As CFOs, we are supposed to have visibility. Revenue, cash, costs, forecasts, risk. We spend a lot of our time trying to understand not just where the numbers are today, but where they are heading next.
But there is one area where I think we often have less visibility than we realise: the commercial decisions being made across the business.
I can tell you what we spent with a supplier last year. That is relatively easy. What I really want to know is what we have already committed to spend, what is coming up for renewal, whether we are becoming too reliant on a supplier and whether the saving everyone was excited about six months ago has actually made its way into the numbers.
Those are much harder questions.
And that, for me, is what procurement visibility is really about.
It is not about giving the CFO another dashboard or drowning Finance in procurement data. Frankly, I don’t need to see every purchasing decision and I wouldn’t want to.
What I do want is enough visibility to spot the things that matter while there is still time to do something about them.
That distinction matters. By the time something appears in the management accounts, the commercial decision behind it may have been made months earlier.
For me, the real value is knowing earlier
Once the invoice arrives, Finance has excellent visibility. We know the supplier, the amount, the cost centre and where it will hit the accounts.
The problem is that, commercially, that may be the least interesting point in the whole process. The supplier may already have been selected. The contract may be signed. The opportunity to negotiate may have gone.
Visibility after the event helps me report the number. Visibility before the event gives the business an opportunity to change it.
That is the part I think matters most to a CFO. I don’t want Finance becoming a blocker or inserting itself into every purchase. I do want us to be able to see material commitments, risks and opportunities early enough to ask sensible questions.
The questions I actually want answered
When I think about procurement visibility, I don’t start with a long list of system requirements. I start with the questions I would want to be able to answer without asking three people to pull together a spreadsheet.
- What are we really spending, with whom and why?
- What have we already committed to spend, even if it has not hit the accounts yet?
- Which contracts are coming up for renewal and where do we still have time to negotiate?
- Which suppliers genuinely matter to the business, not simply because they have the highest spend?
- Where is supplier risk building?
- What significant purchases are coming down the track?
- And when someone tells me we have delivered a saving, where will I actually see it?
If those questions are difficult to answer, the issue is not that Finance needs more reports. It is that the commercial picture is fragmented.
Spend is useful. Context is better.
Spend analysis absolutely matters. I use it. But by definition it is telling me what has already happened.
Say I can see that we spent £500,000 with a supplier last year. That is useful information, but on its own it does not tell me very much about what I should do next.
Now tell me the contract renews in 90 days, the business wants to buy more from that supplier, there is another sourcing exercise under way in the same category and a supplier risk needs attention. Suddenly that £500,000 means something quite different.
I now have context, timing and, importantly, a reason to act.
That is the distinction I keep coming back to. Spend visibility tells me what happened. Procurement visibility helps me understand what sits behind it and what may happen next.
Where things tend to fall apart
Most businesses I come across are not short of information. They are short of connected information.
The accounts might be accurate. AP may be well controlled. Budgets may be carefully managed. Yet the contracts are sitting in a shared drive, supplier information is maintained somewhere else, renewals depend on somebody remembering a diary note and the rationale for choosing a supplier is buried in an email thread.
Individually, each process may look perfectly reasonable. The problem appears when you ask a simple question and discover how much work is needed to answer it.
From a CFO perspective, I tend to think about six areas.
1. Suppliers
I don’t just want a supplier list. I want to understand the relationships that matter. What are we buying? How dependent are we? Is there a credible alternative? Are there risks I should know about? One of the easiest mistakes to make is assuming the supplier with the biggest spend is automatically the most important. It isn’t always.
2. Contracts
For me, a contract is not simply a Procurement or Legal document. It is a financial commitment. I want to understand what we have agreed, when it renews or expires, what obligations sit behind it and, crucially, when we still have leverage. Finding an unwanted auto-renewal after the notice date has passed is not really a procurement problem. It is money we may not have needed to spend.
3. Spend
The total matters, but the questions behind the total are normally more interesting. Why is this category increasing? Why are we buying essentially the same thing from several suppliers? Why does actual spend look different from what we expected? Where could we consolidate, challenge or simply make a better commercial decision?
4. What is coming next
This is probably the area I care about most. I would much rather know about a significant purchase when someone is thinking about it than when the invoice arrives. Earlier visibility gives Finance and Procurement a chance to ask whether an existing contract could be used, whether we should compete the requirement, whether demand can be combined and whether the business has actually budgeted for it.
5. Savings
One of the conversations I suspect most CFOs will recognise is the procurement ‘saving’. Procurement tells you they have saved £200,000. Great. My next question is usually: where will I see it? Is it £200,000 less than last year? Less than budget? Less than the supplier’s opening proposal? Is it an avoided increase? And will any of it actually turn up in the P&L or cash flow? None of those answers necessarily makes the saving invalid. But they are different things, and Finance needs to understand the difference.
