Chrome River

Elite Reinforces Long-standing Partnership with Chrome River

2012-02-16T08:05:44+00:00

Tight Integration with Online Expense Reporting and Invoice Management Streamlines Process for Elite Enterprise and 3E Clients

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 16, 2012 – Elite, a Thomson Reuters business, has added Chrome River, a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation, as an Integration Partner, which formalizes their collaboration that began in 2008. By leveraging the tight integration and advanced capabilities of the Chrome River online service and the Elite Enterprise and 3E financial and practice management solutions, clients are able to greatly enhance their expense reporting and invoice approval processes.

“With experience from servicing more than 30 percent of the Global Top 100 law firms and 20 years of direct Elite financial system experience, the Chrome River team is excited to partner with Elite to bring even more features and improvements to benefit our many common customers,” said Alan Rich, co-founder and CEO of Chrome River.

The two systems seamlessly transfer data and images to enable organizations to quickly solve the many issues of expense claim and invoice workflow processing, spend compliance, imaging, approval routing and billing integration to begin immediately saving both time and money. Utilizing the latest “Software as a Service” and workflow automation technologies, Chrome River’s integrated platform delivers immediate payback via a service delivery model that requires no hardware, no software, and no long-term commitment.

“Many of our clients have already benefitted from our deep partnership with Chrome River and we look forward to building on that foundation through our recent Partnership Program enhancements,” said Kim Massana, president of Elite. “Through Chrome River’s services, firms can better automate workflow processes that improve their bottom line.”

About Chrome River

Chrome River Technologies, Inc. provides expense reporting and invoice automation solutions that uniquely combine the latest available internet technologies with over 25 years of financial systems experience. Chrome River delivers immediate payback via a “Software as a Service” delivery model that requires no hardware, no software, and no long-term commitment. This unique service is easily configurable to meet the needs of organizations worldwide with complex expense management policies and collaborative approval processes. Additional information about Chrome River Technologies, Inc. and its solutions may be obtained by phone at 1.888.781.0088 or by visiting the company website at www.chromeriver.com.

About Elite

Elite is a leading provider of integrated information solutions to professional services firms worldwide. Elite is part of Thomson Reuters and is a premier provider of financial and practice management systems to the legal industry and to other professional services markets, including accounting, marketing services, and management and IT consulting. For more information, visit www.elite.com.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, scientific, healthcare and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minn., Thomson Reuters employs more than 50,000 people in 93 countries. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Toronto Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. For more information, visit www.thomsonreuters.com.

Global Consulting Firm ZS Associates Selects Chrome River EXPENSE

2011-12-13T08:00:22+00:00

Another big splash from Chrome River expense automation

LOS ANGELES, December 13, 2011 -- Chrome River Technologies, a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation, continues to make waves with the announcement today that ZS Associates has selected and implemented Chrome River EXPENSE to automate its expense reporting process.

Specializing in sales and marketing, ZS Associates is one of the largest global consulting firms with more than 1,300 professionals in 20 offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. After a thorough review of available expense reporting software, Chrome River was selected based on exceptional ease-of-use and a wide range of configurable capabilities designed to assist professional services organizations. ZS Associates has already fully deployed the Chrome River EXPENSE service across the US and UK with other countries currently following.

“In addition to being a world-class expense management solution, Chrome River EXPENSE has many unique features that are critical to a consulting firm and its professional users,” said Brad Sloan, Controller of North America with ZS Associates. “The system is extremely intuitive and understands how to properly handle both client billable and non-billable expenses better than anything else out there.”

ZS Associates is the latest of many professional services organizations to implement Chrome River EXPENSE in conjunction with a corporate credit card program in order to improve expense allocation accuracy, reduce delays in recovering client-billable expenses, and eliminate manual processing and the associated duplicate entry. With Chrome River, charges are automatically downloaded and can be allocated easily across clients, projects, internal departments and other codes. Further, expenses can be assigned automatically based on internal or external attributes and additional data captured further improving ease-of-use and the overall user experience. Expense policy compliance and approval workflow is then automated with e-mail and mobile approvals to reduce bottlenecks and cycle-time delays.

