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Procurement professionals often struggle with siloed solutions that may be difficult to learn and challenging to integrate across cross-functional teams. Each team may have limited understanding of each other’s tools and capabilities, creating a barrier to cross-functional collaboration. On the other hand, when procurement teams attempt to use an S2P platform, it may poorly integrate with existing tools. This fragmentation makes it difficult to fully understand a platform’s capabilities, as each module requires separate onboarding and navigation. It also hinders collaboration, as the lack of cohesion across modules prevents seamless information sharing. Additionally, many solutions fail to provide the depth of insight needed across procurement functions, limiting visibility and efficiency. 

Raindrop has created a solution that provides an interconnected platform built on one code, making it easy for users across teams to collaborate. It is especially supportive for supplier and buyer relationship management since all third-party communication and information requests can be made directly in the platform. The platform emphasizes a quick deployment targeted for cross-functional teams to enable understanding and ease of use.

Part 1 of this vendor analysis provides a detailed overview of each module and includes an analyst summary. In part 2 we provide more details on the strengths and opportunities of the solution, review the competitive landscape and provide user considerations. 

This Vendor Analysis also explores: 

• The concept behind Raindrop and the pain points it addresses.
• The platform, application and supporting services that Raindrop delivers.
• Verified customer reference analysis of how the solution is actually working in the field.
• Competitive market analysis within Raindrop’s addressed market segments and its top competitors.
• Overall analyst assessment of Raindrop and its solution to meet market needs.

Here’s why we think that Raindrop matters:

• To the market — US-based, mid-market organizations should highly consider Raindrop as a solution for S2P due to its versatility across modules and its collaborative support.
• To potential buyers — Potential clients who have siloed teams across finance, legal, IT, procurement and so on will value the integrated, one-code platform that Raindrop provides, which fosters collaboration and business advancement.

The post Raindrop: Vendor Analysis (Part 1) — S2P solution overview, company background, platform and services overview, modules and application overview, roadmap and vision appeared first on Spend Matters.

Part 1 of the series provided a history and overview of Raindrop’s S2P solution and gave the solution’s roadmap/vision.

The post Raindrop: Vendor Analysis (Part 2) — S2P product-level strengths and opportunities, voice of the customer, competitors and market analysis, user considerations, analyst commentary and summary appeared first on Spend Matters.

In earlier phases (phase 1 and phase 2), we identified how expense management misalignments can erode budget accuracy, delay financial reporting, and leave policy enforcement lagging spending behavior. But identifying problems isn’t enough. This phase is about structuring the collaboration needed to fix them, building the processes, roles and shared systems that move the organization from reactive corrections to proactive control.

Phase 3:  Structuring the collaboration – Building a framework for expense management control

This phase introduces a five-step approach to help finance and procurement co-create a framework that links operational efficiency with financial foresight. It is not about centralizing control, but about creating shared ownership of the processes, data and decisions that shape employee-driven expenses.

Step 1: Define the problem – Why misalignment matters in expense management

When finance and procurement aren’t aligned, employee-driven expenses become a hidden risk. Approved spending does not show up in time for forecasting. Expense reports arrive long after the financial decisions they influence. And policy enforcement becomes reactive, happening after the purchase, not before.

Without structured collaboration, this leads to:

• Unexpected budget increases, especially at quarter-end
• Reimbursement delays that frustrate employees
• Inconsistent application of policy across departments
• A reactive culture focused on fixing errors instead of guiding outcomes

Understanding this isn’t just about missed savings — it’s about missed insight. Every undocumented trip or delayed expense distorts the financial picture.

Source: The Hackett Group 2023 Travel and Expense policy poll

According to The Hackett Group’s 2023 Travel and Expense Policy Poll, the most common reimbursement frequency is daily (39%), followed closely by weekly (38%), which shows that many companies aim to pay employees quickly. Still, more than 20% reimburse less frequently, either on a monthly basis (11%) or every two weeks (10%), which can delay spend visibility and make forecasting accuracy more difficult.

Step 2: Identify the pain points – Where collaboration breaks down

To design the right interventions, teams must pinpoint where current processes fail. These are the key friction points that block forecasting accuracy and policy adoption:

• Uncoordinated approvals: Travel and purchase requests get approved in one system, but finance doesn’t see them until they show up in actual late planning.
• Conflicting KPIs: Procurement celebrates policy adoption rates while finance focuses on forecast variance. Success is defined in isolation, not across the lifecycle.
• Lack of visibility into committed spend: Approved-but-unsubmitted expenses remain invisible to budget holders and forecasters.
• Fragmented data: Booking platforms, expense apps and ERP systems rarely sync, making reconciliation and forecasting slow and error-prone.

