- Simplicity had no way to track SaaS spend by department, with data scattered across separate contracts, invoices, and app-by-app records.
- Manually checking each app for contract details, license counts, and cost allocations consumed hours of finance time every month.
- Without a consolidated spend view, budget forecasting ran on last year's assumptions rather than current data, and AI spend was landing on department credit cards with no governance model.
How Simplicity Turned SaaS Spend Into Board-Ready Reports with Department-Level Visibility
"As SaaS investments expanded across teams, clear department-level spend visibility became essential for smarter planning and forecasting. CloudEagle.ai brought our spend, contracts, and reporting into one place, giving leadership instant access to reliable insights. Today, the same visibility supports daily reviews, quarterly board reporting, and better budgeting decisions across the business."
- Mitch Leidner, CFO, Simplicity
4
department-level spend report types
1,330 hrs/yr
saved on SaaS reporting
1 click
board-ready spend reporting
4
department-level spend report types
1,330 hrs/yr
saved on SaaS reporting
1 click
board-ready spend reporting
Challenge
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Solution
- CloudEagle.ai centralized SaaS spend, contracts, and usage across all departments into one dashboard through direct integrations with SSO and finance systems.
- Four department-level spend reports gave the team a clean view of spend by department, app, application-by-department, and vendor-by-department, available on demand.
- Contract Metadata Extraction pulled contract details automatically, and the same model extended to AI tool spend across departments.
Result
- Simplicity gained complete department-level visibility into SaaS spend for the first time.
- Cost optimization moved from reactive to proactive, with high-spend areas visible and actionable in real time.
- SaaS reporting time dropped by 1,330 hours per year, with budget forecasting now running on current data instead of last year's spreadsheets.
Challenge
Every Simplicity department ran on its own SaaS stack with different tools, contracts, and invoices. The only way to produce a department-level spend view was to pull contracts and expenses app by app, reconcile them in a spreadsheet, and hope nothing had changed since the last update.
The blind spot had real costs. Overspending surfaced only at renewal time, budget forecasting ran on last year's assumptions, and the process consumed hours of finance time every month. AI spend was compounding the problem, landing on department credit cards with no governance model in place.
Solution
- Direct integrations with SSO and finance systems pulled real-time spend and usage data into the platform in 30 minutes, with no custom development.
- Spend Intelligence delivered four on-demand reports across departments, applications, vendors, and application-by-department spending.
- Contract Metadata Extraction automatically captured terms, renewals, and cost allocations, removing manual contract review work for finance teams.
- Board-ready reports became instantly accessible for leadership reviews and daily vendor management decisions.
- The same model covers AI spend, giving Simplicity a single place to track AI tool spend by department as those investments scale.
Why CloudEagle.ai?
Simplicity evaluated several solutions and chose CloudEagle.ai for these reasons:
- Not just total SaaS spend but spend by department, by application, by vendor, on demand, supporting both cost optimization and budget forecasting.
- CloudEagle.ai pulled contract details automatically instead of leaving finance to review PDFs line by line.
- Reports are available on demand for quarterly board meetings instead of assembled manually the week before.
- 30-minute onboarding with SSO and finance integrations out of the box meant Simplicity started seeing real spend data the same day.
- The same department-level visibility framework extends to AI tool spend, giving Simplicity a governance model ready as AI purchases scale.
Impact
Department-Level Spend Visibility
- Four spend reports gave finance a clear view across departments, vendors, applications, and application-level allocations.
- Simplicity's team gained full transparency into department-level SaaS spend, supporting both finance reviews and leadership reporting.
- Department spend visibility improved decision-making across budgeting, procurement, and finance operations
Cost Optimization and Budget Forecasting
- High-spend areas surfaced automatically across departments, turning cost optimization from a reactive renewal-time exercise into a proactive operating mode.
- Budget forecasting ran on current usage and spend data instead of last year's spreadsheets, cutting forecast cycle time and improving accuracy.
- The finance team restructured Simplicity’s SaaS budget with real data, with confidence that the numbers behind the forecast were current.
Hours Saved and Board-Ready Reporting
- Simplicity saved 1,330 hours per year on SaaS reporting by eliminating manual data collection across platforms.
- Troy uses CloudEagle directly to pull reports for quarterly board meetings, and the Vendor Management team uses it daily for internal review.
- AI spend now follows the same reporting model, giving executives consistent visibility across software investments
The Transformation
Before CloudEagle
SaaS spend data lived across contracts, invoices, and app-level records.
Manual contract and expense checks consumed hours of finance time every month.
Cost optimization was reactive, surfacing only at renewal or when a leader asked a pointed question.
Budget forecasting ran on last year's assumptions rather than current usage and spend data.
No governance model yet for the AI tools starting to appear on department spend lines.
After CloudEagle
Live, department-level spend visibility across every SaaS app and vendor in one dashboard.
Four department-level report types available on demand, saving 1,330 hours per year.
Cost optimization runs proactively from real-time spend signals instead of retrospectively at renewal.
Budget forecasting runs on current data, compressing cycle time and improving accuracy.
The same reporting model now extends to AI spend, covering AI tools at the same board-level granularity.