“Our experience is that professional services organizations have some of the most complex expense policies and processes which are complicated by having both billable and non-billable expenses to manage,” said Alan Rich, Co-founder and CEO of Chrome River. “We took great care in designing Chrome River EXPENSE to be powerful enough to handle these complex problems, yet still remain incredibly easy-to-use and affordable. Customer feedback has demonstrated that this careful design also benefits users from all industries.”

The combination of Chrome River's polished and intuitive user experience, powerful business rules engine and exceptional analytics reporting has enabled Chrome River to become the fastest growing enterprise expense management solution available today. Designed and developed in a way that makes expense reporting and invoice processing easy, Chrome River has secured a loyal following and is committed to changing the way that customers feel about these age-old practices.

About Chrome River

About ZS Associates

ZS Associates is a global leader in sales and marketing consulting, outsourcing, technology and software. For almost 30 years, ZS has helped companies across a range of industries get the most out of their sales and marketing organizations. From 20 offices around the world, ZS experts use analytics and deep expertise to help companies make smart decisions quickly and cost effectively. ZS comprises multiple affiliated legal entities. Learn more at: http://www.zsassociates.com

Chrome River Maintains Red Hot Status in a Cold Economy

2011-09-30T08:00:32+00:00

Automated AP solutions provider burning up legal market and beyond

LOS ANGELES, September 30 -- Chrome River Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation, is beating the odds in an economy full of lackluster numbers and downward trends by adding to its impressive customer base at an aggressive rate which is already surpassing last year’s subscription numbers.

In the legal industry alone, Chrome River’s expense management software client list has expanded to more than 100 law firms, now commanding an impressive 70% of the AmLaw Top 10, almost 40% of the Top 100 and a full 50% of the Global Top 20 law firms. Rarely has a company entered the complex professional services market and, within just three short years, gained adoption by so many prestigious law firms giving it their seal of approval. Already ahead of 2010’s annual subscription volumes by 25%, Chrome River now has users in over 30 countries and is gaining steam with customers in diverse industries including consulting, accounting, financial, investment banking, biopharmaceuticals, education and entertainment.

When asked to explain the success of his young company, Dave Terry, Co-founder and COO of Chrome River says, “Much like the momentum that Trident chewing gum built when it was recommended by four out of five dentists for their patients that chew gum, Chrome River is clearly now the expense management solution recommended by leaders in the professional services field. The rate at which we have been growing seems to only accelerate as we continue to secure our place as the leader in the legal market while expanding into other segments.”

Alan Rich, co-founder and CEO credits Chrome River’s ability to resonate across multiple levels of an organization for contributing to a strong rate of adoption. “For CFO’s, we improve process, save time, money and control risk; CTO’s are thrilled that we are a SaaS (Software as a Service) delivering low cost, low risk and no IT infrastructure and most importantly, end-users find the products intuitive and easy to use.”

Chrome River is committed to keeping their end users happy with continuous enhancements and innovations that impress. After a highly successful two-day Customer Seminar where many new features and functions were launched, one customer expressed this sentiment:

“... [The conference] was very beneficial to me and I'm so excited about all of the new features. It was also nice to meet all of the newer members of your team! It's amazing from one year to the next how much you all have accomplished! I've never had the opportunity to work with a growing company like yours before; what an incredible group of people you are! Chrome River is my favorite part of my job for sure!”

About Chrome River

Chrome River 2011 Customer Seminar a Hit

2011-09-23T08:00:55+00:00

Customers Rave About Insightful and Actionable Session Content

LOS ANGELES, September 23, 2011 -- Chrome River Technologies, a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation solutions, happily announces the success of its 2011 Customer Seminar where attendees enjoyed training, inspirational and strategic speakers, peer interaction and delightful entertainment.

