Everything Structera has published on procurement spend classification, spend taxonomy design, and choosing analytics tooling. Bookmark this page — we add new content regularly.
Guides
- How Structera works — Five-step workflow from upload to classified Excel export.
- Pricing — Pay-as-you-go tiered rates with worked examples.
- UNSPSC guide — What UNSPSC is, how it relates to NAICS / SIC / NACE, and how Structera maps to it.
- What is a spend cube? — The three-dimensional view of procurement spend every analytics project needs.
- Tail spend management — Why the long tail of small purchases matters and how to bring it under management.
- Spend analytics software — What spend analytics tools do, and the questions to ask any of them.
Choosing a tool
- How to choose spend classification software — Ten questions to ask any vendor before you commit.
- The true cost of spend analytics — Licence, implementation, internal time, re-runs and exit.
- Do you need a procurement platform? — When a suite is worth it, and when it is not yet.
Reference
- Procurement glossary — Plain-English definitions of common terms.
Blog
- Category management for small procurement teams — How a small procurement team can start category management without a transformation programme: one category view, three priorities and a one-page plan.
- Spend visibility: what it is and how to get it — The three questions spend visibility should answer, why most organisations still cannot answer them, and a four-step route to a trusted spend picture.
- Commodity codes: UNSPSC, ECLASS, CPV and HS — What each commodity coding system is built for, which one to use for spend analysis, tenders, catalogues and customs, and the practical problem they share.
- Procurement dashboard in Power BI: what to show — The five visuals a procurement dashboard needs, how to model spend data in Power BI, and why most dashboards fail before the first chart is drawn.
- Procurement quick wins: picking your first three — A one-afternoon scoring method for choosing your first procurement projects, the five quick wins that usually qualify, and the ones that only look quick.
- Do you need a procurement platform? A checklist — When a procurement suite is worth it, when categorised spend data and the tools you already have are enough, and why the order you do them in matters.
- The true cost of spend analytics: a buyer's guide — Licence, implementation, internal time, re-runs and exit: the five parts of spend analytics cost, a comparison sheet, and the questions that expose the rest.
- How to choose spend classification software — Ten questions to ask any spend classification vendor, grouped by what they protect you from: inaccurate output, a poor fit, lock-in and hidden cost.
- How to reduce indirect spend, in order of effort — Five moves from consolidating duplicate suppliers to tendering, what to avoid, and why indirect savings programmes stall on data rather than strategy.
- Spend analysis template: the columns you actually need — The four essential columns, what each optional one buys you, which to leave out for data-protection reasons, and the layout rules that save hours.
- Procurement maturity: score your team in ten minutes — Five levels without the consultancy language, six questions to score yourself honestly, and why most teams are stuck between level 1 and level 2.
- ABC analysis for procurement spend — How to run an ABC analysis in twenty minutes, why the C class matters more than people think, and the second axis almost everyone forgets to plot.
- Kraljic matrix: how to build one from your spend data — The four quadrants explained, how to plot your own categories, where the framework misleads, and why most attempts stall on data rather than strategy.
- How long does a spend analysis take? — Realistic timelines from two days to three months, where the time actually goes, the four things that make it slow, and why the second run is much faster.
- How to measure spend classification accuracy — Why vendor accuracy claims usually measure coverage instead, and a one-hour method to measure the real thing on your own data.
- Spend taxonomy vs chart of accounts: why you need both — The chart of accounts reports to the outside world; a spend taxonomy tells you what you bought and who else could sell it. Why one cannot do the other's job.
- PO data or invoice data for spend analysis? — Why invoice data should be your primary source, what PO data adds, and why the gap between the two is usually the most useful finding in the exercise.
- Spend analysis report: what to include and what to cut — What belongs in a spend analysis report, what to leave out, why the data-quality note protects you, and how to write recommendations people act on.
- AI in procurement: what works in 2026 and what does not — AI in procurement, sorted: what runs in production today, what is promising but immature, what is still a slide, and five questions for any vendor.
- AI spend classification: how it works and where it fails — How AI classifies procurement spend, why it beats supplier mapping tables, the four failure modes to test for, and what accuracy claims really mean.
- Is it safe to upload spend data to a SaaS tool? — Procurement data security: what is in a spend file, whether it is personal data under UK GDPR, eight questions for any vendor, and how to send less.
- Spend under management: definition, formula and benchmarks — What spend under management means, the formula, realistic benchmarks for indirect spend, how the number gets inflated, and four ways to raise it.
- Spend classification software vs consultants vs in-house — What spend classification costs each way: consultancy fees and timelines, the real cost of doing it in-house, software pricing, and how to choose.
- Spend analysis in Excel: method, limits, and when to stop — Spend analysis in Excel: supplier normalisation, the VLOOKUP mapping table, why it breaks on the long tail, and four signals it is time to move on.
- Spend taxonomy: how many levels and categories do you need? — How to structure a spend taxonomy: why three levels beats four, how many Level 1 and Level 3 categories to use, and five signs yours is the wrong shape.
- How to clean supplier master data in a day — Duplicate supplier names quietly break every spend report built on them. A practical five-step method that takes a day, not a master-data project.
- Spend analysis vs spend analytics: the difference — They are not the same thing, and buying the second before doing the first is how procurement teams end up with a dashboard nobody opens.
- Direct vs indirect spend: a practical guide — Where the boundary sits, the cases teams argue about, why indirect is where spend analysis pays off fastest, and what it means for your taxonomy.
- How to calculate procurement savings credibly — Savings numbers finance will accept: separate hard savings from cost avoidance, agree the baseline first, and always report on constant volume.
- Maverick spend: what it is and how to cut it — Off-contract buying is usually the largest recoverable saving in a spend file. How to measure it, why it happens, and what actually reduces it.
- Supplier rationalisation: a practical playbook — Consolidating your vendor base without creating supply risk. A five-step method, the failure modes, and how to size the prize honestly.
- What does a procurement category manager do? — The role explained: what it covers, how it differs from a buyer, how categories get assigned, and a first-90-days sequence that works.
- Procurement KPIs that actually matter — Seven measures that inform decisions, four that should come off your scorecard, and why most of them depend on having classified spend.
- How to prepare an ERP export for spend analysis — Which columns to request, why line level beats header level, the export traps that inflate totals, and the reconciliation step you cannot skip.
- 7 spend data quality problems (and the fixes) — Duplicate suppliers, part numbers in descriptions, credit notes, intercompany charges and more - the issues every spend analysis hits, and a ten-minute pre-flight check.
- UNSPSC vs NAICS for procurement spend classification — Which standard should you map your procurement transactions to? A short, practical comparison of UNSPSC and NAICS for spend classification, with a decision matrix.
- How to build a procurement spend cube (the pragmatic way) — Practical, opinionated guide to building a procurement spend cube without weeks of analyst time or a multi-month enterprise implementation.
- What is procurement spend classification? — A plain-English guide to procurement spend classification: what it is, why it matters, how it used to be done, and what changed when LLMs got cheap enough to do it in minutes.
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