Emburse Chrome River vs. Emburse Abacus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Emburse Chrome River
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Chrome River EXPENSE is expense management software, from Chrome River Technologies in Los Angeles, California.N/A
Emburse Abacus
Score 6.0 out of 10
N/A
Abacus is a web and mobile application that helps manage employee expenses and reimbursements. Some key features include: Real-Time Expense Submission, Integrated ACH Payments, and Dynamic Custom Reporting. Abacus was acquired by Certify in summer 2018 and is now part of Emburse, formed from the merger of Certify and Chrome River March 2019.
$9
per active user/per month
Pricing
Emburse Chrome RiverEmburse Abacus
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starter
$9
per active user/per month
Professional
Custom Pricing
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Emburse Chrome RiverEmburse Abacus
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsWe offer three cost-effective, subscription-based pricing models: A transaction-based model, priced according to expense report volume A submitter-based model, priced according to an average number of monthly submitters An enterprise-level model that includes unlimited expense reports. Pricing for this model is based on total employee headcount Feel free to contact us to discuss the best one for your organization.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Emburse Chrome RiverEmburse Abacus
Considered Both Products
Emburse Chrome River
Chose Emburse Chrome River
The overall user interface was easy to use and it made the task of the reporting very easy. Compliance rules are guiding the users to correctly upload and enter receipts, which are already uploaded and recognized via OCR during the business trip. Uploading can easily done via …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
Chrome River seams more updates and the matching of expenses and receipts is something i don't remember Concur doing
Chose Emburse Chrome River
We have not used any other products at the moment as we are still trying to get all employees on the same page with the Chrome River software. Once company wide everyone is on the same page we hope to expand the software to more products to make our work more efficient.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
The user interface and features surpass the experience and similar features of other products because of the following. Good customer support to also make the program better. Also, a good interface to navigate the expense creation process.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
Concur was a very detailed platform that we used at my old company, but it was not very user friendly. The compliance rules set up required heavy detail from the employee that leadership or managers would not even read. the rules set in place resulted in slow processing times …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
With a smaller organization, Chrome River has proven cost-effective yet has all of the tools needed to create efficiencies throughout our expense reporting process.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
This software is basically just the other end of Emburse Chrome River and works in almost the exact same way. They both work well together and I think they are easy to use for any staff, no matter their level of technological knowledge. I would recommend an organization to use …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
The 3 biggest reasons we went with Chrome River were: The dynamic workflow capabilities of Chrome River compared to other systems. We have 30-45 budget owners who need to review/approve based on the budget codes they oversee. Most other systems just allowed for a …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
It's the [industry-leading] software for Enterprise level organizations with [large-scale] teams and financial responsibilities. The software has the most robust set of tools and pays for itself with the amount of time it saves. Many newer alternatives have sprouted up but I …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
I think Chrome River is much more intuitive and user-friendly. Also, I love the ease of pulling data and diving into analytics with Chrome River. The system is very dynamic and changes in real-time. As far as Concur goes, I had a lot of difficulty and redundant motions when …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
Emburse Chrome River Expense is the first expense management system that our university has used. I do not have any other product to evaluate or compare it with. Before deciding to purchase and use Emburse Chrome River Expense, we did have a few other product demos but high …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
We shopped Rydoo and another online expense reimbursement platform but ultimately chose Emburse Certify for our needs. Emburse Certify was more customizable for our organizations needs. This was our first time using an online expense platform. Previously, as recently as 2018, …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
Expense Track, better since approvals are in the app. The export still isn't as good.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
I can't answer this question.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
Chrome River was selected for ease of use and price per report. One of our affiliates was already using Chrome River and it came highly recommended and we were able to negotiate a price per report that was within our budget. Most of the expense systems have the same features …
Chose Emburse Chrome River
I have not had any experience with implementation of previous T&E products.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
I haven't actually used anything like this before outside of doing expense reports via Excel sheets and coding them by hand into Netsuite, so this is a massive difference.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
We initially tried implementing Concur, but they provided no dedicated resources to our implementation and ended up initially implementing the wrong version and we finally scrapped the project.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
  • Works with our business model
  • Pre-approval method
  • Auto-approval functionality
Chose Emburse Chrome River
Emburse Chrome River has a nicer interface and was easier to implement than Concur.