Held on September 12 and 13 at Universal City, the Chrome River Customer Seminar marked a milestone of growth and achievement for the online invoice and expense management software company. Attendance at this year’s event more than doubled, reflecting Chrome River’s rapid client base expansion. “We’re just 8 months into 2011 and we’ve already surpassed last year’s customer subscription growth by 25%,” said Dave Terry, Chrome River Co-founder and COO, “and we’ve expanded our industry reach beyond legal, accounting and consulting services to include financial and investment banking, biopharmaceuticals, education solutions, and sports and entertainment organizations.”

Attendees consisted of administrative professionals from law firms and corporations all around the globe. “The feedback we’ve received from the attendees has been overwhelmingly positive,” noted Chrome River SVP of Client Services, Anne Becknell. “They took away tangible insights they could apply to their day-to-day problems. We are extremely pleased with the success of this event.”

Chrome River Co-founder and CEO, Alan Rich, a leading expert on financial software design for professional service firms, provided a fascinating keynote address that explored the psychology and motivation behind recent expense fraud schemes that landed many high profile lawyers and executives behind bars. Relying on tips from the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Unit, Rich offered down-to-earth solutions for fraud avoidance and detection.

One Accounts Payable Director of a 1,200-professional law firm summed up the Seminar this way: “This was the best conference I have been to in a long time. The information and material presented was extremely valuable. The upcoming enhancements will keep Chrome River on the move for sure and a leader in the industry. It's great to see a vendor such as Chrome River that is so willing to take client feedback and incorporate it into making the product second to none.”

“I love coming back to the Chrome River family reunions,” said John Marquedant, President of JFPM Consulting. “Chrome River knows how to connect with their attendees with content that is both actionable and measurable.”

"The Chrome River sessions were informative and fun. I have a ton of ideas now to bring back to my team,” reported Briana McCann, Assistant Financial Systems Manager for Blank Rome.

Several best-of-breed industry vendors and Chrome River trusted partners were also in attendance at the conference, including ALP Consulting & Development, Basal Enterprises, CoreTech Leasing, DataFusion Technologies, ELITE, Global Exchange Group, and IntApp.

Chrome River showcased INVOICE, an invoice automation product released less than a year ago and to which 25% of their clients are already subscribed. With exceptional customer service and superior product design, Chrome River proves that, even in a challenging economy, organizations want innovative technology that can increase operational efficiency and reduce costs.

About Chrome River

Chrome River Partners with ALP to Provide Customers with Automated Data Exchange and SSO

2011-06-22T08:00:12+00:00

Data exchange automation between expense management and invoice workflow automation service and financial systems

LOS ANGELES, June 22, 2011 -- Chrome River Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation, has partnered with ALP Consulting & Development to provide customized data exchange services to support the import and export of data between Chrome River and their customer’s unique financial systems.

In a collaborative effort, ALP has designed a customized data exchange services suite that interfaces directly with Chrome River's automated expense management solutions, EXPENSE and INVOICE. The data exchange suite includes the automated transfer of people and matter/project validation lists, routine exports of approved expense items and even receipt image transfers to feed directly from the Chrome River servers into a customer’s financial system repositories.

“ALP’s extensive knowledge of financial systems, including the Elite financial system for law firms and professional services organizations, allowed them to develop automated and seamless data integration for our customers when they don’t have the resources internally to do it themselves,” said Dave Terry, Co-founder and COO of Chrome River. “This partnership allows our customers another option for handling these exchanges as ALP has built a platform to schedule and automate these functions on the customer side entirely for them.”

Utilizing specialized web services, ALP offers Person/Matter/Project Exchanges for synchronized validation lists, Expense/Invoice Exchanges for the sharing of approved items for payment, Paid Voucher Exchange for returning payment update data for expense reports and invoices, and Image Exchange for the transfer of images into a customer’s local repository. Further, ALP also offers customized Single Sign-On (SSO) services to allow users to automatically log in to the Chrome River services without having to provide additional credentials.

