Do You Know What You're Spending on Contingent Workers This Year?

Did you know that nearly 60% of contingent workforce spend goes untracked? This results in real money and risk hiding in plain sight. Here's how to know exactly what you're spending on contingent workers, and take back control.

Almost 60% of contingent workforce spend goes untracked

Many businesses, especially those with smaller volumes of contingent workers, often lack the necessary management practices, technology, or processes to effectively capture and monitor all their contingent workforce spend.

In fact, according to a study by Ardent Partners, nearly 60 percent of contingent spending goes untracked in financial planning, forecasting, and budgeting in the average organization.

Why is this important, and how can your organization achieve full visibility and control over contingent workforce spending?

The Hidden Problem: Untracked Contingent Workforce Spend

As companies scale their use of contractors, temps, and agency workers, spend becomes harder to track.

Common challenges include:

Disconnected spreadsheets across departments
Hiring decisions made outside centralized processes
Inconsistent bill rates across locations
Vendor invoices that aren’t validated against contracts
Workforce data stored in emails instead of systems

The result? A fragmented view of your workforce - and your costs.

Why do Many Companies Lack Spend Visibility?

Large Enterprises

For large enterprises, contingent workforce programs are often managed by dedicated teams or MSPs. Rogue Spend isn’t an issue for large enterprise organizations which have the resources to hire either specialized internal teams or outsourced contingent workforce MSPs specifically designated to manage their contingent workforce program.

Mid-Market

But for Mid-Market organizations and growing companies:

Processes are manual
Technology is limited
Visibility is fragmented

Many rely on spreadsheets, which:

Create duplicate or conflicting data
Are prone to human error
Don’t scale with workforce growth

These spreadsheets are vulnerable to human error, they get saved in multiple locations across different departments leading to inaccurate figures, inefficient processes and rates that aren’t standardized, and they even get lost.

The result? Contingent workforce data is saved across a number of spreadsheets under the same name, with no one in the organization knowing which is the right document to use. Even worse, contingent workforce information is only saved through emails, and never even entered on the spreadsheet in the first place.

With no centralized place for contingent workforce data to be saved, businesses completely lack visibility into their contingent workforce spend.

Without a single source of truth, accurate spend tracking becomes nearly impossible.

Learn more about: How a VMS Improves Workforce Visibility

Why Not Knowing Your Contingent Spend is Costing You

Lack of visibility doesn’t just create confusion - it directly impacts your bottom line.

Key Risks:

Rogue spend (unapproved or off-contract hiring)
Overpaying for talent due to lack of rate benchmarking
Inconsistent vendor pricing across locations
No accountability for vendor performance
Inability to forecast or budget accurately

Questions You Should Be Able to Answer:

Are we paying market rates?
Are vendors following agreed rate cards?
Where is spend increasing - and why?
Which vendors deliver the best value?
Are we compliant with worker classification laws?

If you can’t answer these confidently, your spend is likely out of control.

Using a Vendor Management System gives your business the visibility and control it needs

Are you looking for a better, and cost-effective, solution that gives your business complete visibility into contingent workforce spend so that you can make program changes that reduce costs and improve workforce quality?

That solution comes in the form of a vendor management system.

A vendor management system (VMS), is a cloud-enabled software platform that centralized and automates the entire lifecycle of managing contingent workers and staffing agencies - from source to pay.

By consolidating all of the processes and data associated with contingent workforce management into one central location, businesses gain complete visibility into their contingent workforce spend and where program improvements can be made.

How a vendor management system gives you visibility into your Contingent Workforce Spend

A VMS enhances visibility into contingent workforce spending by centralizing data, automating processes, and offering real-time insights into costs, performance, and spending trends, ultimately facilitating better decision-making and budget management.

1 - Centralized Data and Reporting

A VMS serves as a single source of truth for all contingent workforce information, including worker details, project assignments, time and expense tracking, and vendor performance data.
This centralized data supports comprehensive reporting and analysis, allowing you to track spending by project, vendor, skill type, and other relevant categories.
A VMS enables the creation of dashboards and reports that provide a clear overview of contingent workforce costs and trends.

