[FerroAlloys.com]Tungsten Network has announced the expansion of its spend analytics offering, launching a free edition to help more businesses get visibility on their finances.

This resource will allow buyers to analyse their own invoice data, offering comparisons against past spending patterns, often uncovering significant opportunities to make savings.
Until now, Tungsten Network Analytics was a paid for, add-on service, providing a range of insights on spending trends and price variances. The free, cloud-based version will now enable buyers on the Tungsten Network to draw live data from the invoices that have already been processed. It will tap into the pool of 16.1m invoices handled every year from Tungsten Network’s 203,000 global suppliers.

The pricing for the Tungsten Network Analytics product has been restructured to provide three tiers of functionality: Free, Paid and Premium. The free service permits access to top level trends on the way buyers pay their suppliers, providing a picture of their spending over time. The tool also provides useful insight around the currency buyers purchase with and which suppliers they are spending the most money with. The upgraded versions will provide more detailed information on price differences on identical products, helping businesses to typically save between one and four per cent of supplier spend. It will also identify where suppliers have potentially allocated incorrect tax on invoices, allowing businesses to reclaim VAT more easily.

Andrew Nichols, Head of Tungsten Network Analytics said: “Our recent research into SMEs buying habits has revealed that smarter spending could save businesses around £106bn a year. It’s vital that they have the tools to do this and so we felt it was important to make Tungsten Network Analytics a free service for all our buyers to use. Last year, our e-invoicing platform handled £133 billion worth of invoices. Clearly this holds a lot of data and a wealth of saving opportunities for our customers.

“The new free version incorporates the best of automation technology to make sure that customers can navigate on the platform autonomously whilst having complete visibility. We are confident that Tungsten Network Analytics will go a long way in supporting buyers on our network to stay globally competitive, efficient and profitable.”
The technology is already being trialled by a number of businesses, and is available immediately to all buyers on the Tungsten Network.

Tungsten Network Analytics has been enhanced with research and development by the Tungsten Centre for Intelligent Data Analytics (TCIDA). A partnership with Goldsmiths University in London, the Centre has been investigating how artificial intelligence can add further sophistication to the product.

• [Editor:Jiang Li Juan ]