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County reviews software subscriptions after finding payments scattered across accounts

Hillsborough County Budget Liaison Committee · November 5, 2025
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Summary

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY — Finance and IT staff reported a cross-department review that found software subscription payments scattered across multiple accounts and proposed new inventory and reconciliation controls.

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY — County IT and finance staff told the committee they identified software subscription payments across at least eight different general ledger accounts and have begun a program to centralize inventory, reconcile payments and reduce duplication.

The review team built a workbook that aggregated purchase orders, contract manager names and credit-card purchases for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 and then parsed line items to isolate subscription payments that had been commingled with other expenses.

"We have identified the need to do periodic reviews of payments and reconciliations, publish a data dictionary for software and provide enhanced training for data capture," said a finance staff member summarizing the work. The committee was told the county will coordinate with the clerk of the circuit court/comptroller—s office to identify accounts that should capture subscription payments.

Planned controls include: a technology governance review of new and renewing software, a standardized software inventory with clearly defined fields, reconciliations between the general ledger and the inventory, cybersecurity risk assessments for new applications, and efforts to identify duplicative modules that could be consolidated for economies of scale.

Why it matters: Software subscriptions, if unmanaged, can create budgeting inaccuracy, procurement risk and cybersecurity exposure. Staff said they would seek to complete the discovery and initial cleanup as soon as practicable and aim to have improved controls in place before the end of the year.

What the committee asked: Members requested a quantified estimate of potential savings or reductions the review might yield; staff said they did not yet have a final aggregate dollar figure but planned departmental workbooks and cross-department consolidation analyses.

No formal board action was taken; the committee asked staff to return with more detailed numbers and timelines.