Understanding these breakdowns creates a foundation for targeted solutions, especially when linked to measurable impacts like missed savings or reporting delays.

Step 3: Assess current capabilities – What is working and what isn’t

While many organizations have tools and policies in place, they often fall short of delivering aligned, proactive management of T&E. This step is about running a joint diagnostic, not just checking boxes but uncovering the root causes behind friction.

Pre-approval effectiveness:

• Current challenge: Trip and expense pre-approvals may exist, but often they are not connected to budgeting or forecasting systems. Managers approve in isolation, unaware of the broader impact.
• Assessment criteria: Are finance teams notified of large, pre-approved trips before reimbursement? Is pre-spend data being used for budget planning or re-forecasting?
• Suggested solution: Integrate approval workflows with budgeting systems. Pre-approved spend should be flagged and reflected in forecasts, even before a reimbursement is submitted.

Policy guidance in practice:

• Current challenge: Policy documents are treated as static files, referenced only during exceptions or audits. Employees do not receive real-time nudges or contextual help when making decisions. While many organizations aim for consistency, actual execution can lag. According to Hackett’s 2023 Travel and Expense Policy Poll,  66% of organizations report fully standardized T&E policies globally, and another 20% operate with regional or business unit-level standardization. But standardization on paper does not always translate into practical guidance. If policies are not embedded into the systems employees interact with, they are unlikely to shape behavior when it matters most.
• Assessment criteria: Are booking tools and card platforms enforcing policy rules during spend, not after? Are exception rates tracked and reduced?
• Suggested solution: Implement embedded policy prompts in expense apps and booking platforms. Dynamic fields and real-time validations can reduce exceptions and improve first-pass compliance. Standardization provides the baseline, but proactive enforcement requires policy logic to be fully integrated into the user experience.

Reimbursement cycle efficiency:

• Current challenge: Reimbursement delays create friction and slow data availability for reporting. Manual checks and unclear approval chains compound the problem.
• Assessment criteria: What is the average time from submission to payment? How often do expense reports get flagged for errors or exceptions?
• Suggested solution: Automate standard approvals using policy thresholds. Speed up cycle times by flagging only outliers and empowering teams with clear SLAs for reviews.

Transparency across functions:

• Current challenge: Procurement may have visibility into policy violations, while finance has insight into budget impacts, but neither sees the full picture.
• Assessment criteria: Can both teams access and analyze spend data by stage (planned, submitted, approved, reimbursed)? Are reports built on the same datasets?
• Suggested solution: Build a shared dashboard that unifies T&E data streams and provides finance and procurement a common lens to interpret performance and risk.

This joint review transforms siloed operations into shared understanding, helping both teams see not just where gaps exist but how they can fix them together.

Step 4: Evaluate technology solutions – Assessing digital readiness

The temptation to ‘fix’ process gaps with new tools is strong, but without readiness tech only reinforces bad workflows. Before expanding digital investments, organizations need to assess whether their systems enable alignment or simply automate isolated functions.

Start with foundational questions:

• Do current platforms support real-time access to approved and committed spend?
• Are card transactions, travel bookings and expense claims integrated or managed separately?
• Is policy logic embedded within the user experience, or does enforcement rely on post-submission review?
• Are financial planning systems connected to the tools that capture employee spend?

Common gaps include:

• Poor visibility into pre-spend commitments
• Inconsistent policy enforcement across tools
• Delayed synchronization between procurement, finance and HR systems
• Lack of API-based integration across the expense lifecycle

Strategic next steps:
Organizations should first map existing workflows, identify where data breaks down and define integration requirements before deploying new tools. A readiness assessment ensures that future tech investments close real gaps, rather than digitize inefficiencies.

By assessing readiness — not just capability — organizations ensure that technology becomes a lever for alignment, not just automation.

Step 5: Provide a roadmap for implementation – Turning alignment into action

Structure matters. Without a clear plan, even well-intentioned collaboration drifts back into silos. A joint roadmap ensures that finance and procurement co-own the transformation toward smarter, real-time expense management.

The first step is establishing governance mechanisms that formalize cross-functional ownership. This includes creating a shared calendar for policy reviews, setting roles for joint oversight, and ensuring accountability for both forecasting accuracy and policy compliance. Coordination cannot be left to chance; it must be built into the way teams operate.

