ERP Vendor Contract Guard
10/10
Demand Score
ERP programs often exceed budget by 30–50% due to unmanaged change orders and opaque vendor billing.
8/10
Blue Ocean
Competition Level
$2k-9k
Price/Month
Predicted customer spend
12 days
Time to MVP
Difficulty: Moderate
The Problem
A contract-to-actuals watchdog for ERP vendors. It ingests SOWs, rate cards, and SLAs; links to vendor timesheets and your Jira/Azure boards; and flags cost overruns early. It auto-reconciles invoices
🔗 Validated by Real User Complaints
This problem has been verified through 5 real user complaints:
Competitor Landscape
- Ironclad (CLM)
- SAP Ariba/Coupa (procure-to-pay)
- Vendr/Zip (SaaS procurement)
- Tipalti (payables)
- Harvest/Tempo (time tracking)
Must-Have Features for MVP
SOW/contract clause parser with risk normalization and auto-alerts on nonstandard terms
Budget vs. actuals meter tying invoices to story completion and acceptance tests
Variance detection from timesheets vs. repo commits or ticket throughput
Change Order Simulator that forecasts cost/impact before approval
Rate benchmarking for ERP roles by geo/skill
Milestone-based payment guardrails via Tipalti/Stripe escrow
Dispute pack generator with evidence and timelines
⚠️ Potential Challenges
- Vendor data access for timesheets and deliverables
- Legal nuances around escrow/withholding across jurisdictions
- Change management resistance from vendors
- Reliable mapping of effort to scope completion
Risk Level: Moderate
🎯 Keys to Success
- Fast time-to-value via read-only ingestion of existing contracts and tools
- Early, trustworthy variance alerts that prevent runaway spend
- Neutral, audit-ready evidence improving vendor conversations
- Minimal workflow disruption with plug-ins to Jira/Azure and AP systems
Ready to Build This?
This moderate-difficulty project could be your next micro-SaaS success.