“This relationship with Chrome River is a perfect fit for us because it is a natural extension of our continued commitment to providing customized application services for our clients,” says Alp Franko, Vice-President at ALP.

About ALP Consulting & Development

ALP Consulting & Development Corp. is focused on the implementation of customized software for financial systems. Since 1986 ALP has been at the forefront of the service firm industry, adapting proven solutions to the direct needs of its clients. With their extensive knowledge of Elite® the team at ALP developed a full suite of customizable products including ALP EBilling, ALP Web Distribution, and ALP Invoice Templates - products built to increase efficiency and maximize resources. Please visit www.alpdevelopment.com for more information about the company’s products and services.

About Chrome River

IntApp and Chrome River Plot a Quick Course to Improved Cost Recovery for Law Firms

2011-06-15T18:07:53+00:00

Pre-built integration templates accelerate implementation and adoption of expense management service

PALO ALTO, Calif.—June 15, 2011—IntApp, Inc., the leading provider of application integration software for law firms, today announced the availability of new application integration rule templates for Chrome River, an online expense reporting and invoice management service providing complete process automation and cost controls around an organization’s accounts payable operations.

Working collaboratively, IntApp and Chrome River have developed pre-built templates specifically designed to accelerate the implementation and internal adoption of Chrome River’s expense management services by joint law firm customers. These templates are now available in the online IntApp Resource Center accessible to all IntApp Integration Builder clients.

Integration Builder provides a simple, straightforward way for law firms to connect, manage and automate their business applications and processes. Delivered as a pure-software application deployable in a virtualized environment, it provides real-time data communication without the cost, complexity and time required by custom code development. By using IntApp Integration Builder with Chrome River EXPENSE and Chrome River INVOICE, law firms can ensure that relevant client, matter and other business information are updated in real time so that business users can easily enter and track expense reports and invoices in a timely, accurate and convenient manner.

“Chrome River provides a single common platform for the entire accounts payable business process workflow, eliminating expensive and error-prone manual processes,” said Alan Rich, Co-founder and CEO of Chrome River. “IntApp Integration Builder provides users with the tools to implement our software quickly and to keep integrations current as firm systems and processes evolve.”

In today’s legal environment, an ever-growing roster of applications pushes IT complexity to new levels. Firms often use “best of breed” software for tasks including financial, content and identity management. But these tools aren’t necessarily designed to be the best at integrating with one another. Yet effectively executing key processes like new business intake, user account provisioning and cost recovery depends on the ability to move information among these applications.

“This partnership and collaboration allow us to provide our joint clients with pre-built integration templates specifically designed to accelerate their adoption of Chrome River,” said Neal Vora, head of Integration Practice, IntApp. “We’re pleased to continue expanding the breadth and depth of templates designed to let law firms get the most out of their software investments.”

About IntApp

IntApp provides software products and services that enable law firms to achieve competitive advantage by exceeding client compliance requirements, increasing revenue, and reducing operational costs. IntApp's three practice groups (Risk, Revenue and Integration) focus on understanding existing pressures and emerging trends, and translate this knowledge into products and best practices. IntApp products are the most-adopted in their respective categories - Wall Builder for ethical screens and client confidentiality management, Time Builder for time capture, and Integration Builder for application integration and master data management. IntApp serves over 150 law firms, is endorsed by major software vendors across all categories, and has cultivated a vibrant partner community. For more information about IntApp, visit: www.intapp.com.

About Chrome River

Chrome River CEO Article Highlighted in Legal Technology Financial Management White Paper

2011-05-06T03:36:58+00:00

Online Expense Management article included in ILTA’s April 2011 issue

LOS ANGELES, May 6, 2011 – Chrome River Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation, is pleased to announce that an article authored by co-founder and CEO Alan Rich has been published in the International Legal Technology Association’s April 2011 White Paper focused on financial management.