According to the aforementioned Hackett 2023 Travel and Expense Policy Poll, 80% of organizations report using a process ownership model for travel and expense management. Among those, the most common approach is to assign either two process owners (33%) or one (30%) owner, reflecting the complexity of aligning both strategic and transactional elements. While this demonstrates that companies are thinking about accountability, it also highlights the need for more structured collaboration between finance and procurement. Without clearly defined roles and a unified oversight model, even well-intentioned ownership can result in fragmented execution.

Next, both functions should work together to redesign workflows and decision points. That means integrating pre-spend approvals into forecasting cycles, synchronizing reimbursement triggers with financial reporting deadlines and defining a shared exception-handling process. These operational changes help avoid the back-and-forth that slows down reporting and compliance enforcement.

Crucially, success must be measured collaboratively. Joint KPIs, such as time-to-reimburse, forecast-to-actual accuracy, and policy exception rates, create transparency and shared accountability. Dashboards that track these metrics in real time can keep both functions aligned and help surface early warning signs before they escalate.

Finally, implementation should proceed in phases. Start small, perhaps by piloting real-time visibility into pre-approved travel in one business unit. Then scale improvements gradually, building confidence, refining playbooks and expanding into broader integrations across functions and systems.

With this roadmap in place, expense management becomes not just a cleaner process, but a continuous source of financial insight and alignment.

Key insight

Employee-driven expenses are a reflection of day-to-day decision making. While individually small, their cumulative impact can shape the accuracy of forecasts, the integrity of budgets and the perception of financial control.

Structuring collaboration between finance and procurement turns this reactive activity into a proactive advantage. When both functions share a common framework, with aligned systems, integrated workflows and joint accountability, expenses become more than transactions — they become strategic inputs for financial clarity, operational agility and better business decisions.

Next up (available next week):

Phase 4 – Leveraging Technology: How modern tools support proactive control and alignment in T&E

More in the Finance-Procurement alignment series:

Strengthening cash flow management and liquidity

For more insights, visit the full series: Aligning Finance and Procurement

The post Aligning Finance and Procurement to improve expense management for financial forecasting and control — Phase 3: Structuring the collaboration appeared first on Spend Matters.

However, to understand the value of Agentic AI, it is essential to distinguish between genuine autonomy and enhanced automation. Unlike systems that follow static workflows, agentic frameworks enable LLMs to dynamically determine which tools to use, what steps to take and how to adapt based on evolving goals and context.

To understand this shift, one should step back and consider where and how Agentic AI is driving returns. What makes these returns particularly compelling is their compounding nature. Because agentic systems adapt based on feedback and learn from past executions, performance improves over time, driving progressively higher returns across multiple dimensions. Figure 1 shows the four dimensions that stand out across current deployments.

Figure 1

The table below outlines these dimensions and how Agentic AI contributes to each:

Efficiencies

Efficiency that leads to cost reduction remains one of the clearest, most immediate benefits of agentic AI. These improvements do not only come from removing manual steps. They result from the agent’s ability to orchestrate tasks across systems and APIs with its own reasoning. That is a key difference between legacy orchestration capabilities and today’s: automation follows instructions; agents interpret goals and decide how to achieve them.

Earlier this year, IBM reported that companies using AI-driven category intelligence cut procurement costs by 40%–70% in under six months. One company alone prevented $70 million in duplicate or erroneous payments by deploying agents to review agreements.

Effectiveness

Agentic AI improves more than just speed; it transforms process reliability. IBM also reported that its deployment of sourcing agents led to a tenfold improvement in supplier onboarding time and cut pricing analysis from two days to ten minutes.

In a more general study, Deloitte’s 2024 Global CPO GenAI survey found that 50% of early adopters more than doubled their ROI than traditional tech. More than one in five reported plans to allocate over $1 million to agentic and generative AI initiatives.

Innovation

Agentic AI does not stop at streamlining and speeding up old workflows and processes. It opens the door to entirely new ones. Not all implementations will begin at the high end of the autonomy spectrum, though. Agentic capabilities can scale gradually from semi-automated interventions to fully autonomous execution. What matters most is designing systems to evolve with learning, context awareness and increasingly complex reasoning.

Digital knowledge management

The most underappreciated benefit is how agents learn over time. As they handle sourcing, risk and compliance scenarios, they build organizational knowledge that remains intact when someone changes roles or leaves the company. Instead of relying on tribal knowledge or rigid rules, procurement can draw on systems that improve through experience.

