Improved functionality including AI/machine learning capabilities added to company’s proprietary Expense Management Optimization and Auditing Technology (eMOAT^SM) saves clients tens of millions each year

CHICAGO, Ill. – September 25, 2020 – Fine Tune, a provider of “nuisance expense” management solutions, announced today significant enhancements to its Expense Management Optimization and Auditing Technology (eMOAT^SM).

eMOAT^SM is a sophisticated expense management platform developed and used by Fine Tune’s world-class expense experts to defend their clients’ financial bottom lines through a combination of continuous monitoring, auditing, and proactive management of an indirect spend program.

As a result, eMOAT^SM identifies whether a program is performing as expected and, if not, helps to quickly answer the “what, where, and why” of each expense anomaly.

“eMOAT^SM was initially launched as an auditing application to ensure our clients, across many industries including manufacturing, retail, food processing and pharmaceuticals, actually got what they signed up for,” said Ben Miller, Chief Information Officer, Fine Tune. “So, when we built it, the main function was to audit for contract compliance. Over the years, however, we’ve learned that in order to effectively manage and truly optimize our clients’ expenses, we needed to go way beyond invoice-to-contract compliance auditing.”

Central to the enhancements have been the development of a real-time expense category-specific dashboard and inclusion of predictive analytics and machine learning, both of which help anticipate problems before they appear on invoices.

Fine Tune has partnered with Edj Analytics, a leading data analytics firm, to assist with incorporating the next level of data science into eMOAT^SM.

These advancements include using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to become even more rapidly responsive in spotting trends and anomalies, as well as anticipating needs or actions ahead of time to further drive down costs for clients.

eMOAT^SM Core Features

• Compliance Audits: Contract items, rates, and terms; defines metrics for measurement and monitoring (e.g. expected spend by bucket levels for each specific contract)
• Credit Tracking: Quickly identifies overcharges and assists in credit recoveries, reporting and tracking
• Expense-Specific Dashboards: Reporting dashboards designed by world-class experts in specific expense categories, which provide multiple disparate data points (e.g. unit rate audits, employee loss/ruin, weekly spend, etc.) into an easily shareable visual display for an instant snapshot of the most relevant aspects of each account for each individual expense
• Targeted Action Items: The system automatically generates actionable insights for Fine Tune expense experts on behalf of each client

Beyond basic contractual compliance auditing, eMOAT^SM also:

• Identifies unapproved items and services
• Identifies and assists in managing variable and discretionary costs
• Identifies unexpected variance to expected spend levels
• Identifies optimization opportunities

“eMOAT^SM not only allows us to defend our clients with highly sophisticated and targeted technology but it frees up our world-class experts to then go on the offense for our clients,” said Matt Smith, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Fine Tune. “Ultimately eMOAT^SM, operated by world-class experts, is the engine that powers us to achieve a level of expense management not available elsewhere in the marketplace, and allows us to achieve results way beyond expert contract negotiation and contract enforcement. Our solution takes expense management a step further where we truly optimize our clients' programs, given their very specific needs and circumstances.”