The Spend Cloud helps employees save time acquiring the goods and services they need.
The Spend Cloud was developed with one clear goal: "Minimize the time spent on acquiring goods and services to do my job." This principle is what we call our North Star, a guiding principle for every product decision we make and the foundation of how we continuously improve the Spend Cloud.
Why is this so important?
Every minute employees spend requesting, checking or processing goods and services, is time they cannot spend on their core tasks. The Spend Cloud is created to make this process intuitive, logical and efficient from day one, with as few manual steps, unnecessary delays or touchpoints as possible.
What it's really about
- Time savings – The less time employees spend on acquiring and processing goods and services, the more time they have for meaningful work.
- Efficiency – Smart automation reduces manual actions across the entire process.
- Control & oversight – Maintaining real-time insight and make decisions based on reliable data, without compromising on compliance or quality.
This enables us to continuously optimise and accelerate processes — in a way that’s measurable and impactful.
Why do we have a North Star?
Employees want to spend time where they make the difference — whether that’s helping clients, working with students or supporting their teams. What doesn't help? Endless approvals, paper-based processes and manual corrections. At the same time, organisations want to retain control over spend and compliance — without getting stuck in slow, inefficient or fragmented systems.
That’s why we follow a clear principle: "Acquiring the right goods and services should be as effortless and efficient as possible, without unnecessary steps."
Our North Star ensures we not only pursue this goal but also make it measurable and continuously improve upon it.
How do we measure time spent (and savings) in the Spend Cloud?
To live up to our promise, we measure how much time employees actually spend acquiring and managing goods and services, and use that insight to improve processes across the platform.
What exactly do we measure?
- Invoices → Time spent on invoice processing.
- Purchase orders → Time taken to create, approve and manage each purchase.
- Expense claims → Time spent submitting, reviewing and settling expense claims.
- Contract management → Time required to register and manage contracts.
- Card transactions → Processing time for each transaction made with physical or virtual cards.
- General application management → Time spent managing employee roles, rights, and other (financial) data.
How do we measure this?
We analyse anonymised interaction data in the Spend Cloud — such as clicks, typing and mouse movement — to determine real-time usage across the platform. We focus on pattern analysis, not tracking individual users. This gives us a reliable view of where time is spent and where efficiency can be gained.
Every process improvement is driven by real data and contributes measurably to saving time.
What this means for your organisation?
- We identify and optimise bottlenecks in your workflows.
- You get clear insights into time usage within the Spend Cloud.
- We propose smart automations based on actual usage — not assumptions.
How do we keep optimising the Spend Cloud?
We use North Star usage data to continuously detect friction and eliminate it through product optimisations. This means we not only work on an optimal implementation but also continuously implement improvements.
During implementation:
We set up the Spend Cloud based on best practices — with streamlined processes and minimal manual interaction. This means you're saving time from day one.
Post-launch:
We continue measuring and spotting opportunities for further improvements. Usage data shows us where automations can make even more impact.
Optimisation sessions:
Our Customer Success specialists review your North Star data and work with your team to prioritise improvements.
The goal? Consistently reduce the time spent acquiring goods and services.
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