A strategic investment

Adoption of GenAI and Agentic AI is accelerating. According to the Hackett Group, 64% of procurement leaders believe these technologies will fundamentally reshape workflows by 2030 and nearly half ran pilots in 2024. Hackett also adds that 42% of procurement teams plan to invest in new GenAI technologies in 2025 and that 33% intend to upgrade existing tools. 

Organizations are choosing to invest in agents because of these value drivers and of Procurement’s ever-increasing workload. In the same report, Hackett projects a 10% increase in procurement workload in 2025 but just 1% in budget growth. This represents a 9% efficiency gap that GenAI and agentic systems are expected to help close.

These trends also impact:

• Talent: As agents take on repetitive work, procurement professionals are leaning or will lean further into strategy, policy and governance, further moving the function away from control and compliance toward orchestration and insight. 
• Technology landscapes: Architecturally speaking, agentic AI requires more than just plugging in AI into existing tools. Procurement platforms must evolve to support persistent context, dynamic tool invocation and flexible error handling. Choosing frameworks that expose this control (instead of hardwired/static workflows) is key to scaling safely and effectively. 

While these numbers may sound attractive, it must be noted that Agentic AI does not guarantee maturity or readiness. These systems do not come with a magic wand. Their success depends on data consistency, process discipline, change readiness and clear governance. Many organizations will find that their current infrastructure unready to support persistent state, dynamic tool invocation or autonomous escalation. Without the right foundations, even the most advanced agents will fall short of expectations.

The rest of our Agentic AI mini-series will cover:

• Use cases
• What it takes to make it work
• The roadmap
• The agentic frontier — what’s next?

The post Agentic AI and Procurement (Part 2): Why it’s worth it appeared first on Spend Matters.

Procurement teams, particularly in the mid-market segment, have long faced a challenging tradeoff: either adopt large, complex sourcing platforms designed for enterprises with the potentially a steep learning curve, extended implementation timelines and costly licensing that comes with it or settle for lighter tools that often lack the robustness needed for more strategic procurement activities. 

Meanwhile, Procurement’s role has continued to expand in scope and visibility, with increasing pressure to deliver savings, ensure supply chain resilience and improve stakeholder experience, often without the resources or support structures of larger organizations. This disconnect has left many procurement teams under-equipped to run sourcing processes efficiently and effectively.

Market Dojo was founded to directly address this gap. It provides a self-service, modular eSourcing platform that blends enterprise-grade sourcing capabilities with consumer-grade usability. Market Dojo’s emphasis on accessibility makes it particularly distinctive, which includes tiered pricing (including a free sandbox environment), intuitive design and a feature set tailored to the sourcing realities of mid-sized teams. 

From guided RFQs and dynamic eAuctions to embedded supplier discovery and AI-powered questionnaire generation, Market Dojo empowers buyers to run sourcing events independently and strategically, without needing consultants or IT support. By focusing on usability without compromising functionality, Market Dojo has carved out a unique position as a sourcing solution built by procurement professionals for procurement professionals, which is now further strengthened by its integration into Esker’s broader offering.

This two-part Vendor Analysis explores Market Dojo’s platform, application and supporting services, provides customer references, looks at Market Dojo’s top competitors and finishes with an overall analyst assessment.

Here is why Market Dojo matters:

To the market — Market Dojo is a modular e-sourcing platform on which procurement teams in mid-sized organizations can run RFx, auctions and supplier onboarding with minimal support, combining usability with strategic functionality.

To potential buyers — Market Dojo challenges the complexity of traditional sourcing tools with a flexible, intuitive platform that brings strategic sourcing capabilities within reach for teams of any size or maturity.

The post Market Dojo: Vendor Analysis (Part 1) — Sourcing solution overview, company background, platform and services overview, modules and application overview appeared first on Spend Matters.

Part 1 covered Market Dojo’s history and gave an overview of its sourcing solution and roadmap.

The post Market Dojo: Vendor Analysis (Part 2) — Sourcing product-level strengths and opportunities, competitors and market analysis, user considerations, voice of the customer, analyst summary appeared first on Spend Matters.

But now, artificial intelligence (AI) offers SMBs a way to streamline purchasing, make smarter decisions and compete more effectively — without massive investments. By embedding AI into their procurement workflows, SMBs can unlock efficiency, gain deeper insights and maximize the value of their existing resources.

Streamlining routine tasks, focusing on strategy

One of the most immediate ways AI benefits SMBs is by taking over routine, time-consuming tasks that would otherwise consume valuable working hours. With AI-driven automation, procurement teams can speed up purchase order processing, simplify invoice approvals and reduce errors in contract compliance checks. AI can even manage supplier onboarding, document organization and data entry to smooth workflows and reduce bottlenecks.

