5 Smart Ways to Improve SaaS Spend Management

Almost $3,000. That’s how much companies spend annually on SaaS subscriptions for each employee to use an average of eight (!) apps.

SaaS products have opened up a new world of business solutions, from marketing automation to project management and team collaboration. But reaping the benefits requires cash, and finance teams often don’t have great visibility into the total cost. As a result, the company may well be paying for products that few—or no—employees use, or that overlap in functionality.

Fortunately, spend management platforms like Navan Expense can help your organization better understand and control its SaaS spending. Here’s how to use it.

• Take inventory. Employees or teams may use different applications for the same task, share user accounts across groups, or inadvertently pay for the same solution another team already has. With Navan Expense, finance leaders get real-time visibility into expenses by category to see how much is spent on SaaS overall. Further insight is given into subscriptions at team and employee level.
• Look for overlap and underuse. Empower teams to review the applications. How many people are registered for each app? How many apps are they actually using? Since many SaaS subscription models are based on the number of users, be sure you’re not paying for more users than necessary. Also assess if your organization is using multiple solutions for the same service (i.e. Zoom and Teams). Task teams with identifying areas of overlap and underuse, then cull accordingly.
• Implement controls. Navan Expense enables organizations to create customizable policies regarding who makes purchases and how much employees spend. For example, you can limit SaaS subscriptions to team leaders or managers, or require IT approval before a team makes the purchase. You can also designate how much teams can unilaterally spend on SaaS subscriptions, adding additional approvals for any apps that exceed specific amounts.
• Optimize recurring payments. Companies spent an average of $343,000 on SaaS products in 2018. Get some of that cash back with Navan’ virtual cards, which offer rebates on all purchases. These rebates offset corporate spend on software applications and are an essential component of effective AP strategies. In addition, virtual cards provide more security than traditional ACH payments or corporate cards. No credit card data is shared with vendors, reducing the risk of stolen payment information and fraud.
• Review and revise. Teams start and stop using various solutions. Vendors change their pricing. Better tools come to market. Look for opportunities to make cuts or switch products by reviewing your SaaS spend annually. Navan Expense makes this easy, with a unified dashboard that provides real-time reporting and spend visibility. It also offers more granular performance dashboards, so finance can take deep dives into specific areas.

SaaS solutions provide a host of benefits and efficiencies to companies of all sizes. But without proper oversight, subscriptions can spiral out of control. Use Navan Expense to ensure your company has visibility into all of its subscriptions—and make the most of your SaaS spend.

Learn more about modernizing your spend management with Navan Expense