Naturally, Degreed’s growth trajectory has some teams playing catch-up. Vice President of FP&A, Zac Makin, remembers meeting with a department in their monthly budget vs. actual meeting. His team was asked a simple question, “how much are we spending?” for a specific software subscription. Makin cringes: “It took more effort than it should have to answer this question. It was embarrassing.”

Like most enterprises, SaaS management lived between two worlds. “Our infosec team was tracking licenses on various Google Sheets,” shares Makin. “But they were at the mercy of budget owners to tell them what they bought.” The finance team tried a different approach. But interpreting accounting software–and tracing vendors, subscriptions, and dates through a maze of prepaid journal entries in Abacus and Bill.com was unreliable. “Our software count was somewhere in the hundreds, but we didn’t have enough visibility to actually manage it.”

While finance’s budgeting process was industry-standard, the team wasn’t OK just being “in the ball-park.” “We spend seven digits every year on software,” Makin notes. “Any discovery and visibility improvement was material.”
Degreed’s CFO charged Makin to find a solution. Days later, a serendipitous call from Cleanshelf came. The platform checked all the boxes for Makin and his infosec counterpart: affordable, secure, and easy-to-implement.

"The two hardest things to budget for are headcount and software. This has removed a huge planning load for us."

Zac Makin VP FP&A

“We’ve already saved over $75,000 (nearly 400% ROI) on the platform,” guides Makin. He appreciates the hours saved from faster renewal decisions and no longer maintaining spreadsheets or chasing down budget owners. FP&A’s annual software forecasts are now 30% more accurate.

The company hardened its security posture, too. “We developed a software approval committee made up of finance, infosec, contract management, and data insights leaders.” Cleanshelf’s renewal notifications and alerts often drive meeting agendas. Every software is reviewed and signed-off on by key teams before renewal.

The committee makes each SaaS owner a Cleanshelf user–and requires them to update purchasing details and login credentials for accountability. The owners must also outline a business case for the purchase. “We take this into account before we green-light renewals,” says Makin.

Obviously, Degreed’s C-suite was excited about the savings and security the platform introduced. “We shared a demo of Cleanshelf in front of all of our employees. Everyone knows we’re serious about managing SaaS the right way. We have the tool to make it happen.”