Spend management platforms give finance departments, and IT teams better visibility and control over recurring payments. You can easily manage and monitor your SaaS subscriptions in real-time, optimizing spending efficiency and cost savings.
However, you must select a SaaS to spend management solution with care to ensure this is the case. So, we are going to take you through the most important elements to consider below.
1. Find a solution that helps you identify all areas of overspending
For a SaaS spend management tool to be effective, it needs to help you identify all areas of overspending. After all, there are many different ways that businesses can end up spending more on SaaS than required.
Here are some examples:
- Duplicate apps – Also known as shadow IT, many businesses use different tools to solve the same issue. Do you have a number of tools that have shared functionality? The best SaaS spend management tools help to identify this.
- Off-the-shelf pricing and unoptimized licenses – Some apps give the leverage of pricing for companies that need more numbers. For example, if you have ‘x’ employees, you pay $5 per employee, but if you have ‘y’ employees, you pay $4 per employee. Workers who purchase a license independently tend to overspend without knowing their purchasing power.
- Unrevoked licenses – Whenever someone leaves a business, the IT department must ensure their licenses are revoked. However, if the person has subscribed to shadow apps, they would not know, meaning further payments keep leaving the company credit card.
- Forgotten cancellations – Automatic renewals and free trials can result in us paying for the software we do not need.
If you’re looking for a solution that helps you to identify all areas of overspending, you may want to use Zluri to help manage and streamline your software spending. They can help you to ensure that you are only spending on what is necessary.
2. Look for a free trial or demo
It is always a good idea to choose SaaS to spend management software with a free trial or a demo. This will enable you to understand how the product works before you part with any of your hard-earned cash.
After all, there are many different solutions on the market today, and some may be better suited to the set-up of your company than others. The best SaaS companies are happy to offer free trials because they are confident in their product.
3. Make sure the software has a solid reputation
Next, take the time to find a reputable solution. Make sure that the feedback about the tool online is positive and that people have been happy with the service provided.
When you are reading reviews, you should always look at comments that have been left on independent review platforms. After all, you want to be sure that the feedback is genuine.
Aside from this, it would help if you looked at the SaaS company’s client base. What sort of businesses are using the software in question already?
4. Effective security is a must
In addition to the criteria we have discussed so far, we cannot talk about software today without speaking about the importance of security. It does not matter what type of business you run; you need to do everything in your power to protect it from a cyber attack. Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their approach, meaning you need to make a dedicated effort to protect your business.
Find out what measures the SaaS company has implemented to ensure this is the case. Do not simply assume that they are taking security seriously. Find out about their approach. Do they use multi-factor authentication? What about encryption?
No matter what SaaS spend management tool you ultimately decide on, you need to play your role in ensuring you protect your business as well. Whenever you are prompted to update the software, make sure you do so. This usually means that a vulnerability has been patched, so there is no time to waste when it comes to updating your software and making sure your business is secure.
5. A wide range of features to help you control your spending
An effective SaaS spend management tool should not only help you in terms of spotting areas where you are overspending, but it should also be beneficial when it comes to controlling other areas of your spending.
This is why the best SaaS spend management solutions come with a wide range of innovative features for you to make the most of.
For instance, you should be able to manage suppliers with greater ease. You should have no trouble keeping tabs on neglected renewal periods and upcoming payments. Via one central dashboard, you should have complete clarity regarding the statuses of all of your payments.
You should also be able to track payers. Linking a payment to the approver, team, or person in question should be a breeze. Unlike corporate credit cards, SaaS spend management tools enable you to understand who owns every payment and why they do.
Other features include spotting redundancies or anything that does not seem right. This means spotting excessive amounts or duplicated transactions is a breeze. After all, no one wants to pay for something twice, do they?
Some SaaS spend management tools also make it easy for you to optimize your expenditure using virtual cards. This links to the earlier point about security. There are serious fraud risks associated with physical credit cards, and teams can struggle with their management. Virtual cards can make tracking expenditure and enhancing safety much more accessible.
6. Choose a tool that strengthens cross-team collaboration
Next, look for a spend management solution that gives every team member the accessibility and resources required to perform their roles productively.
Within seconds, employees should be able to send purchase requests, with managers being able to approve them and remotely allocate budgets just as quickly.
Ultimately, you are looking for a tool that brings simple and scalable processes to your business so that you can reap the benefits.
7. Ease-of-use should be factored in
In addition to the points we have mentioned so far, you also need to consider ease of use. After all, no one wants a tool that has a massive learning curve. Instead, you want something you can integrate into your current software suite with sheer ease.
You should be able to gauge just how easy a tool is to use with a demo or free trial. Also, reviews that others have left should indicate whether or not there is a steep learning curve.
8. The ability to create efficient procurement workflows
You also need a tool that enables you to create efficient procurement workflows. A lot of companies unknowingly pay for SaaS apps that have been purchased by an ex-employee or are no longer in use. An effective SaaS spend management tool can optimize the procurement process by spotting unused and duplicate subscriptions.
You can cancel, pause, or transfer SaaS subscriptions to another employee. This will simplify the onboarding and offboarding process, ultimately saving you a lot of time and money.
9. The cost and payment structure
Last but not least, when looking to add any new tool to your business, you need to consider the cost associated with this. It would help if you made sure that the software is affordable and delivers good value for money.
SaaS providers today tend to approach their payment structures differently from one another. Some will offer a fixed one-off price, for example. Then, those who offer monthly payment options, with bulk discounts available if you pay for one, two, or three years upfront.
Some companies will also offer different packages based on the features, for example, basic packages and pro plans.
This is why it is imperative to assess the options available to determine what sort of SaaS subscription will be the best for you from both an efficiency and value perspective. If you spend more on your SaaS spend management tool than is needed, this defeats the purpose of using a tool like this in the first place.
Choose the perfect SaaS to spend management tool for you
So there you have it: an insight into the main factors that need to be considered when looking for a SaaS spend management solution.
From duplicate apps to forgotten cancellations, there are many different ways that businesses spend more money on SaaS than they should. However, with an effective SaaS management tool, you can ensure that overspending becomes a thing of the past.
