personal expenses and visa cards. Users love the easy to use and pretty interface

Inconvénients

Initial setup takes some time and is difficult to customize outside of what Chrome River offers.

Avantages

The product offers In-depth reporting and mobile capabilities that increase our insight and understanding of our travel expenses

Inconvénients

Mindset not geared toward company liability credit cards. Difficult time setting up our system for Mexico.

Avantages

Depending on routing preferences of your firm, it can be difficult to use. For my international firm, there are so many routing numbers and budget groups that I wish Chrome River made suggestions on which are best to use.

Inconvénients

The software has certain areas that require you to re-do completely instead of correct.

Avantages

The digital receipts and paperless. You can do everything on an app. People get paid faster. Easy to use just click on the icon you want and fill in the data.

Inconvénients

Some customization are a bit challenging at times.

Avantages

Easy common sense processes for the most part. Approval processes are seamless and flow without a lot of automation. Very flexible with the entry and allocation of expense accounts.

Inconvénients

When returning expense reports edits require administrative release for users to be able to edit the expense accounts.

Avantages

It has eliminated paper tracking and signature. Users get an alert when something needs to be signed. Huge improvements

Inconvénients

Setup was a little tricky. We lacked institutional knowledge that could have improved this.

Avantages

Chrome River is always making updates, changes and new ways to customize the software to fit our business.

Inconvénients

Ad hoc reporting is not user intuitive but the standard reports are useful for the majority of needs.

Avantages

Emburse Chrome River is an excellent user/customer experience from the start - from the RFP to deployment to sustainment. The Chrome team took care to get to know us, our company and our needs. Deployment was seamless and completely virtual post-pandemic. It went flawlessly. The aids that Chrome provides are excellent. And the program works exactly as advertised - its an excellent, intuitive user experience. We had great buy-in from the start and this is an exceptionally successful project.

Inconvénients

None to note. The program has worked as intended, and subsequent development and product roadmap has exceeded our expectations.

Avantages

I love how user friendly the software is for my colleagues that need to enter expenses. On the admin side, I love that I can pull information and analytics easily. Since everything is automated I can focus my time on projects and cost saving initiatives rather than be buried in paperwork.

Inconvénients

I do not have any complaints. Chrome River is constantly updating and giving more power to admins. I can make a lot of changes on my own, and create custom reports.