What is Tech Recon?

An AI-assisted audit of your business technology spending — built to find the waste, redundancy, and unnecessary cost that accumulates when no one is actively managing the stack.

The short answer

Tech Recon is a structured review of your last 90 days of business technology spending. You submit up to three data sources — a credit card export, a bank statement, QuickBooks, Ramp, or similar — and Arcwise runs them through an AI-assisted analysis layer that cross-references every line item, identifies patterns across sources, and surfaces findings that wouldn't be visible in any single source alone.

The output is a written report: severity-ranked findings with estimated annual waste per finding, recommended actions, a sequenced plan for what to address first, and an Arcwise Spend Score that benchmarks your stack against what's typical for your size.

Why it exists

Most small and mid-sized businesses don't have anyone whose job it is to manage the technology stack. Tools get added when a problem needs solving, but they rarely get removed when the problem goes away — or when a better-consolidated alternative already exists. Over time, the stack accumulates.

The typical patterns: three cloud storage platforms where one would do, two e-signature tools running simultaneously because no one cancelled the old one when the new one was added, a Slack Pro subscription costing $300/month on a team that also has Microsoft Teams included in their M365 license. None of these are obvious without a deliberate, cross-source review.

The AI layer is what makes this practical at flat-fee pricing. Running correlation across three data sources simultaneously — matching tool names to categories, identifying overlapping functionality, flagging pricing anomalies against market benchmarks — is work that would take a human analyst days. The model does it in minutes, and a practitioner reviews, verifies, and writes the final report.

What it finds

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Redundant tools: Two or more tools solving the same problem — often because one was added without checking whether something already in the stack covered the need.

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Zombie subscriptions: Active billing on software that no one uses, was replaced, or was added for a project that ended.

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Over-provisioned licenses: Seat counts or tier levels that don't match actual usage — paying for 50 seats when 22 are active.

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Pricing inefficiencies: Tools where you're paying more than market rate, where an annual commitment would save significantly, or where a lower tier covers everything your team actually uses.

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Cross-source discrepancies: Double billing, inconsistent vendor names that mask the same recurring charge, and subscriptions that don't appear in a single source but are visible when sources are compared.

What it isn't

Tech Recon is not an IT audit, a security review, or an infrastructure assessment. It's specifically focused on spend — what you're paying for, why, and whether it's justified. It doesn't require access to your systems, your accounts, or your internal documentation. It works entirely from financial data exports.

If your issue is operational — process gaps, workflow friction, team coordination failures — that's a different product. Ops Recon is the diagnostic for that layer.

Who it's for

Any business that runs on software and hasn't done a deliberate review of its technology spending in the last 12 months. Industry doesn't matter — the patterns appear in professional services firms, construction companies, healthcare practices, and retail operations alike. The relevant question is whether any of these sound familiar:

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You've been adding tools for years and no one has a clear picture of what you're actually paying for

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You have no dedicated IT person and technology decisions get made by whoever's loudest in the room

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You suspect you're paying for overlapping tools but no one has ever sat down and mapped it out

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You're preparing for a growth phase and want to clean house before adding more complexity

The Arcwise Tech Recon format

The Arcwise version is a flat-fee engagement: $497, 48-hour turnaround after data and payment are received, no ongoing commitment required. You submit up to three data source exports, Arcwise runs the analysis, and you receive a written report with severity-ranked findings, estimated annual waste, recommended actions, and a sequenced implementation plan.

It's designed to be a standalone deliverable — something you can act on yourself or hand to whoever manages your finances or operations. No engagement required beyond the Recon itself.

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