ScopeGuard: ERP Cost Sentinel
10/10
Demand Score
ERP programs bleed budget monthly through scope creep, add-on licenses, and untracked services—CFOs need immediate controls before quarter close.
8/10
Blue Ocean
Competition Level
$3k-20k
Price/Month
Predicted customer spend
12 days
Time to MVP
Difficulty: Hard
The Problem
Overlay for ERP programs that ingests vendor contracts, SOWs, rate cards, and change orders; normalizes line items via contract OCR+LLM; maps obligations to live ERP usage (modules, licenses, services
🔗 Validated by Real User Complaints
This problem has been verified through 2 real user complaints:
Competitor Landscape
- Apptio
- Coupa
- Zylo
- Oracle PPM
- SAP Solution Manager
Must-Have Features for MVP
Contract OCR+LLM with human-in-the-loop validation
Line-item to cost-center/module mapping
Forecasted burn and overrun date predictions
Change-order approval gating with budget impacts
Pre-invoice anomaly detection
Integrations: SAP/Oracle/D365, ServiceNow/Jira, Coupa/Ariba
Audit logs and variance explanations
⚠️ Potential Challenges
- High-accuracy contract parsing for diverse formats
- Securing read access to ERP, HCM, and procurement data
- Vendor pushback on auto-holds/gating
- Data latency from timesheets and invoices
Risk Level: Moderate
🎯 Keys to Success
- >98% accurate line-item mapping after calibration
- Detects and prevents >15% of hidden/overlooked costs in first 90 days
- <2 weeks to first live variance alert
- Finance and PMO adoption via native workflows and SSO
Ready to Build This?
This hard-difficulty project could be your next micro-SaaS success.