ILTA provides technology solutions to law firms and legal departments, encouraging the sharing of knowledge and experience among peers, and secures experts from their vendor and consultant community to contribute to white papers on a wide range of subjects. Rich’s article, Online Expense Management: The Reinvention of a Critical Business Process, examines the tangible benefits gained by automating the fundamental business process of expense reporting and reimbursement.

“Many organizations are still utilizing manual or only partially automated expense report management solutions partly due to a skepticism that automation will offer a return on investment, however, there is an abundance of research now that demonstrates almost instant ROI across many aspects of a business,” said Alan Rich. Recent research by PayStream Advisors has shown that migrating from a manual to automated expense management system can cut the overall cost of processing each expense report by more than half.

Among the benefits Rich explores and details in his article are improved operational efficiencies, better spend visibility for enhanced decision-making, changed behavior leading directly to hard cost reductions via greater transparency and minimized risk exposure. To read Rich’s article in its entirety, click here. To access the full ILTA White Paper, click here.

About Chrome River

Chrome River Expense Report and Invoice Images Flow into ExpertImage

2011-05-04T08:00:56+00:00

Integration gives full visibility of Chrome River images to ExpertImage digital image management solution

LOS ANGELES, May 4, 2011 -- Chrome River Technologies, Inc. and ATG’s ExpertImage announced today that they have partnered to provide comprehensive ease-of-use and digital image exchange for online expense reporting and invoice management. Customers utilizing Chrome River's expense management system can now use ExpertImage’s popular image management solution to enhance visibility of expenses to all necessary areas of the firm.

Chrome River’s EXPENSE and INVOICE SaaS applications automate the complete expense reporting and invoice management process including the capture and storage of related expense receipts and invoice images. For customers who need these images to be replicated within their ExpertImage imaging repository for easy accessibility as well as inclusion in client bills or other workflow systems, ExpertImage offers an add-on automated integration solution.

“Our partnership with ExpertImage allows Chrome River customers to integrate expense image data directly with leading financial systems such as ADERANT Expert and others," said Dave Terry, Co-founder and COO of Chrome River. "This automation has proven helpful to our customers as it allows easy access to key expense and invoice images from multiple, integrated systems.”

With a simple one-time set-up, ExpertImage automates a nightly process of importing all newly available expense and invoice images from Chrome River. ExpertImage then leverages its comprehensive suite of integrated applications to give visibility of the images to all authorized users within the firm. Once ExpertImage has secured the files, they are treated like any other document in the system, making them available in searches for supporting documentation in the firm’s financial system.

“This integration with Chrome River is exciting to us because it continues our mission of being the most flexible and integrated digital imaging product on the market,” says Mike Bowie, Principal at ATG.

About Applied Technology Group, LLC

Applied Technology Group, LLC provides complete digital imaging solutions for professional services firms world-wide. The premiere product, ExpertImage, can function as an independent solution or integrate seamlessly with existing management systems. On-going collaborative solutions with the most popular systems in the industry make ExpertImage easy to install and use. The experienced consultants at ATG improve existing paper based workflows to provide immediate cost savings and efficiency improvements. For more information about ATG, see the website at www.expertimage.com or contact the sales team at 253-351-8600.

About Chrome River

Chrome River Technologies, Inc. provides expense reporting and invoice automation solutions that uniquely combine the latest available Internet technologies with over 25 years of financial systems experience. Chrome River delivers immediate payback via a “Software as a Service” delivery model that requires no hardware, no software, and no long-term commitment. This unique service is easily configurable to meet the needs of organizations worldwide with complex expense management policies and collaborative approval processes. Additional information about Chrome River Technologies, Inc. and its solutions may be obtained by phone at 1.888.781.0088 or by visiting the company website at www.chromeriver.com.

