How Finite State scaled SaaS procurement without hiring (and freed up $90K)

TL;DR

Finite State needed a simpler, scalable way to handle procurement requests and approvals—and to reduce surprise renewals and risk—without adding a full time employee. After replacing Google Forms with SpendHound, the team centralized requests, routed approvals to the right stakeholders, and kept supporting context in one place. The change helped them save about 10-12 hours per month (and the $90K cost of a FTE).

Meet Finite State: Helping enterprises manage IoT risk at scale

Finite State empowers device OEMs to ship securely while enabling engineering teams to move at the speed of AI, immediately transforming product artifacts into audit-ready assurance through a single automated workflow. Leveraging deep binary analysis and AI-native execution, the platform unifies code, compiled components, and firmware in minutes—connecting security design with deployed software. By continuously generating SBOMs, VEX, and signed compliance packages, Finite State enables connected device companies across industries such as medical devices and automotive to meet evolving regulations, including the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), and deliver continuous compliance at speed. 

Deena Lu joined in September and owns end-to-end finance operations (FinOps), covering accounting, budgeting, and forecasting within a lean team and without a dedicated procurement function.

The problem: Procurement without ownership (or visibility)

What happens when software approvals, context, and accountability are all over the place? For Finite State, procurement requests ran through a Google Form, an approach that worked until the company outgrew it.

Any follow-up questions, pricing changes, or contract updates fractured an already disconnected process. Context split across inboxes and Slack threads, making it harder to know what had been approved, what had changed, and who was responsible for the next step. 

As an IoT security company working with large enterprises, Finite State couldn’t afford blind spots around software compliance. Deena needed a way to simplify compliance stakeholders’ review, but the existing workflow made that hard to enforce consistently. 

Renewals added more pressure. Without a reliable, centralized way to see what was coming due—and enough lead time to act—finance could end up negotiating after vendors had already set terms, including routine price increases. 

The solution: Flexible approvals, early renewal signals

Deena brought in SpendHound after having used it at a previous company. This time, the deciding factor was adopting SpendHound’s procurement workflow to replace the Google Form-led process. 

Each request is now tied to one place, saving approvers from having to stitch together context across Slack channels and email threads. Stakeholders like IT and the internal legal team are included on approvals—which are routed by category—and legal review can be skipped when it’s not required. 

For software renewals, SpendHound surfaces upcoming contract timing and creates a draft approval workflow ahead of the renewal date, giving tool owners a nudge to start the renewal conversation earlier.

Deena also uses SpendHound’s AWS cost visibility to monitor day-to-day changes without needing custom reporting from engineering every time something spikes. 

The results: Valuable time saved and $90K overhead freed up

• 10-12 hours saved each month by replacing Google Forms
• $90K freed up annually by not needing to hire a procurement expert
• Internal legal included in software procurement to reduce risk, blind spots
• Fewer missed handoffs through tagging and notifications tied to each request
• Earlier renewal awareness through upcoming renewal visibility and pre-built workflows

Finite State’s old process added unnecessary work. A single procurement request could trigger a cascade of notifications. Updating the spreadsheet or following up on a question often resulted in multiple emails, even when nothing materially changed. 

With SpendHound, each request progresses inside a defined workflow. Approvers see the full context, what’s being requested, who owns it, what documents are attached, and what changed since the last review.

That structure is what allowed Deena to estimate 10-12 hour monthly time savings, even with procurement reviewed only periodically. 

Ownership also became clearer. Tool owners are identified upfront, and stakeholders are notified automatically as a request moves forward. The workflow pushes responsibility to the right people at the right time. 

Renewals benefit from the same structure. When a contract is coming up, SpendHound can surface it early. That early signal gives owners time to assess whether the tool is still needed, whether pricing needs to be revisited, or whether the legal team should be involved again—before renewal terms arrive from the vendor. 

Leadership experience improved as well. The final approvers don’t need to dig through emails or log into multiple systems. Slack notifications provide enough context to review and approve quickly, keeping decisions moving without adding meetings or follow-ups. 

As SpendHound continued ingesting data, it also began surfacing software that lacked ownership, such as tools tied to former employees or reimbursed subscriptions that never became centralized. 

Together, these changes turned procurement from a reactive task into a repeatable process run by a two-person accounting team—avoiding a procurement hire and saving about $90K per year. 

Scale SaaS procurement without hiring a procurement team 

Finite State replaced complicated, time-consuming approvals with SpendHound’s intelligent procurement workflows, saving 10-12 hours per month and reducing risk through structured stakeholder review. 

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