SaaS spend growth & shadow IT detection

Maps all SaaS spend, identifies unnegotiated price increases, detects new shadow IT subscriptions, and calculates total software TCO.

โ†“ Download skill (.md)
83/100ยท๐Ÿ“† MonthlyยทIntermediateFinance AnalystProcurement
Spend analysisSuppliersspendesk_analyze_spendget_payablesget_suppliers

๐ŸŽฏ Skill purpose

Maps all SaaS spend, identifies unnegotiated price increases, detects new shadow IT subscriptions, and calculates total software TCO.

๐Ÿ“Š What it produces

Top 20 SaaS tools by annualized cost, alerts on increases > 30%, recent shadow IT list, and KPIs (SaaS cost per employee, growth).

โšก Benefit

Before

The SaaS portfolio grows opaquely, with undetected price increases and uncontrolled shadow IT.

After

Complete real-time SaaS portfolio visibility, with automatic detection of price drift and shadow IT.



# SaaS spend growth analysis

## Purpose
Map all SaaS spend (monthly/annual subscriptions), identify unnegotiated price increases, detect new subscriptions (shadow IT), and calculate the total software cost.

## Instructions

### Step 1 โ€” Identify SaaS spend
```
Call spendesk_analyze_spend with:
  - groupBy: supplier
  - Filter by category: "SaaS", "Software", "Logiciels", "IT", "Subscriptions"
    (use the categories available in your Spendesk account)
  - Period: last 12 months

OR call get_payables with:
  - payableType: subscription (if available)
  - Last 12 months

For each SaaS expense: supplier, amount, frequency (monthly/annual), date.
```

### Step 2 โ€” Calculate the normalized annual cost per tool
```
For each identified SaaS supplier:
  If regular monthly payments: annual cost = monthly average ร— 12
  If annual payments: annual cost = renewal amount
  If irregular: total of the last 12 months

Rank by descending annual cost โ†’ get the Top 20 SaaS tools.
```

### Step 3 โ€” Analyze year-over-year growth
```
Compare for each SaaS tool:
  Average monthly cost over the last 6 months (recent period)
  vs
  Average monthly cost over the previous 6 months (prior period)

Growth = (recent period - prior period) / prior period ร— 100

Flag:
  ๐Ÿ”ด Increase > 30%: likely price increase โ†’ to renegotiate
  ๐ŸŸก Increase 10-30%: to monitor
  ๐ŸŸข Stable or decrease: normal
```

### Step 4 โ€” Detect shadow IT
```
For suppliers that appeared ONLY in the last 3 months:
  List the new subscriptions
  For each new one: supplier name, monthly amount, first payment date
  Categorize: known market tool? Likely business use?

Shadow IT = subscriptions taken out without central IT/Finance validation
```

### Step 5 โ€” SaaS report
```
Present:
1. Top 20 SaaS tools by annual cost (table with supplier, annual cost, growth)

2. Price increase alerts:
   ๐Ÿ”ด Tool | Old monthly cost | New monthly cost | Increase (%)

3. Shadow IT detected:
   Tool | First payment | Monthly cost | Cost center

4. KPIs:
   Total annualized SaaS: Xโ‚ฌ
   Growth vs last year: +X%
   Number of active SaaS tools: X
   SaaS cost per employee: Xโ‚ฌ/month (if get_users available)
```

## Points of attention
- SaaS spend categorization depends on the quality of categories in Spendesk
- Some tools are paid via virtual card (not visible via get_payables)
- Annual renewals create spikes in certain months โ€” normalize over 12 months

## Example prompts
- "What is our total SaaS spend and how has it evolved?"
- "Are there any subscriptions that have increased without me knowing?"
- "List all new SaaS tools that appeared in the last 3 months"

How to install this skill

/
  1. 1
    Download the file s55-saas-spend-growth.md using the button above.
  2. 2
    Place the file in the .claude/ directory of your project (or ~/.claude/ for a global install).
    cp s55-saas-spend-growth.md .claude/s55-saas-spend-growth.md
  3. 3
    Use in Claude Code โ€” the skill is automatically discovered. Describe your need in natural language and Claude will apply the skill instructions.
๐Ÿ’ก Make sure the Spendesk MCP is configured in your .claude/settings.json with the tools spendesk_analyze_spend, get_payables, get_suppliers.

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