Technology Investment Intelligence — for the CFO
Finance has never had a system of record for technology. Until now.
Summarized financial data no longer cuts it. Ternary gives CEOs & CFOs the data infrastructure and full-resolution intelligence to govern AI, SaaS, cloud, and on-premise investment — with the attribution, precision, and ERP integration required to own the technology P&L — not just what it costs, but what it returns.
Attending Gartner Finance Symposium? Reserve a meeting.
Only 14%
of CFOs can report measurable AI ROI
3.2x
GenAI spend growth in 2025 — with zero attribution infrastructure
75%
expected growth in enterprise LLM budgets over the next year
The full-estate governance gap
Every major cost center has a system of record. Except the one that’s growing fastest.
Technology spend is now 5%+ of enterprise revenue, growing 9–14% annually. AI is compounding the problem at 3.2x. The CFO is the only executive accountable for a cost center with no underlying data infrastructure.
25-35%
of revenue
Headcount
HRIS
25-35%
of revenue
Real estate
IWMS
5%+
of revenue
Technology
NOTHING
FROM DATA ASSEMBLY TO JUDGMENT INFRASTRUCTURE, FAST.
“We spend a lot of time collecting the data and getting everything in order, then have to do the analysis on top of that to tell the story of what’s going on. If someone could take all of that and just bring me to the end of the chain — show where the margin is leaking — I can make a much quicker decision.”
Sr. Manager, Cloud Infrastructure FP&A
Enterprise SaaS
Use cases
Three compounding problems. One platform.
Cloud, SaaS, and AI are not three separate optimization problems — they are three Finance governance gaps stemming from the same structural absence. Ternary is the answer to all three.
01
Full-estate technology ledger
One Finance-owned ledger across AI, SaaS, cloud, and on-premise — mapped to your cost centers, GL codes, and ERP chart of accounts. The system of record Finance has never had.
02
AI investment intelligence
User and team-level attribution first — who is consuming AI, at what cost, against which outcome. Credit burn rate against contract periods so Finance accrues correctly and sees overruns before they become unbudgeted invoices.
03
SaaS investment intelligence
SaaS cost normalized into the technology ledger and held against revenue, project, team, and use case data — so the CFO knows what the portfolio returns. Not utilization. Not waste. Return on investment.
Who is it for
Built for the Finance Leader. Trusted by FP&A.
Ternary is bought by CFOs, championed by FP&A leaders, and operated alongside the FinOps analyst. One platform, three audiences — the same source of truth.
CFO / VP Finance
“The board asks for AI ROI. I have no data infrastructure to answer. Technology is 5%+ of revenue with no governance system — and prepaid AI contracts are burning down ahead of schedule while we book a smooth accrual that masks the overrun.”
Sleepless nights from:
- Board-level AI ROI accountability with no underlying data
- AI budget already gone — Finance just doesn’t know it yet
- Only major cost center with no system of record
Director of FP&A
“Prepaid credits are spread evenly by Finance over the contract period — masking the fact that we’re already burning through them ahead of schedule. We need where the actual consumption rate lives, not what the invoice eventually says.”
Sleepless nights from:
- Accrual inaccuracy from smooth-spread AI contracts
- Spreadsheets the CFO uses but doesn’t trust
- No period-close-compatible technology data
FinOps Analyst / Lead
“We are very immature in AI attribution. Engineering is using Cursor, Glean — we track it at cost centers at best. When we get bill shock, that’s when governance kicks into gear. Finance ignores our reports.”
Sleepless nights from:
- Cloud-only scope — no AI or SaaS coverage in current tools
- Finance ignores Engineering-owned FinOps reports
- Bill-shock-driven governance, not proactive
Customer proof
Practitioner voices from the people living the gap.
Heard in the wild, from the very people who live in technology’s manual forensics.
CFO Accountability
“A good Finance team surfaces the problem early and highlights the risk. A great Finance team shows the mitigations they’re working to that risk. The CFO does not want to look stupid when they go to the earnings call.“
Sr. Manager, Cloud Infrastructure FP&A
Enterprise SaaS
Cost-to-outcome gap
“Where the insight is missing is to really understand the gross margin equation — what’s driving margin falling outside of target. We want to look at this from a customer and product profitability lens. This is a lot of work.”
Sr. Manager, Cloud Infrastructure FP&A
Enterprise SaaS
Ternary as data hub
“I’m already pulling third-party AI vendor data into Ternary via BYOD to get a unified cost view. I’m also downloading Ternary CSVs and enriching them in Claude — looking at biggest movers, identifying outliers, and building 12-month forecasts.”
Head of FinOps
Enterprise Contact Center SaaS
AI attribution gap
“The primary question I get from leadership is who is consuming AI and at what cost. Beyond that: which models are being used and whether they’re being used efficiently. The hardest and most unsolved question is measuring outcomes.”
Head of FinOps
Enterprise Contact Center SaaS
Ternary is built for organizations where:
Revenue
$500M and up
Mid-market through global enterprise — where technology spend is material to the P&L.
Technology estate
Multi-category
Operating across two or more of: Cloud, SaaS, AI — with sprawl Finance can’t reconcile.
AI investment
Active and growing
With board-level ROI accountability and CFO pressure to attribute every dollar.
ERP in place
Complements SAP, Oracle, Workday
Feeds GL-mapped technology actuals into the ERP you already trust.
Where other solutions fall short
Why every existing tool leaves Finance behind.
Most solutions solve fragments of this problem for IT or Engineering buyers. Ternary brings the full-estate technology ledger to the Office of the CFO.
Solution type
Services
What it delivers / What it misses
ERP
Finance — invoices and GL
Sees invoices only. No decomposition behind the invoice. Technology-blind by architecture.
Cloud FinOps tools
Engineering and FinOps
Engineering-owned, Finance-inaccessible. No ERP/GL integration. Cloud-only scope misses AI and SaaS.
SaaS management tools
IT discovery and procurement
Answers IT’s discovery question (what’s unused). Does not answer Finance’s investment question (what’s not returning).
ITFM / TBM
CIO and IT Finance
Top-down allocation for the CIO, not the CFO. Investment accountability is out of scope.
Modern FP&A
Finance planning and forecasting
Plan against numbers they cannot decompose. Zero native technology spend coverage.
ITAM / SAM
IT asset and license optimization
Optimization is not intelligence. Measures cost; does not provide ROI attribution against revenue.
Ternary
CFO, FP&A, FinOps Analyst
Finance-native, full-estate ledger. Investment management — not cost optimization. The judgment infrastructure no other vendor builds toward.
Ready to govern your full technology estate?
Talk to a Ternary team member who works with Finance leaders every day — or book a technical demo for your FinOps team.
Attending Gartner Finance Symposium? Reserve a meeting.
Finance-first data model
Judgment infrastructure
SAP · Oracle · Workday integration
Token-level AI attribution
Vendor lock-in avoidance