One of the first things Laura Beales did when taking on the adventure of starting Tally Workspace was to get a hold of a Cledara subscription.
That’s not a coincidence, since Cledara helped her manage her SaaS subscription stack at her previous company, where she led finance.
Some may think that getting control of SaaS subscriptions right off the bat when starting a company wouldn’t be a priority. Teams are still small, processes are limited and not much software is being used.
You see, Laura is ahead of the curve.
“If you put controls in the beginning with a tool like Cledara, you've got much more visibility on subscriptions, which gives you that control you need and stops that 'clean up operation' from happening later, when things have gotten out of hand.”
Laura saw firsthand the effects of poor SaaS management at her previous company and didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.
She brought Cledara on as soon as possible.
Laura explains that at her previous company, tracking subscriptions was always problematic. “It was quite easy for employees to sign up for a subscription, but not so easy to track once purchased.”
“We found ourselves realizing six months later that we were paying for something, when no one used it anymore and it just sat there. Or equally, when we had different teams sign up for the same subscription.”
And then the duplicates came.
“When we realized that we had multiple subscriptions for the same software - that was a bit of a shock.”
“Before Cledara, we had a vague idea that there were multiple subscriptions across teams. Normally, what happens is that teams just sign up for subscriptions, rather than requesting them - leading to duplicate subscriptions requiring eventual cancellation.”
In other words: duplicates and unused software abounded.
How Cledara helped
Today Cledara flags any potential duplicate when requested, rather than once a subscription has been set up.
“That’s the kind of process you want, and why it was a no-brainer for me to choose Cledara when we started Tally'', Laura says.
And not just that. The good thing about Cledara, Laura says, is that “you have real visibility over subscriptions, which makes it easy to monitor them. It’s clear who owns the subscription and the costs associated. To have that kind of control over the business is awesome.”
One of the key things in finance is having control over expenses and making sure that you understand those costs.
And software is a big piece in that puzzle. In fact, Laura states “going over your software budget it's a big problem, especially in a startup.”
How Cledara helped
Now Cledara helps Laura agree on the budget upfront with the budget holder and only then, set it up on the platform.
“The risk of going over-budget disappears,” Laura says. But the good thing: even though admins have greater control, teams aren’t constrained or discouraged from using software.
In fact, Laura confesses that “the ownership Cledara gives to each team’s budget” is one of the things she likes more about the platform.
“What we earn from Cledara Rewards ends up being more than the subscription cost of the platform, so Cledara pays for itself, which makes it a complete no-brainer. I think it’s also one of my favorite things!”