By offloading these manual tasks, AI allows SMB procurement teams to redirect their focus toward high-value strategic initiatives, such as negotiating better supplier contracts, strengthening risk management and driving cost efficiencies.

AI as a virtual consultant for SMBs

Beyond automation, AI acts as a knowledge equalizer that brings enterprise-level insights within the reach of SMBs that lack the budget for expensive procurement consultants. AI-powered tools can analyze spend data, supplier performance, market trends and risk factors in real time, offering data-driven recommendations that previously required specialized expertise to uncover.

For example, generative AI can assist SMBs by generating real-time insights on supplier selection, spend analysis and risk management. With natural language processing, purchasing professionals can even query procurement data conversationally, eliminating the need to rely on IT or finance teams for basic data retrieval. This kind of accessibility ensures that even non-technical users can harness the power of AI-driven decision-making.

Turning raw data into actionable insights

AI does not just process data; it transforms it into meaningful insights. Many SMBs struggle to identify trends or spot inefficiencies within scattered, unstructured procurement data. Advanced analytics solves this problem by automatically cleansing, normalizing and classifying procurement data, duplicate payments and missed cost-saving opportunities.

Going even further, predictive analytics helps SMBs forecast demand, optimize supplier selection and anticipate market shifts, allowing them to make proactive, rather than reactive, procurement decisions.

Streamlining operations with robotic process automation

For SMBs with lean teams, robotic process automation (RPA) is a significant asset. RPA can automate supplier selection, streamline supplier onboarding and manage procurement workflows, ensuring that key tasks do not fall through the cracks. With predefined triggers and workflows, AI-driven automation reduces manual, time consuming tasks.   

AI’s impact on SMB procurement

By acting as an intelligent assistant that automates repetitive tasks, provides expert-level insights and helps teams make data-driven decisions, AI empowers SMBs to enhance their procurement capabilities and make more strategic decisions.

With the right AI tools in place, procurement teams at SMBs can operate with the same efficiency and intelligence as larger enterprises without their additional headcount or hefty budgets. The result? A smarter, leaner and more competitive procurement function that drives real business growth.

For a more in-depth exploration of AI in Procurement, read the AI Leadership Guide for Procurement.

The post Small business, big impact: How AI is transforming SMB procurement appeared first on Spend Matters.

Each article is followed by a pair of parentheses containing information about the membership level needed to read that piece. If there is no information, the article is free to read. More information about the differences in membership levels can be found on the Spend Matters Insider page.

Exploring the world of procuretech in Q2

Spend Matters Insider coverage in Q2 included more than just our staple Vendor Analyses. Our team keeps tabs on the latest news in the procurement world and explores ideas that will inform its future. A collection of these quick takes, conference insights and solution comparisons is below.

Digital procurement survival guide

To better navigate the stages of digitally transforming your Procurement processes, Spend Matters created a guide packed with clear, actionable and phased advice for a successful, digitally fueled transformation. The guide is an invaluable tool for anyone thinking about starting or actively undergoing a digitally-enabled procurement transformation. All of the phases are peppered with real-world case studies from the people who have been in your shoes; so you don’t have to step into the same holes they’ve already avoided!

Strengthening procurement – Transforming through people and skills

Technology is a means, not an end

Seven years later: Charting procurement’s digital roadmap from automation to AI-driven human augmentation

How to implement a future-ready e-procurement function

How to implement a future-ready AP function

Re-framing procurement transformation through mindset to foster better adoption

Defining success metrics and ROI in digital transformation: A procurement perspective

Selecting the right technology for procurement

Navigating the vendor landscape

Getting to the digital ‘yes’ – What makes a good case for procuretech

“Watching the (CPO) Detectives” — Measuring digital procurement success

Find the whole guide here

Aligning Procurement and Finance

Achieving true alignment between Finance and Procurement is a strategic necessity;  it ensures cost control, financial transparency and efficient operations. This guide is designed to be a practical resource, offering targeted insights on each critical phase of the finance-procurement alignment journey. It provides expert-driven materials, including real-world case studies and briefing papers, actionable strategies, and more,  to help you navigate specific challenges — whether you’re identifying misalignments, prioritizing initiatives or integrating technology for seamless collaboration.

