Emburse Chrome River vs. QuickBooks Online

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Emburse Chrome River
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Chrome River EXPENSE is expense management software, from Chrome River Technologies in Los Angeles, California.N/A
QuickBooks Online
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Online is a SaaS version of the QuickBooks product. It contains all of the features found in the local version. Higher-priced plans include greater automation, payment management, inventory and time tracking, and analytics features.
$38
per month
Pricing
Emburse Chrome RiverQuickBooks Online
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Simple Start
$38
per month
Essentials
$75
per month
Plus
$115
per month
Advanced
$275
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Emburse Chrome RiverQuickBooks Online
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
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 RiverQuickBooks Online
Considered Both Products
Emburse Chrome River
Chose Emburse Chrome River
We looked at Expensify at the time (2013). More recently, I looked at Zoho but these don't have the robust approval process nor ability to easily be classed into QuickBooks - we have a very complicated class structure.
QuickBooks Online

No answer on this topic

Features
Emburse Chrome RiverQuickBooks Online
Expense Management
Comparison of Expense Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
8.5
4 Ratings
3% above category average
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Employee Expense Reporting8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Corporate Card Reconciliation9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
7.9
4 Ratings
1% below category average
QuickBooks Online
-
Ratings
Customizable Approval Policies8.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Financial Document Management7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Status Tracking6.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Audit Trail9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Bill Detection8.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced OCR8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Electronic Funds Transfer8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
8.1
121 Ratings
7% above category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings8.4110 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings7.260 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings8.5101 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings8.274 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings7.981 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
7.1
112 Ratings
6% below category average
API for custom integration00 Ratings7.193 Ratings
Plug-ins00 Ratings7.094 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
8.4
185 Ratings
2% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.5150 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.3175 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
8.2
211 Ratings
5% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings8.3198 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.5205 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings8.0189 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
8.0
228 Ratings
5% above category average
Accounts payable00 Ratings8.8194 Ratings
Accounts receivable00 Ratings8.8211 Ratings
Cash management00 Ratings8.1194 Ratings
Bank reconciliation00 Ratings9.0217 Ratings
Expense management00 Ratings8.4201 Ratings
Time tracking00 Ratings6.994 Ratings
Fixed asset management00 Ratings8.094 Ratings
Multi-currency support00 Ratings7.548 Ratings
Multi-division support00 Ratings7.379 Ratings
Regulations compliance00 Ratings7.977 Ratings
Electronic tax filing00 Ratings8.1112 Ratings
Self-service portal00 Ratings7.5124 Ratings
Global Financial Support00 Ratings6.840 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings8.169 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting00 Ratings8.070 Ratings
Localizations00 Ratings7.954 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings8.5140 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting00 Ratings7.159 Ratings
Configurable Accounting00 Ratings7.986 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework00 Ratings7.757 Ratings
Standardized Processes00 Ratings8.8104 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
6.9
88 Ratings
6% below category average
Inventory tracking00 Ratings6.783 Ratings
Automatic reordering00 Ratings7.146 Ratings
Location management00 Ratings7.353 Ratings
Manufacturing module00 Ratings6.636 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Chrome River
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Online
7.9
140 Ratings
5% above category average
Pricing00 Ratings8.090 Ratings
Order entry00 Ratings7.886 Ratings
Credit card processing00 Ratings8.4108 Ratings
Cost of goods sold00 Ratings8.4106 Ratings
Order Orchestration00 Ratings7.446 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility00 Ratings7.949 Ratings
Order exception Resolution00 Ratings7.542 Ratings
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User Ratings
Emburse Chrome RiverQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
7.4
(124 ratings)
8.3
(230 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(18 ratings)
9.5
(27 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(108 ratings)
8.3
(146 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
1.0
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(113 ratings)
9.8
(70 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.8
(7 ratings)
9.9
(7 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(1 ratings)
1.0
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.0
(1 ratings)
1.3
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
2.0
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
5.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
5.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Emburse Chrome RiverQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
Emburse
The Emburse Chrome River is well suited for tracking expenses and reimbursement. The compliance part of the software makes the task very easy to ensure all the reports that are being used within the company are updated and easy to verify. The Automating invoice processing makes some redundant task easy to execute.
