Why your most critical SaaS tools are still running on spreadsheets (and how to finally bring them under control)

At a recent Stitchflow onboarding session, one mid-market IT lead dropped a line we hear more often than you'd think:

“1Password is tier-one for us—our most sensitive data, and we don’t even have SSO turned on. We’re just tracking access manually.”

That comment lands with a thud because it’s familiar. Many of the most business-critical SaaS tools, which handle payroll, finance, and sensitive customer data, are still governed by email chains and spreadsheets.

No SCIM. No API. No audit trail. Just manual provisioning and the occasional “I think they’re deprovisioned.”

These tools often sit outside your identity provider, disconnected from your ITSM, and invisible to your automated workflows. Here’s why that happens and how teams are using Stitchflow to fix it, even when the tools don’t integrate.

The disconnect: criticality ≠ automation

You’d think that the most sensitive systems would be the first ones to automate. But in the real world, it often flips the other way.

Let’s look at a few apps that show up again and again in our customer inventories:

• ADP
• NetSuite
• 1Password
• Salesforce
• Talkdesk

They handle PII, billing, compliance workflows, and revenue operations, yet they’re also the least likely to support SCIM or have governance automation in place.

Why?

Three reasons this happens over and over

1. The SSO/SCIM paywall

For many critical apps, lifecycle automation lives behind an expensive enterprise plan. If your org isn’t on that tier, you’re stuck managing users manually.

Result: No IDP integration, no automated deprovisioning, and no audit-ready logs.

2. Non-standard access logic

Finance, HR, and operations systems often follow rules that can’t be captured in your IDP, such as exceptions based on tenure, region, or team-specific quirks. Admins hesitate to automate what isn’t clearly defined.

Result: Provisioning stays manual because it feels safer.

3. Fear of breaking something

Nobody wants to be the one who breaks payroll. Without sandboxed testing or stable APIs, IT teams fall back to the default: spreadsheets and email approvals.

Result: “Safe” becomes synonymous with “manual.”

A closer look at the reality

Here’s a simplified (but representative) view of how we’ve seen these apps managed in real

When these apps are reviewed for audit or offboarding, the process is painful:

• Export a user list (if possible)
• Cross-check with your IDP and HRIS
• Flag mismatches
• File a ticket
• Hope nothing breaks

Why Stitchflow handles this differently

We built Stitchflow to close exactly this kind of visibility gap.
Even if a vendor doesn’t support SCIM or offer an API, we still pull the data.

Our customers use Stitchflow to:

• Extract live user and license lists from admin panels via browser automation
• Compare access with HR systems, IDPs, and contracts
• Identify stale, orphaned, or shared accounts
• File tickets directly into tools like Freshservice or Jira
• Export everything in a clean, audit-ready report

We don’t just track apps, we reconcile them. Our platform automates the access review process, comparing against your systems of record and surfacing mismatches in real time.

What this looks like in the wild

Here’s how real teams in finance, retail, and operations have replaced manual workflows with Stitchflow automation:

These wins aren’t theoretical. They save hours per month and unlock savings that can reach five figures per quarter.

The security and compliance upside

These are the systems auditors care about. You can’t say “we think they’re offboarded.” You need evidence.

With Stitchflow:

• Every account has a status: active, stale, orphaned, or disabled
• Every mismatch is logged between HR, IDP, and the app itself
• Every remediation is tied to a ticket: no ambiguity, no missed steps

Even when SSO isn’t enabled, you still have a clean access trail.

The cost control upside

Enterprise apps, such as NetSuite or Talkdesk, often come with seat minimums or usage-based pricing.
Without visibility, you’re overpaying for idle or stale accounts.

Stitchflow gives you:

• Daily snapshots of actual usage
• Easy-to-spot reclaim opportunities
• Exportable data for renewal prep

One customer spotted £40,000 in reclaimable license value without upgrading a single vendor plan.

How to spot your blind spots

You don’t need to start with all 300 apps. Start here:

1. List your Top 10 highest-risk tools: the ones tied to money, data, or audit scope
2. Check their provisioning: Can users be automatically offboarded?
3. Check for exports: Can you get a user list today, without help from support?
4. Compare with HR + IDP: any mismatches are red flags
5. Schedule checks: visibility once isn’t enough

These steps are part of our approach to reliable SaaS user management across your stack. If you're already doing this manually, you're already spending the time. Stitchflow just makes it repeatable.

The bottom line

Your business-critical apps aren’t going anywhere. But the risk they carry doesn’t have to be manual, invisible, or expensive.

You can have full visibility.
You can catch gaps before they become problems.
And you can do it without upgrading to every vendor’s enterprise plan.

Stitchflow helps you govern what matters most, regardless of integration status.

→ Book a demo and see it live