--- title: "A monthly software spend review you can finish in an hour" description: "A monthly software spend review in under an hour: new vendors, price steps, duplicates, renewals and seats, with what to write down and who decides." canonical: "https://lopifi.com/savings/how-to/monthly-software-spend-review" --- # A monthly software spend review you can finish in an hour > A monthly software spend review in under an hour: new vendors, price steps, duplicates, renewals and seats, with what to write down and who decides. Source: https://lopifi.com/savings/how-to/monthly-software-spend-review Part of: Lopifi — Planned: US GAAP books on autopilot, checked by a CPA (https://lopifi.com) --- Series: Run it afterward. Reviewed 2026-10-25. Software costs drift: a seat added here, a plan upgraded there, a renewal that stepped up. A short review every month catches each change while it can still be undone. This is the routine, written so one person with the books open can finish it in under an hour and leave a note behind instead of a new spreadsheet. ## Run five checks against your books Start from the vendor export for the month. Each check below ends in a decision or a date, not a list to keep. 1. **New software.** Any vendor that was not in last month's export. Find out who bought it and whether it is approved, as in the [approval policy](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/software-approval-policy). 2. **A price step.** Any vendor whose unit price rose, using [the price-increase check](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/spot-a-software-price-increase). 3. **A duplicate.** Two vendors doing one job. The [suite guide](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/consolidate-into-one-suite) says how to test a consolidation before you count the saving. 4. **A renewal.** Any renewal whose notice window opens in the next sixty days, from your [renewal calendar](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/vendor-register-and-renewal-calendar). 5. **Seats.** Seats paid for against people who signed in, for the two or three largest tools, as in [cutting unused seats](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/cut-unused-seats). ## Leave a note, not a sheet For each finding, write one line: the vendor, what changed, the next step and the date it has to happen by. Send it to whoever approves spend. If a finding has no next step, it is not a finding yet. The calculators turn a finding into a yearly figure from your own numbers: [billing cadence](https://lopifi.com/md/tools/billing-cadence), [unused seats](https://lopifi.com/md/tools/seat-waste) and [renewal uplift](https://lopifi.com/md/tools/renewal-uplift). ## Do the deeper pass quarterly Once a quarter, run the full [audit checklist](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/software-spend-audit-checklist) and look at what the monthly review cannot: tools bought outside the books, accounts left behind after people left, and the largest platforms. The [offboarding guide](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/offboard-saas-accounts) covers the accounts. ## Common questions ### Who should run the review? One person who can approve spend, with the books open. It does not need a meeting. The output is a short note: what changed, what to do and by when. ### How long should it take? Keep it to the checks that need a decision. New vendors, price steps, duplicates, renewals inside the notice window and seat counts cover most of the cost. Anything else can wait for the quarterly pass. ### Can this be automated? The planned daily watch would run the book-based checks for you and send the note. Until it opens, this routine does the same by hand, and the audit gives you the starting list. ## Keep going - [Spot a price increase in your bills](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/spot-a-software-price-increase): Compare the same vendor across two periods in QuickBooks or Xero to catch a price step, a new seat charge or a plan change before the next renewal. - [Vendor register and renewal calendar](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/vendor-register-and-renewal-calendar): The fields a vendor register needs, how to seed it from your QuickBooks or Xero vendor list, and a monthly review that catches renewals early. - [The audit checklist](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/software-spend-audit-checklist): Pull twelve months of vendor spend, rank it, and find annual charges, duplicates, seat creep and owners. A checklist you can finish in an afternoon. - [Software approval policy](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to/software-approval-policy): A one-page software approval policy a ten-person company can adopt: who may buy, card and trial rules, an owner per tool, and a checklist. - [Run the free audit](https://lopifi.com/savings/audit) - [All how-to guides](https://lopifi.com/md/savings/how-to) *General information, not tax, legal or accounting advice.*