Chose Emburse Chrome River
We have compared other products and feel that it's value for money.
Emburse Abacus
Chose Emburse Abacus
I chose Abacus because of its ease of use and flexible billing. The billing is based on the number of submissions rather than users in the system. Because we reimburse committee members, we have a lot of users in the system, but the activity can vary widely from month to month.
Chose Emburse Abacus
We migrated from SAP Concur to Emburse Abacus after carefully considering a number of factors. Total cost of ownership, new user training and adoption, direct integration with our ERP, and the ability to process individual expenses in real-time as opposed to processing monthly …
Chose Emburse Abacus
I have never used anything like Abacus but I can't imagine a product that offers more value than this does. It allows you to categorize the expense, which will show where we are spending the most money as a company. It keeps a great record of past expenses and the status (if …
Chose Emburse Abacus
I, again, was not the decision maker in this process so I did not evaluate any other companies. Expensify is another one I've heard of, but I cannot compare pricing or uses at this time. I would say the user friendliness of Abacus really made me enjoy it, I have no interest …
Chose Emburse Abacus
We originally migrated from SAP Concur. We made the decision to switch to Abacus because Concur does not sync directly with Sage Intacct and it was less expensive. Expensify seems to be what most companies recommend, however, it was out of our price range
Chose Emburse Abacus
Other co-op databases, such as Wiland, Next Action (Oracle), etc. are all useful and can be part of your marketing mix. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Never put all the eggs in a single co-op basket.
Chose Emburse Abacus
Abacus is a better payment reimbursement program than Expensify, which my company had previously used up until switching to Abacus around a year ago. Abacus has a better, sleeker, and more modern user interface. I can't comment on the price comparison of the two programs, but I …
Chose Emburse Abacus
I used expensify in my last role, however it was at a bigger company so I was not involved in the process besides being a user. Abacus seems easier to use from a user perspective. It would be great to have a better integration with our payroll system, but it seems like with all …
Features
Emburse Chrome RiverEmburse Abacus
Expense Management
Comparison of Expense Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
8.5
Ratings
3% above category average
Emburse Abacus
-
Ratings
Employee Expense Reporting8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Corporate Card Reconciliation9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
7.9
Ratings
1% below category average
Emburse Abacus
-
Ratings
Customizable Approval Policies8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Financial Document Management7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Status Tracking6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Audit Trail9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Bill Detection8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced OCR8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Electronic Funds Transfer8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Emburse Chrome RiverEmburse Abacus
Small Businesses
Dext
Dext
Score 9.6 out of 10
Dext
Dext
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
BILL Spend & Expense
BILL Spend & Expense
Score 8.9 out of 10
BILL Spend & Expense
BILL Spend & Expense
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Webexpenses
Webexpenses
Score 8.7 out of 10
Emburse Chrome River
Emburse Chrome River
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Emburse Chrome RiverEmburse Abacus
Likelihood to Recommend
7.2
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Emburse Chrome RiverEmburse Abacus
Likelihood to Recommend
Chrome River in my experience is suited to the employees being more independent when completing their reports, due to the extensive questions and steps. This allows us (the reviewers) to come in and assist the employees more efficiently. I think it fits well with out needs and easy to help our employees
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Abacus is great for smaller companies that need to automate expense management. It is a very user-friendly system that makes it easy for all employees to understand without any training. We have heard of issues with their AMEX program. Companies that have tens or hundreds of corporate AMEX cards should likely explore other options
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Pros
  • [Emburse] Chrome River listens to its customer's needs and does its best to match current products to those needs, or collaborate internally to determine if an enhancement can be made available that will not only benefit that customer, but will be a good use case for all Chrome River customers.
  • The [Emburse] Chrome River customer service team is great. Unlike most companies, you can speak to a liver person!
