Every organization struggles with it, the purchase that happens outside policy, the surprise invoice from a department that did not follow procedure, or the supplier added last minute without procurement’s involvement.
This is maverick spending, and it silently drains millions from enterprises every year.
The challenge is not just preventing maverick spending, it is doing so without creating bureaucracy that slows down teams and frustrates employees.
This is where modern digital procurement solutions, like توقيع, are transforming the balance between control and freedom.
1. Understanding Maverick Spending
Maverick spending happens when employees or departments purchase goods or services outside the approved procurement process.
It often starts with good intentions, someone needs something urgently, the system feels slow, or a policy seems confusing.
But these small decisions, repeated hundreds of times, create major problems.
Maverick spending leads to:
- Uncontrolled costs and budget overruns.
- Missed savings opportunities due to fragmented purchasing.
- Compliance risks and audit issues.
- Inconsistent supplier quality and performance.
- Difficulty in forecasting and financial reporting.
According to a Deloitte procurement study, uncontrolled or “off-contract” spending can account for 10% to 20% of total corporate expenditure.
This is not just inefficiency, it is a governance issue that directly affects profitability.
2. Why Traditional Controls Fail
Many organizations try to solve maverick spending through more rules, more forms, and more approvals.
The result is predictable, employees bypass the system even more because it feels slow and complicated.
Traditional procurement controls were designed for compliance, not for usability.
Procurement leaders must understand that people avoid systems not because they dislike governance, but because they value speed and simplicity.
The real solution is not enforcing more rules, but designing a system that makes compliance the easiest option.
3. Smart Governance Through Digital Procurement
Modern procurement platforms like توقيع make governance invisible.
Instead of forcing employees to follow procedures manually, the system embeds governance directly into the workflow.
Here is how digital governance works:
- Every purchase request automatically routes to the right approver.
- Each request is checked against budgets and categories in real time.
- Supplier selection is guided by pre-approved vendor lists.
- All communication, approvals, and quotations are recorded automatically.
Employees no longer need to worry about whether they are following the process correctly, because the process follows them.
This approach turns compliance into a natural part of daily work, not an extra step.
4. The Role of User Experience
Procurement systems fail when they are designed for policy, not for people.
To eliminate maverick spending, the experience must be as simple as sending an email or making an online purchase.
That is where Penny stands out.
The interface is clean, intuitive, and designed for business users, not just procurement specialists.
Employees can submit requests, attach quotations, and track approvals effortlessly.
When systems are easy to use, adoption increases naturally, and governance becomes a byproduct of good design.
5. Visibility, The Most Powerful Deterrent
Maverick spending thrives in the dark.
When purchases are invisible, there is no accountability, and when there is no accountability, compliance fades.
Visibility changes everything.
A centralized procurement platform gives finance and procurement teams a real-time view of all spending across departments.
Every request, purchase order, and invoice becomes traceable.
When people know that their purchases are visible, behavior changes.
Transparency builds responsibility, and responsibility builds governance.
Penny’s real-time dashboards give leaders full control over who spends, on what, and why, creating a culture of visibility-driven accountability.
6. Approvals That Empower, Not Delay
One of the main reasons employees bypass procurement systems is slow approval cycles.
Procurement 2.0 fixes that by turning approvals into instant workflows.
Instead of chasing managers for signatures, the system automatically notifies approvers, allows one-click validation, and logs every decision instantly.
With Penny, approvals take minutes, not days.
That means no reason for teams to go around the process, and no friction between governance and speed.
Automation ensures that compliance no longer feels like bureaucracy.
7. Data-Driven Policy Enforcement
In the past, enforcing procurement policy meant manual auditing and spot checks.
Now, data analytics and AI make it continuous and proactive.
Modern systems can flag unusual spending patterns, duplicate requests, or purchases outside preferred supplier lists automatically.
They can even detect when employees repeatedly request non-compliant items and alert managers in real time.
This data-driven enforcement ensures that governance evolves with the business, adjusting to new risks and categories dynamically.
At Penny, our customers use analytics to identify leakage, measure compliance rates, and continuously improve procurement discipline without relying on manual policing.
8. Governance Without Bureaucracy, The Penny Approach
At Penny, we believe that good governance does not slow teams down, it speeds them up by eliminating confusion and risk.
Our platform is built around three simple principles:
- Make compliance effortless, through automation and intelligent workflows.
- Make visibility total, through unified data and real-time reporting.
- Make user experience intuitive, so that employees naturally prefer using the system.
The result is a procurement culture where governance is seamless, compliance is automatic, and maverick spending fades away.
9. The Cultural Shift, From Control to Enablement
Modern procurement governance is not about control, it is about enablement.
Procurement teams that act as gatekeepers slow innovation.
Procurement teams that act as enablers drive efficiency.
The difference lies in how systems are designed and communicated.
When governance is framed as empowerment, not restriction, employees feel supported, not monitored.
They begin to see procurement as a partner in achieving business goals, not as a barrier.
Penny helps organizations achieve this cultural shift by making procurement governance a shared responsibility rather than a central constraint.
الخلاصة
Maverick spending is not a software problem, it is a system design problem.
The key to eliminating it lies in creating systems that are so easy, so transparent, and so intelligent that compliance becomes the natural way of working.
Governance and agility are not opposites, they are partners when powered by the right technology.
The future belongs to organizations that understand this balance.
Book a personalized demo today and see how Penny helps enterprises enforce procurement governance without bureaucracy, transforming control into collaboration.