2 - Automated Processes and Reduced Errors

A VMS streamlines processes such as requisition management, onboarding, time and expense tracking, and invoice processing, reducing manual effort and potential errors.
Automated workflows ensure accurate data capture and timely payments, enhancing efficiency and reducing administrative overhead.

3 - Real-Time Insights and Spend Optimization

A VMS offers real-time visibility into contingent workforce costs, enabling you to identify potential cost-saving areas and optimize spending.
By tracking spending trends and analyzing vendor performance, you can make informed decisions about vendor selection, contract negotiations, and resource allocation.

A VMS can help you understand bill rates, pay rates, and margins, facilitating data-driven negotiations with vendors.

4 - Enhanced Compliance and Risk Management

A VMS helps ensure compliance with labor laws and regulations by tracking worker information, contract terms, and payment schedules.

It also aids in risk management by providing visibility into vendor performance, compliance, and potential liabilities.

5 - Integration with HCM and Financial Systems

A VMS can integrate with Human Capital Management (HCM) and financial systems, offering a comprehensive view of your entire workforce, including both employees and contingent workers.

This integration allows for seamless data sharing and reporting, improving accuracy and efficiency.

The Business Impact of Spend Visibility

Organizations that gain control of contingent workforce spend typically achieve:

Up to 20% cost savings
Improved vendor performance
Faster decision-making
Better workforce planning

Most importantly - they move from reactive to strategic workforce management.

Ready to See What Conexis VMS Can Do for Your Contingent Workforce Program?

Final Thoughts

If you don't know what you're spending on contingent workers, you're not managing your workforce, you're reacting to it. And every quarter that goes by without visibility is another quarter of rogue spend, inconsistent rates, and missed savings quietly adding up in the background.

The good news: this is one of the most fixable problems in contingent workforce management. You don't need a bigger team or a longer process, you need one centralized system that shows you exactly where your money is going. Once you have that visibility, cost control, compliance, and smarter workforce decisions stop being aspirational and start being your default.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does contingent workforce spend go untracked?

Most often because spend is scattered across spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected departments, with no single system pulling it all together.

How much of my contingent workforce spend could be going untracked?

Industry research from Ardent Partners suggests nearly 60% of contingent spend goes untracked in the average organization's financial planning and budgeting.

What's "rogue spend" in a contingent workforce program?

Unapproved or off-contract hiring that falls outside your standard vendor agreements and rate cards, often invisible until you have centralized reporting. Learn more at Reducing Rogue Spend in Your Contingent Workforce Program

Can a VMS really show me exactly what I'm spending?

Yes. A VMS centralizes worker, vendor, and billing data into one system, giving you real-time reporting by project, vendor, or skill type instead of piecing it together after the fact.

Does gaining spend visibility require a big process overhaul?

Not necessarily. Centralizing existing data into a single VMS is often less disruptive than the manual reconciliation processes it replaces.

What should I be able to answer about my contingent workforce spend right now?

Whether you're paying market rates, whether vendors follow agreed rate cards, where spend is increasing, and whether you're compliant with worker classification laws.

Learn more about the Benefits of a VMS - Free Guide

Learn more about the Benefits of a VMS and what to look for when choosing the best VMS for your organization. Download our Free VMS Buyer's Guide.

Additional Reading

Everything You Need to Know about VMS Cost Savings | Guide

The Conexis VMS Difference

Conexis VMS is an award-winning vendor management system built for organizations that want the power of enterprise software without the complexity or cost.

Leveraging the latest technology, Conexis VMS delivers the expertise, reliability and security of enterprise systems, while offering the flexibility, user friendliness and tailored, personal service you require. Learn more about our Company and what makes Conexis VMS different.

Discover the Power of Conexis VMS

Conexis VMS is trusted by staffing agencies, MSPs and leading organizations to modernize and manage their contingent workforce programs. Here's why organizations choose Conexis VMS:

Modern VMS Technology - Built on the latest AWS microservices architecture and Open API
Fast Implementation - Get up and running in under a month, free setup and training included
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Flexible Pricing - No setup fees, with free implementation, training and account management
Personal Attention - Experienced senior account management from implementation onward

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