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Intuit
QBO is a great solution for small and midsize companies. If the goal is to record all transactions and pull reliable financial reports, QBO is a great option. QBO is also a great solution if most operations are run in a system like Ramp. It syncs well with systems like that and turns the data into something management can use to make decisions. QBO is great because so many people use it. It is easy to find training online, and many people have experience with it.
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Pros
Emburse
  • [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.
Read full review
Intuit
  • Workflows for accounts payable invoice review are terrific.
  • Bill payment allows you to pay vendors online via ACH or check without having to write a physical check, which reduces admin time.
  • The cloud based login lends well to a remote or hybrid work environment for staff.
  • QuickBooks Online allows you to pre-configure vendors' general ledger expense accounts. This helps with general ledger coding accuracy and consistency.
  • QuickBooks Online integrates with Rippling HRIS, Coast, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, etc., which lends well to an efficient month-end closing and reduced administrative time.
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Cons
Emburse
  • 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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Intuit
  • I dislike that the online bill pay option through QuickBooks is required for their invoicing.
  • The auto-fill portion of the customer setup, specifically the company name, is listed, but it also auto-fills in the name portion, which is inconvenient and time-consuming to remove.
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Likelihood to Renew
Emburse
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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Intuit
It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.
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Usability
Emburse
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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Intuit
Beyond being overkill for a small org's needs, QBO is constantly stealing screen real estate and attention by hammering users for account upgrades, connecting to one of their approved consultants or buying add-ons. The idea of using a simple configurable bookeeping and light accounting interface is completely missing. At the very least, we should be able to hide functions like inventory that we will never use.
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Reliability and Availability
Emburse
The software is always running effectively. I use many Cloud based systems and never had issues with Chrome River
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Intuit
We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.
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Performance
Emburse
System runs normal pretty much all the time. Does not slow any other systems down.
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Intuit
Everything process has its bugs lately with the new interface. Nothing has worked smoothly since this all began last month.
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Support Rating
Emburse
This has been easy for me because we have a rep that contacts the supporters for this product to correct any issues we may have with the software or changes needed to help out employees use Chrome River easier. This from my understanding has been a hit or miss kind of interaction with our rep and Chrome River.
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Intuit
In my experience, most representatives keep me on the phone for hours, literally, for a single issue and then usually cannot resolve it satisfactorily. I have 10 open cases that need resolution and, in my experience, there has been NO follow-up communication on any of them.
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Online Training
Emburse
The software is very user friendly, so the online training was easy to pickup for everyone.
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Emburse
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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Intuit
The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations
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Alternatives Considered
Emburse
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 don't know that we would ever trust another software to do our Expense Tracking and Management.
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Intuit
As a freelance bookkeeper, the Desktop version of QuickBooks Online doesn't allow for ease of access from any device. Having to be on a computer with the software downloaded creates additional work to gain access to all required filings etc. Also, I personally find the linking functionality on the Online version to be much more streamlined and user friendly.
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Scalability
Emburse
It's very easy software to design to your needs.
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Intuit
As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere
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Return on Investment
Emburse
  • 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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Intuit
  • QuickBooks has given us a useful portal by which to get an overview of our financials.
  • QuickBooks has given us a relatively easy way to send out invoices quickly and efficiently.
  • Due to the customization limitations on QuickBooks, we've had to get creative in third-party implementations to better represent our brand and to track financials.
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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

QuickBooks Online Screenshots

Screenshot of the accounting and bank transactions interfaceScreenshot of an overview of the accounting inventoryScreenshot of book marksScreenshot of the business tax overviewScreenshot of the customer hubScreenshot of the dashboard