Abstract: Techniques for community-based spend analysis in a software as a service computing environment are disclosed. The techniques leverage information available about community spend to provide new insights into a particular customer's spend. The new insights result from receiving a request for an optimization recommendation, importing spend data comprising a plurality of spend data lines, and using a trained deep learning classifier to classify the spend data lines in a set of standard spend categories to compute a first and second aggregate of monetary amounts. An optimization recommendation is sent to the customer based on a comparison of the first and second aggregate of monetary amounts is sent to a particular customer.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating recommendation data for cataloging items in an e-procurement system is provided. In various embodiments, a database of records is created and maintained corresponding to a plurality of transactions in an e-procurement system. In various embodiments, database records are weighted and sorted according a transaction method associated with the records. In various embodiments, recommendation data is generated for items associated with the records to suggest more efficient methods for offering items for procurement in an e-marketplace based on the weights and sort order of the records.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of executing a programmed spend management computer system. The computer system comprises a data pre-processor that is communicatively coupled to a plurality of the application instances and accesses historic transaction data from any of the instances and thereby has access to a large community of data across all tenants. The data pre-processor is programmed to normalize transaction descriptions and determine line spend values, unit price values, quantity values, and buyer country data for a plurality of commodities, and to store the data in item sets in digital storage. A statistical processor is coupled to the digital storage to access the item sets and executes statistical calculation on the item sets to generate pricing insight data. Pricing insights and/or prescriptions are generated automatically under stored program control and provided to a presentation processor for output to and/or rendering to an end-user device.

Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for improving spend approval cycle time in a software-as-service (SasS) electronic spend management system based on community spend approval information. The techniques include the spend management system collecting information about spend approval cycle times across a community of users that use the system. A graphical user interface is then provided by the spend management system to individual customer users of the spend management system where the graphical user interface includes a graphical comparison of the user's individual spend approval cycle time performance against the community's spend approval cycle time performance. By doing so, the individual user can be motivated to improve or maintain his or her spend approval cycle time performance.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating recommendation data for cataloging items in an e-procurement system is provided. In various embodiments, a database of records is created and maintained corresponding to a plurality of transactions in an e-procurement system. In various embodiments, database records are weighted and sorted according a transaction method associated with the records. In various embodiments, recommendation data is generated for items associated with the records to suggest more efficient methods for offering items for procurement in an e-marketplace based on the weights and sort order of the records.

Abstract: Techniques for community-based spend analysis in a software as a service computing environment are disclosed. The techniques leverage information available about community spend to provide new insights into a particular customer's spend. The new insights result from using a trained deep learning classifier to classify spend data lines from both the community of customers and the particular customer in standard spend categories. The spend data lines may be from invoices, requisitions and purchase orders, for example. According to some of the techniques, after classifying the spend data lines in standard spend categories, a highly accurate community-based comparison between spend of the community versus spend of the particular customer in one or more particular standard spend categories is provided in a graphical user interface.

Abstract: Techniques for tracking software platform utilization by a plurality of entities are described herein. In an embodiment, a management computer system stores first entity data defining a first entity and associating the first entity with a plurality of first accounts, the first entity having access to the management computer system programmed which provides options for performing a plurality of tasks. The management computer system tracks a first plurality of interactions with the management computer system that are performed by each of the plurality of first accounts. The management computer system stores first interaction data defining one or more aspects of interaction with the management computer system that are performed by each of the plurality of first accounts. The management computer system stores second entity data defining a plurality of second entities and associating each of the plurality of second entities with a plurality of second accounts.

Abstract: In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method comprises storing, in one or more data repositories, transactional data relating to past transactions involving a plurality of commodities between a plurality of buyer entities and a plurality of supplier entities; calculating metric data of one or more overages from the transactional data, wherein each of the one or more overages indicates an amount to which a cost of a commodity item as specified in an invoice exceeds a cost of the commodity item as specified in a requisition or a purchase order, the invoice being generated in response to the requisition or the purchase order; receiving, from a computer associated with a buyer entity, a request to generate a requisition or a purchase order for one or more commodity items; identifying, from the request, a supplier identification (ID) associated with a particular supplier entity of the plurality of supplier entities or a commodity ID associated with a particular commodity of the plurality of commodities, for a p