Travel expenses on-the-go
Scan receipts for effortless reimbursement.
Chrome River Snap
Handling paper receipts during business trips can be inconvenient and often delays the creation and submission of expense reports.
Chrome River Snap, is a mobile app designed for business travelers to streamline the process by eliminating the need to save paper receipts and reducing the time needed to complete expense reports.
I partnered with another designer to create a seamless mobile experience, guiding users from capturing receipts to effortless expense submissions.
Role
Product Designer
Project Date
Q2 2020 - Q4 2020
Outcome
200K+ App store downloads. ★★★★☆
100K+ downloads on Google Play store ★★★★☆
The least thing you want to do during your business trip is collecting receipts.
Problems Statement
Business travelers often struggle to keep track of expense receipts during trips, resulting in misplaced receipts and forgotten purchases. This leads to incomplete expense reports and missed reimbursements, creating frustration for users and inefficiencies in expense management.
Business Goals
To enhance the expense reporting process by reducing lost receipts and forgotten transactions, ultimately increasing reimbursement accuracy and user satisfaction. This will streamline expense management, minimize errors, and improve user compliance, leading to more efficient financial reporting and reduced administrative overhead.
Product Solution
Chrome River Snap simplifies the expense reporting process by allowing users to capture photos of their receipts on the go. With this solution, users can instantly digitize receipts and submit expenses in real time, reducing the risk of lost receipts and forgotten purchases. The app integrates seamlessly with the expense management system, ensuring accurate and complete reimbursement while streamlining the overall reporting process for business travelers. This efficient solution not only saves time but also improves user compliance and enhances financial accuracy.
Creative Strategy
I began the project by defining the timeline and scope and setting up user interviews to ensure alignment with our project requirements and specifications. After completing the scope and planning phase, I conducted a comprehensive analysis of all receipt-capturing apps available within the organization. The focus was on understanding the data being captured and how it seamlessly transferred into an expense report.
User Interviews
“I capture all my receipts with my phone but it is cumbersome to enter all data with a mobile device.”
— Ed, Tech Consultant
“For me, it is frustrating to capturing all expenses while I’m traveling. I often get busy when I’m traveling so I gather all receipts in my pocket or wallet and then scan them. ”
— Mark, Sales
“Entering details is painful. It gets really long and there are a lot of details needed for some expenses. I also cannot 100% trust the accuracy of the auto receipt capturing.”
— Stephanie, software Engineer
User Persona
We conducted interviews with a diverse group of users who frequently engage in the expense reporting process at their workplaces. Overall, users found that creating expense reports is a time-consuming task. Many expressed difficulty in collecting and capturing receipts during or after travel. Even when users managed to gather all their receipts, they still faced challenges entering the data into the report accurately.
Takeaways
Reduce Duplicate Efforts
Users want to avoid handling the same report multiple times. Provide a clear signal indicating when all expenses are complete, and offer a way for users to easily verify that all transactions have been included and all receipts have been attached.
Group Expense Notifications
Consolidate multiple expense notifications and provide an estimated completion time. Users noted they are unlikely to initiate a workflow from a notification if they are currently occupied with another task.
Flexible Notification Snooze
Offer the option to snooze notifications until a specific time, rather than a fixed period (e.g., one or two hours after the initial notification).
Customizable Notification Settings
Allow users to personalize notification preferences, but begin with a bundled notification at the start or end of the workday for greater efficiency.
Simplified Q&A Interaction Flow
Implement a question-and-answer interaction flow, as participants consistently highlighted challenges with smaller, complex tasks on mobile devices.
Following in-depth user interviews, we identified and defined five distinct user personas: Infrequent Spender, High-Frequency Spender, Regular Car Traveler, Regular Corporate Card User, and Occasional Traveler.
Different persona groups are associated with distinct expense types, reflecting variations in expensing behaviors. Traveler personas, in particular, require diverse intelligence methods due to their use of both firm-paid and reimbursable expenses. Analyzing behaviors related to receipt attachment and transaction-based workflows highlights opportunities to enhance the efficiency of the expensing process and better support user needs.
Competitive Research
Extensive competitive analysis of mobile products provided valuable insights into creating an intuitive user experience. The research focused specifically on notification systems and the receipt-capturing process.
Design Development
The overall user flow and design concept were developed for the first iteration, initially prioritizing the automated report creation feature.
The prototype was designed not only to capture receipt photos and digitize their data but also to manage and auto-submit expenses seamlessly.
Drawing on findings from the research and user interviews, the initial prototype was developed. Following cross-functional reviews and user testing, we identified areas for improvement and proceeded with design iterations.
Creative Solutions
After extensive user testing and validation, the final design was developed, focusing on key features such as digitizing receipts and submitting expenses in real time. The app seamlessly integrates with the expense management system, ensuring accurate reimbursements and streamlining the reporting process for business travelers.
Conclusion
The product was integrated with the Emburse expense platform, significantly reducing the time busy travelers spent creating reports. User satisfaction is reflected in positive reviews on the App Store and Google Play Store.
200K+ App store downloads. ★★★★☆
100K+ downloads on Google Play store ★★★★☆
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K1 Travel
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Emburse Analytics
An analytic platform digitize expense spending.