6. Risk
Spend is not a reliable proxy for risk either. A supplier can represent relatively modest spend and still be critical to the operation. Equally, a major supplier relationship can continue for years without anyone stepping back to reassess the risk. What matters is having enough context to know where attention is needed.
The CFO does not need another dashboard
I think this is worth saying because ‘visibility’ so easily becomes a technology conversation.
Personally, I am not looking for another dashboard to log into. A dashboard is only useful if the information behind it is complete, connected and current enough for me to trust it.
The CFO’s problem is rarely that the information does not exist. The problem is that it is fragmented, arrives too late or takes too much effort to turn into an answer.
My practical test is simple: can I move from a financial question to the commercial explanation behind it without starting a small investigation?
- Spend has increased. Can I quickly see why?
- A supplier has become more important. Can I see the contracts and risks attached to the relationship?
- A saving has been reported. Can I understand the baseline and whether it has actually been realised?
- A large commitment is approaching. Can I see it before the money is effectively committed?
- Someone wants to know why a supplier was selected. Can we trace the decision and approval?
That, to me, is what good visibility feels like. I don’t need every detail. I need the right detail when it matters.
And then there is AI
AI obviously changes this conversation. If we can ask a question in plain English and quickly surface the relevant contract, supplier information, risk or activity, that is genuinely useful.
But I think CFOs will be rightly sceptical of answers they cannot evidence.
If I ask about a supplier risk, contract obligation or savings project, I don’t want a beautifully worded but plausible answer. I want to know where it came from. I want it grounded in our information and I want a human to remain accountable for the judgement that follows.
That is the thinking behind the AI Consultant within BuyingStation. The value, for me, is not AI for the sake of AI. It is reducing the distance between a question and the evidence needed to answer it.
AI first. Human guided.
I think that distinction will become increasingly important. AI can make information much easier to interrogate. It should not make accountability harder to find.
A test I would give any finance team
If you want to understand how good your procurement visibility really is, I would not start by reviewing the technology. I would ask the team seven questions:
- What are our largest supplier commitments over the next 12 months?
- Which significant contracts are due for renewal in the next six months?
- Which suppliers present the greatest commercial or operational risk?
- What significant buying activity is currently in the pipeline?
- Which procurement savings have genuinely been realised in the financial results?
- Where are we buying outside agreed contracts or processes?
- Can we trace a significant purchasing decision back to the request, approval and commercial rationale?
The revealing part is not only whether someone can eventually find the answer. It is how long it takes, how many systems and people are involved and whether two people would come back with the same answer.
The friction in getting to the answer tells you almost as much as the answer itself.
So where would I start?
I would start with the information you already have.
Where do contracts sit? Where is supplier information held? Who owns risk assessments? How are savings recorded? Where do new requests enter the business? And how easily can those things be connected to the financial data?
Then look for the breaks. Are renewal dates visible? Can we see material demand before commitment? Do Finance and Procurement mean the same thing when they say ‘saving’? Can we explain why a significant supplier decision was made and who approved it?
Technology can make that much easier, but technology on its own does not create control. Good data, sensible process, clear ownership and judgement still matter.
Ultimately, this is about better commercial control
As CFOs, we are constantly balancing two things. We need control, but we don’t want to slow the business down.
Procurement visibility should help us do both.
I don’t want Finance approving every purchase or sitting in every supplier conversation. What I do want is confidence that the important decisions are visible, that there is a sensible process behind them and that we can intervene while intervention can still make a difference.
That is why I see this as much more than a Procurement issue. It touches cost, cash, forecasting, risk, governance and ultimately the quality of decision making across the business.
At BuyingStation, we use the term Procurement Intelligence because visibility is really only the first step.
Seeing the number is useful. Understanding what sits behind it is better. Knowing what needs attention while there is still time to act is where it becomes genuinely valuable.
For me, that is the point.
A few questions CFOs often ask
What do you mean by procurement visibility?
For me, it means being able to connect spend with the suppliers, contracts, commitments, risks, savings and future activity sitting behind it. Not necessarily seeing everything, but being able to get to the commercial context quickly when it matters.
Why should this sit on the CFO agenda?
Because purchasing decisions affect cost, cash, risk and future commitments long before they reach the accounts. Earlier visibility gives Finance a chance to influence the outcome rather than simply report it.
Is this really different from spend visibility?
Yes. Spend visibility is an important part of it, but spend is largely backward looking. Procurement visibility adds the commercial context: why we spent it, what we have committed to, what is coming next and where the risks or opportunities sit.
How much detail does a CFO actually need?
In my view, not all of it. The aim is proportionate visibility. I want enough information to understand material commitments, supplier relationships, renewals, risks, genuine savings and significant future demand without becoming involved in every transaction.
Where does technology fit?
Technology should make the information easier to connect, interrogate and evidence. It is an enabler of control, not a substitute for good process, ownership or judgement.