  • [Emburse] Chrome River's training offerings are relevant and pertinent to the day to day operations of the software.
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  • It is a very useful platform it helps me effectively, it allows me to put restrictions on the dates, till a card could be used.
  • Embrace Abacus has provided me much relief and saved my time which was spent in chalking out the financial status of my organization.
  • Emburse Abacus has equipped me with amazing features which are helping me to automatically set various limits about the expenditures and I always remain up to date about any purchase.
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Cons
  • Would be great to have pre-saved templates available to apply to line items at the expense report header level rather than having to go into each line.
  • Would be nice to have a mass upload functionality for things like cost codes, allocations, and credit card users.
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  • I think this just has to do with how we use it but when go in to select a "category" or "event," it looks a little cluttered and can be hard to find what you are looking for.
  • It will not allow you to attach 2 items unless you are doing a split. This is not really an issue but there are times where I would like to include a screenshot with additional information and I have to put everything into one picture.
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Likelihood to Renew
Chrome River is easy to use. We needed little training for our users and instead pointed them to Chrome River's Help Guides which are clearly written and easy to understand. With tools SNAP and the ability to email receipts means we can be completely remote when submitting reports.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
I would rate Chrome River Expense a 10 because, as I mentioned before, it is very simple and easy to use. This is important from an administrative point-of-view as well as for the field employee. Being a general contractor, it makes it all the better for our employees to use a program that is easy to understand and requires little time and effort. It has made tracking expenses very simple and has been well received by the entire company.
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No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
The software is always running effectively. I use many Cloud based systems and never had issues with Chrome River
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No answers on this topic
Performance
System runs normal pretty much all the time. Does not slow any other systems down.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
I cannot tell you how relieved we were when utilizing Chrome River support in comparison to other Enterprise level software support centers. Tickets were quick and representatives were swift in [their callbacks] and resolutions to our common and most difficult problems. The team there is professional and makes each new support ticket a breeze.
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I have never had to contact Abacus support and have not heard stories from any of my colleagues having to do so either. Our accounting department stresses the ease of Abacus and has not voiced any concerns with the software or the product support team or the product support process.
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Online Training
The software is very user friendly, so the online training was easy to pickup for everyone.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Before implementation begins, make sure you have a plan on how you would like your workflow and platform setup for a system like Chrome River. It will speed the process and eliminate the need to make changes when you go live.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
The overall user interface was easy to use and it made the task of the reporting very easy. Compliance rules are guiding the users to correctly upload and enter receipts, which are already uploaded and recognized via OCR during the business trip. Uploading can easily done via APP, mail or receipt gallery. There is no need for storing paper. Chrome River is supporting digital archiving
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We migrated from SAP Concur to Emburse Abacus after carefully considering a number of factors. Total cost of ownership, new user training and adoption, direct integration with our ERP, and the ability to process individual expenses in real-time as opposed to processing monthly expense reports all weighed in Abacus' favor during the decision and selection process.
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Scalability
It's very easy software to design to your needs.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • We have seen a return on approver time of nearly 60% meaning our approvers have tripled their output.
  • We have had feedback from our users that time spent creating expenses has gone from an average of 2 hours to perhaps 20 minutes, tops.
  • We have seen in our dashboards that the Emburse Certify Suite of tools has returned an average savings of over $500K a year.
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  • It does seem like they are still working out some kinks in the web and mobile apps – a few times the app has crashed. But they're also very fast to push updates.
  • The benefits are simple. No one likes taking time out of their day to do expense reporting. Abacus speeds that process up considerably. The interface is clean, and I'm able to see what expenses are pending vs. expenses that are already cleared.
  • The benefit from a user standpoint is that it adds an element of organization to a process that is typically disorganized. It has saved us numerous hours.
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ScreenShots

Emburse Chrome River Screenshots

Screenshot of A consistent experience across any screen size or operating systemScreenshot of Simple, customizable tiles for expense entryScreenshot of Approve expenses directly from your inbox with a single click

Emburse Abacus Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of