SpendScope

SpendScope is a web app (with a lightweight mobile companion) that turns messy government spending data into a searchable, comparable dashboard for a specific city/county/state. It ingests open datasets (budgets, check registers, contracts, procurement awards) and normalizes vendor names, categories, and departments so users can answer basic questions fast: Who are the top vendors? What changed year-over-year? Which departments overspend vs budget? It flags anomalies like sudden vendor spikes, repeated small payments below bid thresholds, and contract renewals that quietly grow. Users can set alerts for a vendor, department, or spending category and export evidence packs (links, charts, source documents) for meetings, journalism, or audits. Reality check: data quality is uneven, so the product focuses on “best available truth,” clearly showing confidence levels and original sources rather than pretending it’s perfect.