A Finance–Procurement alignment approach — Executive Summary

Phase 1: Understanding the foundations – Aligning CFO initiatives with CPO strategies

Phase 2: Identifying misalignments and addressing the gaps

Phase 3: A path to collaboration

Phase 4: Leveraging technology to bridge the gap

Phase 5: Sustaining alignment success

Use case 1:

From silos to strategy — Aligning Finance and Procurement for competitive cash flow management and liquidity (free download)

How Phase 1 works for cash flow optimization and liquidity

How Phase 2 works for cash flow optimization and liquidity

How Phase 3 works for cash flow optimization and liquidity

How Phase 4 works for cash flow optimization and liquidity

How Phase 5 works for cash flow optimization and liquidity

Aligning CFO and CPO strategies for 2025 success

Use case 2:

Aligning Procurement and Finance for expense management for financial forecasting and control

How Phase 1 works for expense management and financial forecasting

How Phase 2 works for expense management and financial forecasting
(The series continues weekly)

Spend Matters Procurement Services provider landscape

Spend Matters has released updated research on the Procurement Services market, specifically focusing on source-to-pay (S2P) implementation providers. Our analysts have spent months creating a survival guide for Procurement transformation, a new SolutionMap comparison of Procurement Services providers for Insider members and a new in-depth guide covering Procurement Services providers; as we know it does not matter how much an organization invests in new technologies if they are implemented poorly. Many need help along the way, and many need help finding the help.

AI in Procurement

AI in procurement: How different industries are harnessing its power

Across industries, AI is capable of reshaping procurement, making it smarter, more predictive and highly efficient. In this article, we highlight some of the key changes AI has made to procurement strategies in the following industries: manufacturing and industrials, life sciences and healthcare, and the public sector.

Smarter, faster, still human — A GenAI playbook for modern sourcing

Iyyappan Chandramouleeswaran, a source-to-pay transformation specialist and ex-management consultant, offers some personal insights into how instead of replacing humans in sourcing processes, it unlocks strategic capacity by augmenting their work.

Level up your procurement with AI: From quick wins to game-changing strategy
Artificial intelligence use in procurement isn’t a distant dream — it’s here, reshaping how procurement professionals work. From simple automations that save time to sophisticated strategies that drive major business value, embedding AI in your business processes can provide immense value. But where should you begin? And how can you scale your efforts for maximum impact?

Why human experience still matters in Procurement

We have reached a new frontier in procurement  where systems can suggest, predict, classify and even execute actions. But true procurement knowledge does not live only in systems or databases. It resides in the judgment, intuition and hard-won experience of professionals who have navigated complexity, risk and nuance across countless decisions.

Agents or No, AI or No — The AP function still has a job to do

Regardless of the interface, algorithms or automation claims, the AP function still needs to perform its job. Technology can help, but only if we stay focused on the work that needs to happen.

Agents or No, AI or No — Are you performing the full scope of the e-procurement function?

Agentic systems. LLM-powered copilots. Autonomous requisition flows. Procurement platforms are getting smarter, or most people think so at least. The harder question is whether your organization is performing the full scope of e-procurement in a way that delivers control, efficiency and business value?

Agentic AI and Procurement Part 1: What is Agentic AI

A new generation of intelligent systems that only assists but operates independently is emerging. Known as Agentic AI, these systems are an evolution from previous rules-based automation, which follow predefined, static sequences. In contrast, agentic systems dynamically determine their own processes and tool usage and adapt to changing goals and conditions.

The Intake and Orchestration market

The power orchestration play: Supplier management

Procurement has long sought a strategic seat at the table. Today, it has earned it at the cost of higher expectations with fewer resources. However, a new model is emerging: procurement as Orchestrator of Value.

An emerging threat to the standalone intake and orchestration market (IO)

What’s next for contract markup specialists?

Spend Matters Research Analyst and Director of Strategic Projects and Research Nikhil Gaur looks at how contract markup specialists are responding to a market in which other broader contract lifecycle management solutions are using generative AI to tackle their speciality. (CLM)

Navigating trade turbulence: What tariffs are really exposing in Procurement

Tariffs today are no longer a niche compliance concern; they are a recurring, disruptive force with strategic implications. And they are testing the limits of procurement’s preparedness.

Acquisitions

Coupa buys Cirtuo, adds category management to its spend management suite

Coupa announced during its Inspire 2025 event that it has acquired Cirtuo, a provider of category management software. The move addresses a long-standing gap in many procurement technology offerings: helping teams define and manage procurement strategies, rather than just executing sourcing events. Bertrand Maltaverne and Pierre Mitchell explain what this acquisition may mean.

