Chrome River
Welcome to Chrome River!
We have completed the roll out of the travel system and the P-Card reconciliation process to the university community. We will be utilizing the Message of the Day (main page) in Chrome River and this website to keep users updated with information regarding the system.
- Ability to use multiple activity codes
- Hotel and Car Rental Folio – service automatically creates line item expenses for hotel and car rental
Non-Employees/Non-Virginia Tech Students and Virginia Tech Students cannot access Chrome River as only Virginia Tech Employees have profiles/dashboards within Chrome River.
- Employee: All employees (with the exception of student employees) can login to Chrome River to process their own pre-approval and/or travel reimbursement. All employees may also have an assigned delegate process their pre-approval and/or travel reimbursements on the traveler’s profile/dashboard.
- VT Student Reimbursements: While student information exists in Chrome River, students do not have profiles/dashboards or access to complete their own travel reimbursements in Chrome River. An employee must complete the pre-approval and/or travel reimbursement on their behalf.
- Non-Employee/Non-Virginia Tech Student: These individuals are not affiliated with Virginia Tech but are guests of the university which includes speakers, interview candidates, etc. Departments can submit requests to create a new vendor for these types of situations by clicking on the hyperlink for Banner Payee Request Form on the Message of the Day page in Chrome River.
- For questions related to P-Cards, please contact Debbie Cole at coledl65@exchange.vt.edu or (540) 231-8618.
Due to COVID-19, training is offered via Zoom. You can register for these sessions by going to training.vt.edu and searching for Chrome River.
- Creating a new Expense Report
- Creating a New Pre-Approval Report
- Adding an Additional Email
- Assigning & Removing Delegates
- Mileage Personal Vehicle – Expense Report
- Tracking Reports – Expense Report
- Hotel Expense – Expense Report
- Approver Role on an Expense Report
- Approver Role on a Pre-Approval Report
- International Travel/ Risk Management Tracking – Pre-Approval Report
- Receipt Management
Creating a Non-travel Expense Report
Non-Travel Expense - Human Subject Participant Payment
Non-Travel Account Code Listing
Non-Travel Expense - Refreshments
Non-Travel Expense - Business Meals
Itemized Non-Travel for Expense Type, Account Codes or Activity Codes
Travel Helpline at travelvt@vt.edu
The TEM system is no longer available.
The documents are still stored in Banner, which can be used in case of an audit.
VTF travel reimbursements will still be done by paper until the VTF Chrome River system is active.
Chrome River will go through the normal approval process that is in TEM depending on the configuration in Banner
No, you must submit a pre-approval for $1.00 or more. If no expenses are being reimbursed to the traveler, then use the International Travel/Risk MGMT Tracking expense line item. See the PreApproval – International Travel/Risk MGMT Tracking training document on the Controller's Office website under Online Systems -> Chrome River -> Training -> Pre-Approvals
These expenses are submitted in the Header section of the preapproval. If a pre-approval is imported to an expense report, the university paid items will be imported at the Header level.
Insert Non-Reimbursable Personable Expense into the Allocation Field of the expense and select VTF-Reimbursable. Insert the Foundation Fund number into the description of the expense.
Yes, you can create as many expense reports as possible until the preapproval equals zero dollars
No, neither of these reports can be replicated to another individual
Does Chrome River have the ability to delete a pre-approval or expense report before it is returned?
No, the user would have to “Recall” the pre-approval or expense report and then delete it.
See the Assigning and Removing Delegates training document on the Controller's Office website under Online Systems -> Chrome River -> Training -> Other
For expense reports, a user can choose an individual line item, select return, and it will go back to the original expense owner to edit. This functionality is unavailable for pre-approvals as the whole report must be returned to the original expense owner. The expense report will not post to Banner/be paid until all line items are approved.
After an employee is terminated in Banner HR, the user’s access will be automatically removed in Chrome River.
These rates are updated automatically by the Chrome River system.
No, it is not reserved to one individual. Any individual with that group role can approve an expense report or pre-approval.
If an expense report is returned to the expense report owner, the approval process will not restart when it is resubmitted. If the expense report is recalled by the expense report owner/delegate, the approval process will restart from the very beginning.
The line item goes back to the expense owner. After the user has made the changes, it will return to the original approver role who rejected the line item for approval.
The rest of the line items proceeds with the original routing process.
An additional line cannot be added to an expense report if it is returned to the expense report owner. The approver cannot add an additional line. If an additional line is needed after initial submission, the report must be recalled first and the approval routing process is restarted.
For an expense report, an approver can only change the amount, activity code, allocation, or upload a receipt. They must insert a comment to document any changes made. Any other changes to be made must be returned to the expense report owner. For a preapproval, the approver cannot change anything and must return the entire pre-approval to the pre-approval owner for edits to be made.
Yes, the department needs to keep the receipts for current plus one fiscal year. Ex. If your receipt is dated 06/25/2019 (FY19), that receipt cannot be destroyed until 07/01/2020 (FY21).
Yes, images of expense reports (not pre-approvals) will be interfaced to Banner when it posts.
It is mandatory that all international travel should be paid by wire transfer.
What is the majority of your travel. I.e. if the majority of your travel is a Conference travel, then select Conference travel on the Header.
Yes, you can add multiple email addresses to your profile. Note: that Chrome River is initially associated with your vt.edu account and you must manually add your other email addresses to your profile. See the training document Adding Alternative Email Addresses on the Controller's Office website under Online Systems -> Chrome River - > Training -> Other
No, supervisor approval will be turned off
Yes, the organization approvals will be just as it is in TEM as specified by the organization’s rules that are in place.
No, there will be no email notifications for org approvers as this is a group approval process
Yes, every department will need to keep their paper documentation for 1 year
No, the Chrome River system will automatically generate account codes based on the expense selected
The PA will be detached from the ER if the individual who submitted the report recalls it. The PA remains attached if the report is returned by an org approver or travel analyst to the employee who originally submitted the report.
You should reattach the PA right before you Submit the report (after you have clicked the green Submit button and the blue PreApproval button appears before final submission) Note: do not click on the Add Pre-Approval Report at the Header Level as this will reattach all expenses that were originally on that Pre-Approval to the Expense Report. This will cause duplicate expenses to import on that ER and the submitter will have to delete those new expenses.
There is a functionality called “Memorized Transactions” which will save the specific expense to be used multiple times on multiple expense reports for a specific individual’s Dashboard? See the training document Expense Report - Memorize Expense on the Controller's Office website under Online Systems -> Chrome River -> Training -> Other
You can find the TR# in the Comments section of the expense report header. The submitted expense report must have a status of “Exported” in order to view the TR#.
