How Diffblue went from incomplete spreadsheets to complete visibility

DiffBlue is a pioneering Generative AI for Code company with a mission to change the way software is written. With growth came complications: the software stack swelled to over 100 tools. SaaS and cloud expenses reached £300,000. The result? Too many hours poured into overseeing purchases, approvals, and budgets. For Financial Controller Dionne Clarke, managing it was a nightmare.

“I had no visibility so managing SaaS spend was virtually impossible.  It was exceptionally difficult attempting to forecast budgets from the spreadsheet as it was always out of date with inaccurate information."

Making sense of DiffBlue's SaaS apps meant a frustrating scavenger hunt for Dionne. With data fragmented across spreadsheets and statements, even simple questions required digging through multiple sources.

Payments for new tools would appear, and Dionne was forced to find out who owned the account, how many seats had been purchased if it was monthly or annual, and if a contract was signed. Not only was this time-consuming, but it also caused conflict in having to police software spend and approvals. 

“My biggest issue was that I was in a situation where I was having to police what was going on and I didn't want to be in that position. I didn't want to be the policeman of the company”

Initially, Dionne found it hard to get buy-in from the leadership team. She knew she needed a solution but the team didn’t fully understand the issues with our SaaS tools so didn’t see it as a priority.

“In the end I just went ahead with the installation, I knew it had value and I didn’t want to wait any longer for everyone to buy into the solution.  After setting it up I demonstrated it first to the CEO and he loved it as it solved another long term problem of visibility for Department Heads.”

Like many companies, Diffblue had a handful of company cards that would be used to purchase software. Individuals who needed a new tool would track down someone with a card and purchase the tool they needed. 

Not only did this mean that Dionne was dealing with unexpected transactions, but it also caused problems if an employee left or in Diffblue's case there were major headaches when they changed banks. 

Finally, traditional cards don’t have any spend control so Diffblue was at the mercy of the vendors' renewals.

“I had no control over the spending because vendors had our credit card details, so they could renew and charge a payment and the first time I was going to hear about it was when I saw the payment on the statement at the end of the month”

Before Cledara no one at Diffblue had a full picture of their software. Now the CEO, CFO, Dept Heads and IT teams are all on the same page when it comes to their software. 

“Visibility and being able to track our SaaS spend and set accurate departmental budgets has been incredible. It makes Cledara worth its weight in gold and is the reason why it’s my favorite software tool.”