Method and standards

The four standards

1. 1

   FinOps Framework

   The FinOps Foundation's method for running technology spend as a business discipline. We use its Inform, Optimize and Operate phases, and its Crawl, Walk, Run scale to show how mature each part of your spend management is.

2. 2

   FOCUS

   The FinOps Foundation's common layout for bills. Every vendor's bill goes into it, so what was invoiced, the real cost after discounts and list prices compare like for like.

3. 3

   ISO/IEC 19770

   The international standard for tracking the software an organisation owns, installs and uses. We use it to reconcile licences owned against licences used, and to count AI seats once.

4. 4

   TBM

   Technology Business Management: the TBM Council's standard way to sort technology costs by what was bought, what job it does and who uses it, and its methods for sharing costs out fairly.

How we handle your data

• You prepare and send the agreed data; it is covered by the contract, the confidentiality agreement and our data-handling terms.
• If you would rather not send staff names, you use codes. We work and report only in codes; you keep the list of who is who, and we can help you set up the coding.
• Each client's work is done in its own workspace. Files are kept as an encrypted set of files in a protected space that only that workspace can reach.
• We use AI assistance. Your confidential data is processed only on our own machines and is never sent to cloud AI services.
• For very sensitive data: a remote workspace you provide, or an image of our workspace to run on your side, agreed before the work starts and priced to match.
• On request, everything is deleted at the end, with a signed certificate of deletion: what was held, where, when and how it was destroyed, and by whom.