TPG and Corpay to acquire AvidXchange: A new chapter in corporate B2B payments

The announcement that TPG and Corpay (formerly Fleetcor) will acquire AvidXchange in a $2.2 billion take-private transaction marks a significant moment in the evolution of the corporate B2B payments market. Xavier Olivera, Spend Matters Lead Analyst for Downstream Procurement, explores how this reflects the growing strategic importance of AP automation and managed services.

Events

Coupa Inspire findings

Docusign Momentum 2025 Recap

Ivalua NOW Americas 2025: Innovate to Elevate

Vendor Analyses

AdaptOne is a configurable SIM platform that helps companies streamline supplier onboarding, compliance management and diversity tracking through workflow automation and seamless system integrations. (SXM)

CADDI Drawer is an innovative company that uses AI to digitize and make searchable all manufacturing drawings and procurement data. (Core)

EffiGO manages direct and indirect spend and services across a wide range of industries, emphasizing communication standardization between internal and external stakeholders to provide S2P solutions to global, large-scale enterprises. (S2P)

Enlighta Spice stands out for its ability to simplify the complexities of supplier governance and risk management that tackles challenges of today’s interconnected world. (SXM/SRM)

Flowie offers an AI-driven orchestration platform that connects finance, procurement and compliance systems to streamline operations and reduce risk. (AP/I2P/IO/P2P)

Fraxion’s capabilities address key spend management challenges by streamlining procurement processes and offering detailed visibility into expenses, making it a practical option for SMEs. (P2P)

Ironclad is a best-of-breed CLM solution that differentiates itself by combining its all-contracts enterprise platform with extreme usability, rapid time-to-value and AI innovation.  (CLM)

LightSource tackles the often-overlooked complexities of direct materials sourcing with a fresh, purpose-built approach that blends modern usability, AI-driven insights and global supplier accessibility, including challenging regions like China. (Sourcing)

MeRLIN offers a fully and natively integrated suite that has a modern and configurable UX for the SME to mid market in Europe and America. (S2P)

One Click LCA helps users understand the environmental impact of a product, infrastructure or entire organization. (CO2)

PaymentWorks provides a solution to fraudulent payments and security with a user-friendly and streamlined vendor onboarding and management process. (P2P/SRM)

Spendata is a unique, browser-based platform that provides true, deep spend analysis which end users can build their own dimensions, measures and views quickly at any time, filter and map those at will, and build custom reports from any dimension. (Analytics)

Trustpair provides a fraud-prevention and vendor payment security platform that safeguards financial transactions by automating bank account validation and continuously monitoring vendor master data. (AP/I2P)

Coming up in Q3

Looking beyond Q2 and into Q3, Insider members can expect the steady stream of Vendor Analyses to continue.

Members will also see the following:

• Multiple series further exploring the concrete examples of benefits brought by aligning Finance and Procurement
• A continuation of our Agentic AI in Procurement series
• More from our analysts’ research in Procurement Services Providers
• More on tariff management

The post Q2 2025 research roundup: A deep dive into procurement tech market movements; updated coverage of 13 vendors appeared first on Spend Matters.

We introduced this series on ‘Improving Expense Management for Financial Forecasting and Control,’ to help organizations rethink how finance and procurement can collaborate around employee-driven expenses, especially travel, reimbursements and card spend. In Phase 1, we examined how each function approaches expense management and why establishing shared priorities is the first step toward meaningful alignment.

In Phase 2, we surface the common breakdowns and mismatches that limit forecasting accuracy, frustrate employees and obscure financial accountability. These gaps are not always visible, but they compound over time, distorting budgets, delaying insights and eroding trust in the data.

Phase 2: Identifying misalignments and addressing the gaps

This article is not meant to provide all the answers; it is meant to start a conversation between finance and procurement teams to help them reflect on where disconnects exist and how closing those gaps can create a more disciplined and data-driven approach to expense management.

Where misalignments in expense management occur

Even in mature organizations, expense-related misalignments persist due to siloed systems, inconsistent workflows and a lack of shared accountability. Below are five business-critical disconnects that are especially relevant to T&E (travel and expense) and card spend.

1. Disconnected approval workflows

When expense report approvals, card usage validations and reimbursement processes are not coordinated across functions, delays and errors multiply. Finance may lack visibility into pending approvals, and procurement may lack insight into policy exceptions and budget impacts.

Consequences:

• Finance scrambles at the end of the month to track down missing approvals.
• Procurement has limited ability to monitor out-of-policy spend.
• Employees face frustration from inconsistent rules and timelines.

