Where the money went, what is left, and what was actually saved.
Three questions usually answered by three different spreadsheets, none of which agree. Here they are computed from the same records the buying runs on, the moment a purchase order is raised.
Computed from the orders, not assembled from exports.
Every figure here is derived from the same records that raised the orders, so there is no reconciliation step and no month-end lag.
- ShapeSpend by supplier, category and department, over real order volume
- QualitySpend under contract, requisition-backed spend, and off-process spend, each as a share of the whole
- SpeedRequest-to-PO and invoice-to-payment cycle times
- OutPosted straight into the accounting system, or a one-click CSV and a live feed
Analysis that ends in a recommendation, not a chart.
Most spend analysis stops at the picture and leaves you to work out what to do. Atlas says it: contracts ending with no replacement opened, spend split across suppliers who could be one arrangement, purchases landing repeatedly just under a threshold.
- NamedEach opportunity says what it is, which suppliers or contracts it concerns, and what to do next
- Estimated, and says soEvery figure is an estimate under a STATED assumption, not a negotiated saving, and the assumption is printed with it so you can argue. A number nobody can challenge is one nobody should act on
- Whole bookRead over all spend, not the filters on screen. An opportunity is a statement about the book of business, not about the slice you happen to be looking at
- Not a savingNothing here counts as a saving until it is claimed, validated by somebody other than the claimant, and realised
Commitment, not just what has been invoiced.
A budget that only counts invoices is always wrong, because it ignores everything already ordered and not yet billed.
- SimpleBudget by cost centre for the fiscal year
- ThenCommitment moves as orders are raised, not when the invoice lands
- ThenSee prior-year lines alongside, so the comparison is on the screen
- ComplexWhere a request would exceed what is left, the fact is visible at the point of approval rather than at year end. Received but not yet billed goods can be accrued at month end
Claim the saving, and be able to defend it.
Savings are contested because the baseline is usually an assertion. Recording the method with the claim is what makes it survive a conversation with finance.
- SimpleRecord the saving with its type — reduction, avoidance, negotiated, demand, process or rebate
- ThenRecord the baseline and the method used to reach it
- ThenMark it realised when the money has actually moved
- ComplexIt is validated by somebody else, which is what stops a saving being counted twice or counted at all when it never landed
A rebate agreed is money owed back. Atlas works out how much.
An agreement records the deal with one supplier: one threshold and one rate, earned on the excess over the threshold or on the whole base once it is met.
- AgreedSupplier, threshold and rate, counted on what was received or what was invoiced — never on what was only ordered
- CumulativeThe period accrual is worked out over the whole agreement, so a rebate that reaches back over earlier spend comes out right
- ReviewedHeld for review first. A purchase in another currency is skipped and counted, never converted
- PostedOnce reviewed, as a journal to QuickBooks Online, Xero, Business Central, Sage Accounting, Sage Intacct or NetSuite — off until an administrator switches it on. See Finance / ERP
One set of numbers, and everybody is reading it.
The reason procurement reporting is argued about is that each party computes it separately. Here there is one computation.
- SeesThe three spend qualities together — contracted, requisition-backed, off-process
- SeesCycle times, so a slow process is visible as a number
- DoesTargets the categories and departments where off-process spend is concentrated
- ProofThe improvement shows in the same measure that showed the problem
A number you can take to the board.
The value question is not what procurement claims. It is what somebody outside procurement has agreed.
- SeesValidated savings separated from claimed and realised
- SeesWho validated each one, and when
- DoesReports the validated figure, and can show the working behind any line
- ProofThe audit trail sits under every number, so a question about one claim does not put the whole report in doubt