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Cost Management

The Cost Management page rolls every annual license cost into period-aware spend metrics with five tab views. Three KPI tiles surface YTD, MTD, and total annual license cost; the tabs provide cuts of the same data by vendor, category, department, and a forecast band.

KPI Tiles​

  • YTD Spend — Year-to-date software spend across the active company
  • MTD Spend — Month-to-date spend
  • Annual License Cost — Sum of annual_cost across active licenses

Overview​

The default tab. A 12-month spend trend line chart — the same series rendered on the Dashboard. Hover to see the dollar value for each month and spot true-up months that diverge from the baseline.

By Vendor​

A pie chart on the left and a vendor-ranked table on the right.

ColumnDescription
VendorPublisher (e.g. Microsoft, Salesforce, HubSpot)
LicensesNumber of license records bound to this vendor
Total SpendSum of annual cost across this vendor's licenses
% of TotalVendor's share of total annual spend

Vendors with 0 licenses and $0 typically appear when a contract exists but no licenses have been bound to it yet — surface these in the Contracts page for cleanup.

By Category​

A pie chart and table grouping spend by category — SaaS, IaaS, desktop, etc. — using the Category field from the Software Catalog.

By Department​

A bar chart grouping spend by employee department, driven by employee assignments. Use this to drive department chargebacks. The chart populates only when employees have a department field set (synced from Azure AD Sync or maintained in Employee Directory).

Forecast​

A forecast band projecting the next 12 months of spend based on the current contract register, renewal dates, and historical trend. The shaded band is the upper / lower confidence interval; the central line is the expected spend.

Best Practices​

  • Compare YTD Spend against last year's same period to spot creep — a YTD outpacing prior year by more than 10% usually indicates uncatalogued shadow IT.
  • Use By Vendor to pre-stage renewal negotiations — vendors with the largest spend share are the highest-leverage conversations.
  • Review By Department quarterly with finance — large department-to-spend imbalances often point to shadow IT or stranded seats.
  • Use Forecast 60 days before fiscal year-end to model true-up scenarios and budget asks for the next cycle.
  • Licenses — Per-license annual cost feeding all rollups
  • Contracts — Annual value driving spend allocation
  • Dashboard — Top vendors and spend trend
  • Reports — Vendor Spend and Cost Analysis Excel exports