SaaS Contract Management: 4 Steps To Optimizing Your SaaS Budget

SaaS contract management is a challenge for enterprises today, with an ever-growing number of contracts with different terms, conditions, and renewal dates. Matt Toomey looks at four steps you can take to manage your SaaS spend effectively.

SaaS contract management is an area where most companies fall short. In fact, according to Flexera’s State of ITAM 2023 report, nearly one-third (29%) of SaaS software spend is wasted annually.

How can an enterprise waste a third of its SaaS spend every year? The fact is that most IT departments lack the visibility, tools, and resources necessary to effectively track and manage all of their SaaS contracts.

Ask yourself:

• Do you rely on manual processes and spreadsheets to manage SaaS contracts?
• Do you know where to find all SaaS business owners, licenses, and usage metrics? Do you know how long it would take?
• Do you have multiple subscriptions to the same SaaS across the organization?
• How many of your SaaS subscriptions are redundant, under-used or unused altogether?
• How confident are you that you don't miss renewal dates for every SaaS application?

Effective SaaS contract management is only going to grow more important as digital transformation accelerates. Here are 4 critical steps you can take to optimize your SaaS contract management, and how the LeanIX SaaS Management Platform (SMP) can help.

SaaS Management Platform (SMP): Optimize cost and productivity of SaaS Subscriptions

1 Ditch The Spreadsheets

Manual data collection with spreadsheets has many drawbacks and is becoming more untenable as SaaS portfolios keep growing. It takes a lot of time and the information quickly becomes outdated. There is a lot of opportunity for human error, including accidental deletion, incorrect data entry, formula mistakes, or lapses in version control.

LeanIX SMP enables organizations to evolve from manual spreadsheets to a holistic approach based on visibility, automation, and intuitive visualization. With SMP, you can consolidate all of your SaaS contracts into one system of record for automated, streamlined management, without having to track people down and manually collect data with spreadsheets.

2 Aggregate All SaaS Contracts Into A Central Repository

All of your SaaS contracts and key information about them – including pricing models, usage limitations, number of licenses, service level agreements, renewal dates, and termination conditions – need to be aggregated and available to view in a centralized, single source of truth.

With SMP, you can consolidate your contracts in one system of record, allowing you to easily search, sort, and filter contracts based on attributes such as discovery source, provider, contract type, and business owner.

SMP connects directly to APIs from SaaS providers, and easily integrates with a wide variety of enterprise sources to discover and track all your SaaS applications, including accounting, contract management, HR, and expense systems.

Your SaaS data is pulled into a single, centralized repository, enabling you to create a complete SaaS inventory with continuous, automated discovery to manage SaaS contracts in the most efficient way possible.

3 Track Renewal Dates And Usage Data From A Single Place

From your central repository, you should be able to identify multiple purchases of a single application, find overlapping contracts and capabilities, see how many licenses are outdated or unused, and compare and analyze usage costs by department. You should also be able to track actual usage and spend for accurate forecasting and budget modeling.

LeanIX SMP provides a simple, visual timeline of all of your contracts and their renewal dates. You can track contracts based on contract type to quickly identify key milestones on the timeline and use filters for customized views of important details, such as start dates, end dates, and contract value. You can also track usage and costs by department or individual user to see which SaaS applications are actually being used and which ones you may no longer need.

4 Automate Contract Renewal Alerts

Instead of having to write down multiple renewal dates and remember to set reminders for them, automated alerts can notify you when there’s an upcoming renewal, so you have time to review the respective application. This way, you can stay ahead of renewal dates and avoid unnecessary auto-renewals, and you'll have sufficient time to renegotiate terms or cancel the contract.

One of the most convenient features of SMP is automated renewal alerts. Notifications can automatically be sent to all relevant stakeholders to ensure you never miss a renewal or a chance to renegotiate a contract. Optimized contract renewal management from SMP can result in up to 30% in cost savings from proactive negotiations and renewals, and up to 50% faster procurement and renewal decisions.

Want to learn more? Check out our free SaaS Management ROI Calculator to see where you stand.

SAAS MANAGEMENT PLATFORM: ROI Calculator