Suggested action:

Implement unified, policy-based approval workflows across expense types and departments. Routing logic should be tied to spend thresholds, categories and policy flags — not organizational silos. Real-time visibility into approval status benefits both teams and improves forecasting discipline. Advanced solutions should also enable auto approvals to reduce bottlenecks, while providing mobile status tracking for requesters and approvers.

2. Conflicting KPIs and unclear ownership of outcomes 

Finance might prioritize budget adherence and forecast accuracy. Procurement may be focused on policy adoption, employee satisfaction and vendor compliance. When performance is measured differently, it is hard to align behavior or improve outcomes.

Consequences:

• Finance may penalize teams for going over budget, even if the spending is within policy.
• Procurement may see high adoption rates but have no visibility into how that affects forecasting.
• Neither team owns the end-to-end view of expense impact.

Suggested action:

Define shared KPIs, such as average time to reimburse, forecast variance on T&E and policy compliance rates. Co-own these metrics through cross-functional reporting so each function can connect tactical process results to strategic financial outcomes. These KPIs should be embedded into shared analytics dashboards that pull from integrated sources like card programs, expense reports and travel bookings.

3. Incomplete visibility into pre-approved and in-flight spend 

Most systems provide a backward-looking view about what was submitted and reimbursed. Finance, however, needs to see what is about to hit the books. Without visibility into pre-approved trips, planned card spend or recurring expenses, it is impossible to forecast accurately.

Consequences:

• Surprise spikes in spend at the end of the month or quarter.
• Difficulty matching planned vs actual expenses.
• Budget holders are blindsided by late expense submissions, which is especially problematic for project-based expenses.

Suggested action:

Use pre-authorization data, advance travel bookings and corporate card feeds as early indicators of upcoming spending. These inputs should be integrated into budget planning tools so that committed but unprocessed expenses are factored into cash flow forecasting. Ensure card programs and expense platforms support detailed spend categorization and user-level visibility across both employees and contractors and that forecasting systems ingest this data via an API.

4. Lack of policy enforcement at the point of spend

Policy documents are not enough. Employees need clear, timely guidance when making a purchase, not after they submit the expense. Without embedded rules or contextual nudges, enforcement becomes reactive and inefficient.

Consequences:

• Policy violations increase administrative workload.
• Reimbursement delays due to exception handling.
• Managers and auditors spend time policing rather than advising.

Suggested action:

Embed policy controls directly into expense apps, booking tools and card programs. Provide real-time alerts, smart defaults and guidance based on role, spend type and destination to reduce exceptions before they occur. Finance and procurement should jointly maintain these rules to keep them aligned.

5. Fragmented data across systems limits insight 

Travel bookings may live in one tool, card transactions in another and expense reports in yet another, with limited integration into financial planning systems. Without a unified view, neither finance nor procurement can make timely, informed decisions.

Consequences:

• Time-consuming reconciliations across tools.
• Missed opportunities to detect trends, optimize policies or adjust budgets in real time.
• Data inconsistencies that erode trust in forecasting models.

Suggested action:

Invest in integrated expense management platforms that sync data across travel, card and finance systems. Shared dashboards and real-time reporting give both teams access to a consistent, current view of spend activity, improving forecasting and control.

Reframing the collaboration

Fixing these issues is not just about streamlining approvals or adding software. It is about shifting from reactive workflows to connected financial control. 

Finance needs early and reliable visibility. Procurement needs to track how policies perform. Employees need intuitive tools that guide compliant choices.

What sets expense management apart is how decentralized it is. Every employee is a decision maker. That makes collaboration between finance and procurement essential and not optional.

Key takeaway

Expense misalignments do not just impact process efficiency, they disrupt forecasting, erode trust in financial data and create unnecessary friction for employees. By identifying and addressing the root causes, from disconnected workflows to fragmented data, organizations can enable proactive, insight-driven financial control.

The goal is not just better expense reporting. It is building a financial culture where accuracy, compliance and accountability are shared across teams.

Next up

Phase 3: Structuring the collaboration – Building practical frameworks for cross-functional coordination in expense policy, workflows and data.

More in the Finance-Procurement alignment series:

Strengthening cash flow management and liquidity

Visit our in-depth guide to aligning Finance and Procurement for wider coverage

The post Aligning Finance and Procurement to improve expense management for financial forecasting and control — Phase 2: Identifying misalignments and addressing the gaps appeared first on Spend Matters.