Tag Archives: Chrome River

The IBM GERS Migration: Getting Chrome River Ready

During PayStream’s partnership with Chrome River we have discovered a few interesting variableschrom that set them apart from many others in the financial automation industry. The company, known for providing highly configurable expense and invoice management solutions, has emerged as a front-runner in financial software for the past several years—they were recently recognized on the annual Inc. 500|5000 list, an exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies, for the third year in a row. Much of their success is due to the company’s dedication in serving their customers in the best way possible, and much of what has set them apart from their competitors is their adept ability to clean up the messes that their competitors leave behind. Chrome River’s offerings provide a unique combination of customizable features and simplistic operation at a much lower cost than some of the bigger, more intensive software. When organizations’ have tried and failed with an expensive, hi-tech solution, Chrome River is one of the first places they will turn for an alternative route to efficient P2P processing.

One of the most recent incidences of Chrome River stepping in and taking over was seen in their selection by HARMAN International to replace IBM’s Global Expense Reporting Solution, GERS. IBM is gradually closing down the expense management platform, forcing many companies like HARMAN to search for replacement software quickly. HARMAN, a provider of audio and infotainment solutions, began an extensive Request for Proposal process in January, for which they invited several leading vendors in the expense management space to participate. HARMAN was looking for specific qualities to meet their own unique business requirements, including global capabilities and support, ease of use for end users, confidence in the implementation team, and integration with other systems including SAP, Carlson Wagonlit, and GetThere.

According to HARMAN, Chrome River EXPENSE was chosen from amongst the other providers’ solutions for its user-friendly interface, easy configurability, and the clear commitment to impacting customer service—aspects that HARMAN viewed as winning attributes. “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 at Harman.

The migration from IBM’s GERS to Chrome River is one the solution provider believes is the beginning of a trend among organizations, and that conviction was proven by their recent hire of Jeremy Soto and Chad Mills, two leading IBM GERS implementation experts, who will be helping Chrome River customers like HARMAN move from IBM GERS systems.

“Organizations have come to Chrome River with legacy systems — ranging from proprietary internal platforms to large, well-known systems in the industry – each with their own unique challenges,“ said Alan Rich, co-founder and CEO of Chrome River. “Our implementation team is expert at understanding customer requirements and utilizing Chrome River’s extensive configurability in a way that customers see tangible improvement in their processes and end-user satisfaction. Our job is to deliver enterprise solutions, and we’re thrilled to have Jeremy Soto and Chad Mills as part of our team.”

Chrome River’s focus on customer-satisfaction has been obvious throughout PayStream’s partnership with the company, and they have always striven to meet their customer’s requirements, no matter how unique and complex the jobs may be. We have enjoyed our involvement with Chrome River so far, and we are looking forward to seeing how far the company succeeds in the years to come.

Coming Soon: Migrating Expense Systems with Chrome River

Chrome River, a leading expense reporting solution provider and PayStream Advisors partner, is tackling a hectic, confusing, and frustrating problem with one word: simplicity. The problem is managing business travel expenses, and the solution is an easy-to-use expense reporting tool that provides speed, efficiency and accuracy. Chrome River believes that complex problems require chromsimple solutions, and this is why we think they are the perfect company to host the upcoming PayStream webinar, Migrating to a New Expense System: The 5 Must-Have Features.

This exciting webinar is a must-see for anyone who is planning to migrate off of their existing expense reporting system, whether it’s a manual process or an automated system, to a more advanced and streamlined expense reporting tool. The webinar will feature PayStream Advisors Managing Director Henry Ijams, and Frank Davis, Managing Director of Chrome River. Together they will discuss research results and market trends found in PayStream’s recent Travel and Expense Management Technology Insight Report, as well as the steps companies can take to implement and utilize the perfect expense reporting solution.

As part of Chrome River’s innovative team, Mr. Davis has a lot of experience with expense reporting services, and he knows the ways in which they can be used to optimize and streamline company travel—both before and after the return flight. He is aware of the headaches that a manual reporting process can bring to organizations, from employees waiting weeks for reimbursement, to the AP staff manually verifying and approving each expenditure. From his own involvement with Chrome River’s EXPENSE application, Mr. Davis knows the criteria a reporting tool should meet to make the entire process effortless, and he will candidly share his expertise in the webinar.

Mr. Davis will go over the efficiency, controls, visibility, and resulting ROI of the 5 Must-Have Expense System Features. He will show how optimizing these features can positively impact each of the primary constituent groups in the expense report process—The Expense Owners, The Approvers and The Finance Team. He will also illustrate some of the ways Chrome River’s EXPENSE tool meets the criteria for an effortless process through streamlined functions that take the labor out of the process.

PayStream’s own research shows that travel and expense management tools are becoming more and more essential as the global market grows and becomes more technologically driven. Connection from one end of the world to another is almost effortless, and expense reporting should not be the area that slows business travel down. We believe Chrome River’s focus on simplicity in expense reporting tools is the perfect approach for the diversity and complexity of corporate travel, and we are very excited to hear the things they can share with us at our upcoming webinar. To join us on July 29th at 2:00 PM and hear what you need to know about travelling with ease and efficiency, register for free here.

Chrome River Begins Innovative Partnerships

PayStream Advisors partner, Chrome River, chromhas made two exciting partnerships over the last month, both with companies that will help broaden the solution provider’s global capabilities. Chrome River specializes in reporting and invoice management services, creating solutions that benefit the complete AP process automation and cost control. Their solutions uniquely combine the latest available internet technologies with the work of industry-leading implementation and support experts. With these new partnerships, they will be able to utilize their own progressive strategies with Western Union Business Solutions’ payment functions and Grasp Technologies’ business travel solutions.

In their partnership with Western Union Business Solutions, Chrome River will integrate their online expense reporting and invoice management with cross-border payment processing in order to provide customers with cost and operational efficiencies. This collaboration will bring Chrome River a secure, integrated payment processing solution to send and receive international payments and manage foreign currency exchange. In turn, Western Union Business Solutions customers will now have access to an easy-to-use, SaaS-based expense reporting and invoice processing solution that can accommodate complex functionalities and integration with ERP and financial systems.

“We are proud to be part of an ecosystem with Western Union Business Solutions that is focused on providing seamless solutions to our enterprise customers,” said Alan Rich, co-founder and chief executive officer of Chrome River. According to Mr. Rich, this partnership is in line with the company’s strategy to make travel easier and more efficient for their customers.

This strategy is one step closer to success after Chrome River’s most recent partnership with Grasp Technologies, a leading provider of travel data acquisition and analytics solutions. The companies’ collaboration will provide enriched booked and expense data for their customers, allowing for greater visibility and control across electronic travel management. Chrome River’s total picture of travel spend with Grasp’s powerful data-enrichment will give organizations a comprehensive view of employee travel activity and compliance, as well as the ability to discover opportunities for process improvement and cost savings.

From an independent perspective, this combination will be very effective for the travel industry. Carol Ann Salcito, the president of the travel consulting company, Management Alternatives, is especially optimistic. “Organizations struggle to get a comprehensive 360-degree view of all travel, whether it’s booked through their corporate systems or booked separately by travelers,” she stated. “This partnership between Chrome River and Grasp bridges that gap, and will in turn provide organizations with a solution to this long-standing problem.”

PayStream Advisors believes Chrome River is making smart business decisions in choosing partnerships from which they can continue to grow. We see this building-block strategy taking them very far in the travel automation industry—and beyond.