Over 50% of CFOs have team members who pay for fintech tools that they don’t actually use, according to recent research. This problem is best solved by giving CFOs full visibility with a subscription asset register, like that offered by corporate card and expense management company DiviPay.

Incorporating a tool like DiviPay for all expenses and assigning budget codes for subscriptions allows executives to see which teams are using what tools. This enables them to identify cost savings and opportunities to optimise business performance.

“A key part of my role is to help businesses look at their profits. Instead of this always being about increasing sales, I get them to think about expenses,” says Soonah Walkom, owner of Astute Administration Services.

“One of the big areas we look at is subscriptions. It’s really easy to just subscribe to lots of things, which is why it’s so important to revisit subscriptions on a regular basis because these expenses seem to jump quite high.”

Savings, security and purpose

Wasteful subscriptions are often caused by a product not living up to its promise, a change of suppliers, or staff members simply forgetting they took out licences in the first place. To help overcome this, finance teams should use the oversight enabled by subscription asset registers to send quarterly emails that ask teams to verify that active subscriptions are being used.

Another surprisingly common scenario is when two different departments have distinct subscriptions to the same vendor without anybody realising. When this happens, a subscription asset register allows CFOs to easily investigate if a single licence can be shared, if better rates can be accessed through bulk pricing, or whether it’s worth cancelling any licenses.

Subscription asset registers also offer more data security, particularly when it comes to restricting the access of new employees and those about to leave. When this is done, you minimise the risk of licence misappropriation and of confidential data being leaked.

Finally, purpose and sustainability are becoming more important than ever, both to employees as well as wider stakeholders, including customers. Given this, CFOs should regularly review vendor subscriptions to identify if they are coming from ideal partners – and work with budget owners to identify alternatives when this isn’t the case.

Making the most of visibility

Creating a register using an all-in-one spend management also overcomes the inefficiencies of using multiple software platforms. This is a particular pain point for non-public practice accountant CA ANZ members, with the 2021 CA ANZ Technology Survey revealing 66% of those surveyed faced ongoing challenges related to disconnected software platforms.

Tools such as DiviPay help provide a single connected spend management workflow that seamlessly connects to leading accounting software providers, allowing finance leaders access to real-time data and insights.

Find out more:

To see what it’s like to have full visibility or t find out more about DiviPay, book your complimentary demonstration today visiting divipay.com/demo.