Unmasking Overspending: Integrating SaaS in Year-End Budgeting for Efficiency

Year-end budgeting isn’t just about keeping the business afloat, but it’s also essential for planning your company’s short-term and long-term trajectory. You can make sound financial decisions if you have everything accounted for.

One aspect that you should particularly look into when planning your annual budget is your SaaS spend. If you don’t have any idea how much you’re spending every month to cover all your software subscriptions, it’s high time to do a thorough SaaS audit because you may be surprised just how much unnecessary SaaS spend has been flying under the radar.

The Unseen Culprit: Overspending on SaaS

According to Flexera, nearly one-third or 29% of software spend is wasted or underutilized. And it’s not because companies don’t care about their SaaS budget. It’s mainly because they don’t have the time, energy, or the means to keep track of their spending more efficiently.

If not monitored, forgotten subscriptions, unused licenses, and dormant software could eat up your SaaS budget month after month or year after year. At Talisman, our goal is to empower businesses to take back control of their SaaS budget by making SaaS audits instant and effortless.

OneSeven Tech is one of our clients that has only recently started automating their software subscription management. Upon using Talisman, they were shocked when they learned that their SaaS overspend amounted to a whopping $14,000 per month. When a business grows, it kind of becomes harder to keep the details in check. When everyone is busy with the core deliverables, the crucial yet non-urgent activities are easily left on the back burner. But when it comes to wasted resources, you can now easily make it high-priority by allowing tools like Talisman to monitor your spending around the clock and get rid of unnecessary expenses that will only wear your business down.

Sustainable SaaS Budgeting: Why Use a Subscription Management Tool?

Manual SaaS audits usually look like this: the administrative staff or the accountant would go through QuickBooks and bank accounts to track software expenses and use spreadsheets to document the manually acquired data. They would then ask every department/ relevant team member to verify whether or not each software tool is indeed useful and effective. They wait for feedback, collaborate some more, and circle back for more questions and clarifications. According to Productiv, an [average company uses 254 software apps](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210915005244/en/Less-than-Half-of-Company-SaaS-Applications-Are-Regularly-Used-by-Employees#:~:text=According to the new Productiv,the apps available to them.). Imagine having to verify that much data across different departments.

In the case of one of our clients, Bright Pink Agency, the whole process usually takes them months to complete. If we talk about sustainable SaaS budgeting, the manual process is never the best route. You’re paying your team members for their time and skill, and it’s best to make the most of their creativity and energy for other more important areas of the business. The manual process also leaves room for human error which defeats the purpose of proper accounting.

By using a robust subscription management tool like Talisman, you can ditch the time-consuming manual process and receive instant and dynamic alerts about the software tools your team no longer uses. You can unsubscribe dormant tools promptly and avoid wasting your hard-earned resources on redundant/underutilized apps. You no longer have to manually request SaaS audits as the tool will automatically monitor all SaaS activities across all departments round-the-clock. You can even simplify onboarding and off-boarding since you can provision and de-provision users all in one dashboard.

Wondering how much you’re overspending on SaaS? Request a demo and let Talisman do the SaaS management magic for you.

Conclusion

Preserve your runway and free up more capital for business growth by taking the time to regularly review your company’s budget. Even better, adopt proactive budgeting strategies by automating crucial processes like SaaS management.

Allow Talisman to help you optimize your SaaS budget. Get your FREE access today!

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