Spend allocation

Spend allocation answers a question most security leaders struggle to answer cleanly: where does the money actually go? By distributing contract value across the tools and capabilities it funds, Forest turns a pile of invoices into a map of your security investment.

How allocation works

Allocation builds on the links you have already set up. A contract carries a value. That value flows to the tools the contract funds, and because tools map to capabilities, the spend rolls up by capability and by CAMP domain.

The result is a view of cost that follows the same structure as the rest of Forest. You can see how much you spend supporting Identity and Access Management versus Endpoint and Device Security, or which single capability carries the heaviest cost.

For this to be accurate, two things need to be in place:

• Contract values are recorded. See Uploading contracts.

• Contracts are linked to the right tools. See Linking contracts to vendors and tools.

Why it matters

Spend mapped to capabilities lets you weigh cost against importance. A capability rated compliance-required that draws heavy spend is money working hard. A nice-to-have capability with the same cost is a candidate for review.

Spend allocation describes where money goes. It does not change your scores. Maturity and priority come from CAMP, so high spend on a capability does not raise its maturity, and low spend does not lower it.

With spend mapped this way, you are ready to judge whether those numbers are reasonable. See Cost benchmarks.