Chrome River Sponsors 2011 Industry Analyst Travel and Expense Benchmarking Survey

2011-04-29T08:00:54+00:00

Results of PayStream Advisors survey underline the growing trends in automated expense management

LOS ANGELES, April 29, 2011 -- Chrome River Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation, was profiled as a sponsor in independent research firm PayStream Advisors’ recent Travel & Expense Management Benchmarking Survey, Improving T&E Processes through Automation.

The benchmarking survey, which PayStream Advisors state was developed to highlight the overall trends that are shaping this rapidly evolving space, provides key insights into the use of expense management automation solutions. The survey examines the challenges associated with manual T&E processes, the expense submission and reimbursement methods, technology adoption and corporate card usage.

According to the survey of 300 professionals from various finance and accounting positions across a number of industries, only 24% of the respondents currently had a fully automated T&E expense management process and 21% had some form of partial automation in place. Of those who participated in the survey, a substantial 39% had a completely manual expense management process, with employees printing out expense reports and submitting them manually for approval routing and re-entry into accounting systems. Notably, PayStream Advisors reports that those companies with fully automated “best practices” expense management solutions are able to dramatically cut their costs by more than half from what their counterparts with manual processes are spending both internally and externally.

“Automating the travel and expense reporting process has a clear and provable ROI including the reduced cost of employee processing, increased efficiency and accuracy, measureable cost reductions and increased control and visibility over company spend,” said Alan Rich, Co-founder and CEO of Chrome River. “PayStream Advisors’ research demonstrates many of these tangible benefits lending further credibility to the argument for migrating to automation.”

A Chrome River profile featuring a solution and implementation overview, as well as a customer case study were included as part of the report. A copy of the report through PayStream Advisors may be found at http://www.paystreamadvisors.com/store/details.cfm?id=336.

About Chrome River

Momentum from Successful 2010 Continues to Swell for Chrome River

2011-04-15T07:59:30+00:00

Significant growth of customer base and new expense report and invoice applications propel Chrome River forward at remarkable pace

LOS ANGELES, April 15, 2011 -- Chrome River Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of expense reporting and invoice automation, announced that 2010 marked a year of exponential growth across all aspects of the business which included nearly doubling its customer base and building momentum that continues to surge into 2011.

This remarkable growth confirms Chrome River’s emergence as a contender in the online expense management systems industry and further solidifies the tangible need for automated solutions. With initial online offerings launched in 2008, Chrome River has enjoyed a rapid rate of adoption, nearly doubling their customer base in 2010 and finishing the year strong with 14 new customers subscribing to its services in the month of December alone. Due to the service’s unprecedented ease-of-use and tremendous configurability that is designed to meet even the sophisticated requirements of the legal and professional services industries, Chrome River wrapped up 2010 counting 30 of the AmLaw Top 100 law firms as customers. This growth includes new customers across a variety of industries and adoption in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

“We are extremely pleased with all of the momentum that continues to build around our EXPENSE and INVOICE solutions,” said Dave Terry, Co-founder and COO of Chrome River. “We utilize the latest technologies which allow us to deliver unique offerings to our customers. We are not just modernizing the expense reporting and invoice management process, we allow customers to save money by improving productivity, increasing control over their expenses and increasing cash flow while at the same time providing a direct and important benefit to end users.”

In 2010, Chrome River expanded their Software as a Service offerings with the introduction of two new expense management applications. In June, Chrome River ANALYTICS was announced, an innovative report-generating solution that delivers real-time insights and comprehensive expense spend analysis via a powerful business intelligence platform. In October, implementation of the new Chrome River INVOICE solution began in a limited rollout which continues to increase in size as the original early adopter customers and others go live. The Chrome River INVOICE application automates and simplifies the entire process for accounts payable operations with a streamlined and configurable interface that quickly accepts all invoices and check requests across the organization and reduces paper handling.